Cottage Pie (with mashed turnip)

 


Ingredients:

  • 1 large rutabaga
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 pound ground meat
  • 1 cooking onion
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 2 cups peas and carrots (or any combo mixed veg, corn is popular)
  • 1/4 cup bbq sauce
  • 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tbsp salt
  • Cooking oil
Tools: Saucepan, frying pan, colander, 8" by 8" baking dish

Instructions:
  1. Peel and cube one large rutabaga
  2. Put cubed rutabaga in saucepan and cover with water
  3. Add pinch of salt, heat until boiling
  4. Reduce heat and let boil for a full 30 min
  5. While it is boiling, heat some cooking oil in a frying pan, dice 1 cooking onion and mince 4 tbsp garlic
  6. Sauté garlic and onion until fragrant and onion turns translucent
  7. Add 1 pound ground meat and cook until browned
  8. Add 1/4 cup bbq sauce and 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce, toss until mixed, then remove from heat
  9. Preheat oven to 350 F
  10. Once cubed rutabaga has finished boiling, test for tenderness. If they can be easily broken with a fork, drain them through a colander and return it to the sauce pan
  11. Add 1/2 cup butter and 1 tbsp salt to saucepan
  12. Mash the rutabaga until salt and butter are combined and it develops a creamy consistency
  13. In an 8" by 8" baking dish, add meat mixture, top with 2 cups of peas and carrots, and finish with the mashed turnip (rutabaga)
  14. Place in oven and bake for 20 min
Yield: Dinner for 2 with some leftovers

Source: Experimentation

Description:

The more well known name for dishes like this is shepherd's pie, but apparently that's only technically if the meat being used is lamb, because a shepherd is someone who herds sheep. In Canada we have a dish called pate Chinois, or "Chinese pie", which is ground beef, layered on top with corn, then mashed potatoes. Supposedly it was developed by the Chinese workers that built the Canadian Pacific Railway, since they were only given potatoes, corn, and beef for food. If you go into the frozen dinner section of a Canadian grocery store, you can find meals that are labeled "shepherd's pie" in English, and then "pate Chinois" in French. I'm not sure if this is a term I should be avoiding though, since it alludes to the inhumane working conditions that Chinese workers were put through during the construction of the railway. At any rate, the dish as I made it doesn't count as pate Chinois because that dish specifically uses corn, which I generally avoid, and I used ground turkey instead of beef.

So I opted to use the term "cottage pie", which is just shepherd's pie without lamb. I think some people would still be disappointed I'm using that term while not using ground beef, but there you have it.

I refer to mashed rutabaga as mashed turnip because the two vegetables are quite similar, but rutabagas seem to have more utility but turnip is an easier word.

The reason for using rutabaga instead of potatoes is that it's more diabetes friendly, same as why I avoided corn, although we just used generic frozen vegetables in the picture, and obviously there's some corn in there. The reason for substituting the beef/lamb with turkey is just because it's cheaper.

The first time I did this, I used one rutabaga and it wasn't enough so I had to add three sweet potatoes, but the second time I used two rutabagas, and I had way too much. We had to have bangers n' mashed turnip the next day, and then turnip latkes the day after. So I just said one large rutabaga for this recipe.

You could use ketchup instead of bbq sauce in the beef, but as usual, my distaste for ketchup stops me from being able to use it as an ingredient.

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