18. Shepherdless Pie

When it comes to the dark beer, really any dark ale will do, including stout, porter, and Guinness. If you can’t find a vegan Worcestershire sauce, liquid/coconut aminos are a good substitute. If you don’t have sherry vinegar, red wine vinegar is perfectly fine. If you can’t find a vegan beef-style stock vegetable stock will also do just fine.

Great

% Daily Values based on a 2,000 calorie diet

Step 1

Place the potatoes in a pot of cold water and bring to the boil to cook until tender, about 20 minutes.

Step 2

When potatoes are done, drain, pour in milk and butter and mash to a smooth consistency. Season to taste and allow to cool.

Step 3

In a large, but not deep oven-proof pan, cook onion, carrot, celery, tomato paste and garlic in the olive oil.

Step 4

Once softening, add mushrooms and parsnip.

Step 5

Blitz porcini mushrooms in a spice grinder or coffee grinder until you have porcini powder. Add stout, stock and porcini powder. Add the thyme, tied up in a bunch so it can be removed later. Add vegan Worcestershire sauce. Bring to the boil.

Step 6

Once boiling, add puy lentils and put lid on. Cook until lentils are tender, about 30 minutes. You may need to add more hot water as necessary so the mixture doesn’t dry out. Add the frozen peas maybe 10 minutes before completion so they don’t disintegrate. Finally, make a slurry with cornflour and a little room temperature water, and add to the mixture, boiling and stirring it through until thickening to a luscious gravy. Check and adjust seasoning - I add the sherry vinegar here for a bit of brightness and sweetness, but you’re likely to need quite a bit of salt to bring out the flavours of the mushrooms adequately, so don’t be scared of that.

Step 7

Turn on the grill/broiler in the oven. Spread the cooled mash potato over the filling. You may find that it displaces the hot mixture a little, which you can mitigate by spooning it in smaller amounts and then spreading when you have decent coverage. Even if you don’t quite get to the edge it will look pretty great. Grill/broil entire pie until potato warmed through and golden and a little crisp on top. Garnish with chopped rosemary and serve.