Vintage Eats Recipe: 1943 Shepherd’s Pie

This is a recipe I can tick off my bucket list where it’s been for several years. It gained prominence there since my family began watching British TV shows.

Shepherd’s Pie makes an entrance often as a favorite of our friends across the pond. One of my favorite appearances is on the crime show ‘Death in Paradise.’

It takes place on a Caribbean island where British detectives solve murders on the island.
We’re huge fans of this show which we stream on Britbox.

One detective, Humphrey Goodman played by Kris Marshall, impresses his staff by making something British called ‘Shepherd’s Pie.’

On his first attempt he forgets to turn on the oven which they discover after waiting for 2 hours for it to cook.

Been there.

On his second it is a glorious success with his co-workers loving the dish none had heard of and were, frankly, suspicious of, especially when he said it contained ‘gravy granules.’

Considering they liked the baked mix of meat and veggies topped with mashed potatoes in near 100-degree heat, that’s an accomplishment.

This recipe comes with a full confession: I’m not a dab hand in making mashed potatoes, or simply ‘mash’ according to our Brit friends.

In fact, the ability to create fluffy potatoes has eluded me since shortly after our marriage 43 years ago and after several failed attempts, I quit.

Surrounded by a mother and mother-in-law who could make them taste like little clouds didn’t help.

If my family wanted mashed potatoes, they had to wait for a family reunion or order them in a restaurant.

Knowing the potatoes would sit on top of the dish was intimidating, but I took it on.

The recipe was found in a cookbook, which I recently purchased at an online auction. It was published in 1943 by Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.

I’ve known of the institute for decades, but never knew they published a cookbook!

That was cool, but doubly cool was the fact that it was written during World War II.

Many of the recipes inside acknowledge the food rationing that was happening in the US and around the world, as evidenced with ‘Budget Stew’ and ‘Victory Meat Muffins.’

I can’t wait to delve more into this branch of our nation’s history, especially since I’ve spent more than a decade interviewing and recording vet interviews.

Many of those stories about 260 vets I’ve interviewed are included earlier at this blog.

My 11 books on the subject are on Amazon.

Back to the recipe.

As usual, I’ll provide it as printed in the cookbook. My notes and comments will be at the end.

This is a good recipe for winter weather as it is filling.

**

Shepherd’s Pie

3 lbs. lean beef, chuck or flank

Suet

1 clove garlic

1 qt. boiling water

1 bay leaf

1 T. salt

½ t. pepper

3 T. catsup

1 t. Worcestershire sauce

1 t. sugar

Few sprigs parsley

4 medium onions

½ c. celery (optional)

6 carrots

1 yellow turnip

Kitchen Bouquet

Flour

Mashed potatoes

Cut the beef into 1 ½-in. cubes. Heat the kettle in which you’re going to cook the meat and vegetables – and incidentally, a Dutch Oven is excellent.

When kettle is hot, drop in some suet cut up in 1-inch cubes and the clove garlic.

When suet sputters and garlic is beginning to brown a little, put meat in hot kettle to brown turning it with a fork.

When meat is nice and brown, add the boiling water, bay leaf, salt, pepper, catsup, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, parsley, onions, and celery.

Cover the kettle and let simmer at least 1 ½ hours, usually a little longer.

Then add carrots and turnip and let simmer another hour or until everything is meltingly tender

Thicken with flour and water and a little Kitchen Bouquet, that adds flavor to the gravy.

Place this in a large casserole or baking dish, cover with mashed white potatoes which, of course, have been boiled separately and mashed with plenty of butter or margarine.

Cover the meat and vegetables with the mashed potatoes and to make it a bit fancy punch holes with the back of a teaspoon in the potatoes and fill holes with catsup. Put into the oven to brown, and you have a delicious good-looking one course meal.

  The recipe was submitted by a Mrs. T. G. Lindsay

My notes:

First, ingredients:

• I didn’t use a turnip – sorry, readers, but no recipe would influence me to buy, chop, cook, or eat a turnip. Life is too short for turnips (should I put that on a T-shirt?)
• What exactly is suet? I thought it was food for birds in winter. Not in my recipe.
• I used cooked ground beef for the meat.
• I already explained my problems with mashed potatoes so we’ll let that go.
• The microwave cooked the veggies, including celery and potatoes.
• I don’t have a Dutch Oven so a glass 9×12-inch casserole dish sufficed.
• To make my potatoes look better, I threw on grated cheddar cheese after baking and broiled the dish until the cheese was slightly brown.
• Number of servings: 6-8

Note:

I’m going to start including the approximate skill level of each recipe, based on this scale:

Low: Easy for beginners

Medium: Some experience in cooking and baking

High: Much experience using a broiler and other kitchen appliances; time it takes to create the recipe.

Shepherd’s Pie Skill level: Medium-high due to using the microwave, oven, and broiler.

Warning: Humphrey Goodman further tooted his horn with this dish by saying it could be mixed and baked in the same pan to save washing up. My dishwasher ran a couple of times.

Still, it was worth it!

My husband ate it happily and I count this as a winner!

**

Vintage Find of the Week

This small, brightly-colored bowl attracted my attention at my thrift store for a couple of reasons. I love the yellow color! Plus it is the right size for a dish like Shepherd’s Pie.

Second, the Anchor Hocking Fire King Ware brand was stamped on the bottom. It is a collectible and maybe after I’m done with it in several years, it will be sellable. I’m enjoying it until then.

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