Potato Pie

A recipe I invented on my own. I love potato pie, so it was obvious I was going to always make up a recipe for them. The meat mixture is identical to the shepherd's pie, so you can use the Moroccan "Camelherd's" meat mixture too!

This recipes uses 12 x 5cm deep pie tins.

Ingredients

Meat and Topping
500-700g lamb or beef mince
1 large brown onion, diced
½ red capsicum, diced
3 carrots, diced
200g button mushrooms, diced
Small amount of chilli paste
1 teaspoon beef stock
250ml dry red wine
2 tablespoons tomato paste
Worcestershire Sauce
Freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cornflour
3 sheet of tharwed puff pastry

Mashed Potatoes
5 large desiree potatoes, cubed
2 teaspoons light cream cheese
Milk
Salt
Handful of grated cheddar cheese

Shortcrust Pastry
265g (1 ¾ cups) plain flour
125g chilled butter, chopped
1 egg yolk
Iced water

Method

Add olive oil in a saucepan. Add mince once oil is hot. Cook mince and remove excess fat.
Add chilli paste, onions and capsicum and cook until onion are tender and translucent. Add carrots and mushrooms. Cook for 2-3 mins.
Add stock powder, wine and tomato paste and some worcestershire sauce. Stir and taste the sauce, and add more Worcestershire sauce if required.
Add tomato paste and season with pepper. Turn down the heat to low and simmer for 20 mins. Add peas and add cornflour to thicken sauce. Let mixture sit until cooled.
Once mince mixture is cooled, preheat oven to 180 degrees.
Prepare the shortcrust pastry and line pie tins with the pastry. Place in fridge for 15 mins.
Meanwhile, add the potatoes to a saucepan with boiling water. Boil the potatoes until tender.
Remove the potatoes from heat and drain. Add the cream cheese to the saucepan and mash potatoes into the saucepan.
Return the saucepan to heat and start stirring vigorously. Add in milk until smooth. Season with salt and pepper.
Remove pie tins from fridge, and place meat mixture to fill ¾ of pie tins.
Add the mashed potato to fill the remainder of pie tin.
Smooth out the mixture. With the back of a fork, run lines across the mashed potatoes.
Place pie into the oven for 15-20 mins. When potato is slightly browned, sprinkle some cheddar cheese on top. Cook for a further five mins.
Remove from oven and let pies stand for 5-10 mins.
Serve with salad.

Method for Shortcrust Pastry

Place the flour and butter in the bowl of a food processor and process until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Add the egg yolk. While processing the mixture, add enough water until the dough just starts to come together.
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently until smooth.
Roll out pastry.