Impromptu shepherd's pie

I had a rather belated clear-out of the freezer the other day and found in it a slab of minced lamb that I bought a month or so ago. Not sure what I had in mind for it, but yesterday, with the rain hitting the window-panes and the summery heat replaced a something distinctly chillier, I decided to plump for shepherd's pie. I had only some of the ingredients that I really wanted, but with no desire for shopping I decided to see whether I could make the best of what I had.

The result was actually rather good - not fantastic, but a perfectly respectable supper. It lacked maybe the texture that some fresh mushrooms would have brought. Will add those next time.

This is not a five minute recipe, but it can be done slowly in stages over the course of a day.

10g dried morel mushrooms (porcini would, I'm sure, be just as good)
50g sun-dried tomatoes (not a huge fan of these, really, but they'd been lying in a cupboard for ages)
1 onion
2 small carrots
1 clove garlic
knob of butter, plus extra for potato topping
1 tbsp of oil
450g minced lamb
1 dessertspoon plain flour
squeeze tomato puree
dash of Marsala
dash of double cream (optional)
1kg potatoes
generous splash of milk
salt and pepper
nutmeg

First put the morels and the tomatoes in two separate bowls and cover with water from a kettle that has recently boiled. (As an aside, I've always read that the water you add to dried mushrooms should be just off the boil - I'm not sure what disaster would befall if it were actually at boiling point. Perhaps some day I shall find out. And I can't swear that it would do any harm to put both the morels and the tomatoes in the same bowl). Leave to soak for a good old time, in my case about 4 hours.

Chop the onion and the carrots very finely and sweat them for about 7-8 minutes in the butter and oil until they seem glistening and fairly soft, then add the garlic and continue cooking for another couple of minutes. Then tip all the vegetables onto a plate.

If the pan seems very dry, add a little more oil before tipping in the minced lamb. Give this a good bashing about with a wooden spoon or fork to break it up, then cook until the pinkness has gone.

In the meantime, take the morels and the tomatoes out of their soaking liquid (but don't throw this away), and chop them quite small. Once the lamb is done, add the onions, carrots, garlic, mushrooms and tomatoes to the pan, along with the the flour, and stir for a minute or two. Now add the reserved soaking liquid, a blob of tomato puree, and some Marsala (or any other booze you fancy). Add salt and pepper, and leave to cook gently with the lid not quite tight for about an hour. Check from time to time to see that it hasn't boiled dry - if it has, add some water from the kettle.

After an hour I found that I had rather badly oversalted the dish, and as a solution I added some double cream, which did the trick. Actually, the cream, although not, I think, traditional, did add a rather nice richness to the end product. Might try it again.

For the potato topping, peel and chop the potatoes into roughly equal sized pieces. Then boil in salted water for about twenty minutes or so until absolutely soft. Drain, then add the milk, about a quarter of a nutmeg, grated (or less or more depending on your taste) and mash the potatoes with a masher, a fork, a ricer or (my favourite) a hand-held mixer.

Put the meat sauce in a 20cm-square oven dish (or similar) and cover with the mashed potatoes. I find it best to start adding the mash at the sides, and filling in the centre at the end. This minimises (but does not eliminate) the risk of your potato topping becoming totally mixed up with the sauce underneath. Dot the top with butter.

The pie can now be left for a little while if you're not quite ready to eat. In any case, it needs to be heated in a 190C oven for maybe 20-30 minutes, depending on how cold it was when it went in.

Serves four people with a separate vegetable. In my case, a pile of green beans.