I’m just gonna come right out and say it: if you’re not using pastry for your shepherd’s pie, you’re doing life wrong.
2020 has been a year of learning for me. For starters, the pandemic just came along and fucked up life as we know it. But perhaps more importantly, I found out that some people (absolute plebs, if I’m honest) don’t have pastry with their shepherd’s pie.
DISGOOSTANG!
A pie, by definition, typically includes pastry. I mean, it’s the best bit.
Pastry is literally carbs and fat (the good stuff), and I simply don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want it?
I don’t know about you, but to me a shepherds pie is mince (generally leftover bolognese), a bunch of veggies and a thick layer of mashed potato all encased in a bowl of pastry.
If I could eat every dish in a big ol’ bowl of pastry, believe me, I would.
But as it turns out, a lot of people believe that the mashed potato serves as the carb in the dish, and therefore, you don’t need pastry.
However, these people hate fun and their opinions are invalid.
What sort of fucked up individual would make you choose between potato and pastry? Not me! To quote my favourite Old El Paso advertisement: porque no los dos?!
According to my research, the shepherd’s pie originates from Scotland and *did* include pastry. So, for all of you haters who eat your sad bowls of not-pie without pastry, you’re technically wrong.
It’s pretty common to make shepherd’s pie the “Irish” way with a mashed potato topping. But, like I said, why not have both?
However, I also learned that it’s only a “shepherd’s” pie if you use mutton or lamb, so my weird-ass vegan version (or your typical beef version) is technically a “cottage” pie.
I know, I know, I probably shouldn’t care this much about how other people eat their shepherd’s pie (especially when mine is a vegan franken-pie), but I do. And I’m here to tell you that you are an objectively terrible human being if you don’t have pastry in your shepherd’s pie.
I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them.
