(Extra)Ordinary Meals

So one of my constant goals in cooking is to take ordinary meals and make them extraordinary.  Himself likes this a lot, feeling in his heart that my love for him drives me to keep producing works for food art for his enjoyment and consumption.*

Take Cottage Pie for example? Delicious, comforting and simple.  Now I don’t want to make food so fancy and so gourmet it no longer in any way resembles the original,**  I just want it to be the best it can possibly be.

I’m also currently trying to use up all fresh food in the house in preparation for my FIVE WEEK TRIP TO IRELAND AND ITALY! EXCITED MUCH!!  So, off to the trusty chest freezer to see what’s in there.  Chianina mince you say? No pastry? (and cannot be bothered making any) but potatoes? Sounds like a Cottage Pie in the making to me!  As it was football training night (ergo we don’t eat until 9pm) I thought I could take some extra time and care with the prep.  So I finely chopped an onion and celery, plus bashed some garlic and fried over a very low heat in olive oil until it was soft and delicious.  At that time I also added a lot of fresh bay and thyme.

Once it was done I emptied the contents into a bowl, added more oil, cranked up the heat and put in the mince.  I tend to leave the mince to brown a bit before starting to break it up to get a bit of colour on it.  And I also don’t keep breaking it down to tiny bits, I leave larger pieces in for some textural excitement.

And now my friends, for the magic.  In honour of English dishes and the favourite spices used in the Tudor period to cover the taste of spoiling meat, I went with cloves and white peppercorns.  Hmm, I just realised now I should have put in a bit of mace – damn! I LOVE mace!  When the meat was properly cooked I poured in what was left in the decanter from a 2006 shiraz we’d enjoyed quite a few nights before (too old to drink, too good to waste!)  Once the wine had almost boiled off I added my sous de resistance; Worcestershire sauce, HP sauce, soy sauce, home-made ketchup and a tablespoon or so of Gravox*** mixed with water. I had the salt out but didn’t end up needing it.

I then added some very finely diced sweet potato (due to Himself having an unaccountable aversion to carrots) and let it simmer simmer for quite a while.  When it tasted super rich and delicious I stirred through some frozen peas and left it to cool.  Potatoes were boiled, mashed with lots of butter, crème fraiche (it was in the fridge) and pepper & salt.

As mentioned before I didn’t have any pastry but I DID have lots of lacha paratha in the freezer.  Have I mentioned these to you before? You get them at any Indian grocery store in the frozen section.  About twenty pieces for ten dollars, they are delicious and very similar to puff pastry.  So I partially thawed out five and used them to piece together a crust for my pie.  Then I put the sauce in, topped with potato, artfully scratched with a fork and cheffily sprinkled on some fresh thyme.

Into a moderate oven for half an hour to brown up then out to rest for fifteen.  Himself came home after an evening running around in the freezing rain and fell on said pie with loving gratitude.  Apparently his three favourite things in life; training in the rain, hot shower afterwards, then a big plate of comfort food.  Superwife.

  

*Seriously? I totally do it for my own self gratification!

**As in, Tandoori pizza, I mean, WTF right? Why??

***That’s right peeps! Just like my mummy taught me – I am utterly unrepentant!