Ingredients:


2 ½ cups well mashed potaoes

¼ cup grated cheese

25 g butter, softened

salt and freshly crushed pepper to taste

½ cup cooked black eyed beans

¼ cup cooked (not very mushy) split yellow lentils (tuvar dal)

¼ cup cooked whole moong beans

1 ½ cup chopped vegetables (carrots, peas, cabbage, green beans)

2 onions, finely chopped

2 small tomatoes, finely chopped

1 green bell pepper (capsicum), finely chopped

½ tsp garlic paste

1 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp cumin powder

¼ tsp grated nutmeg

½ tsp herbs (I used thyme, parsley and basil)

salt to taste

1 ½ tsp oil


Method:


Lightly mash the cooked beans and lentils. Keep aside.
Heat the oil and add the garlic paste and chopped onions. Sauté till the onions are soft and light brown. Add the tomatoes and cook till soft. Add the chilli and cumin powders and cook for a minute. Now add the bell pepper/ capsicum and the steamed vegetables and cook for another minute. Add the mashed beans and lentils, salt, the grated nutmeg and the herbs. Mix well and cook for a minute or two. Take off the heat.
Now pour this mixture into an oven safe dish (about 8”by 8”) and smoothen it out.

In another bowl, put the mashed potatoes, grated cheese, butter, salt and pepper and mix everything well. Spread this mashed potato mixture on top of the bean-vegetable mixture making sure it is an even layer. You may smoothen the top, or use a fork to score the mashed potato layer decoratively. Alternatively, pipe the mashed potato in an attractive pattern.

Bake at 190C for about 30 minutes till the top is brown.
Serve warm. This recipe serves 4.

You can see that my Shepherd’s Pie is looking a bit anaemic! I baked the pie for about 35 minutes and didn’t see too much browning happening. Never having baked this before, I didn’t want to over bake the pie and end up with a “tough as leather” potato layer. But after eating it (it was good), I think the pie can be safely baked for another 15 minutes till it browned well.