This dish is based on a late-spring/early-summer dish I used to serve at the restaurant, which in turn was probably based on my mum’s shepherd’s pie! We served a trio of lamb at the restaurant: a piece of roast loin, a brochette of lamb’s kidney and button onions, and the shepherd’s pie. The one that always drew the best comments was, of course, the pie.
The principle behind the dish was to use every last bit of a lamb saddle. The lean eye for a rare-roasted prime cut, the kidneys for the brochette, the fat for cooking the loin, all the trim for mince in the shepherd’s pie and the bones for a stock. I love cooking like this, pairing the cheaper cuts with the prime, and a slightly simplified version is great to do at home. Buying trimmed lamb rumps and minced lamb for the pie reduces the workload.
SERVES 6 AS A MAIN COURSE
For the lamb ragout
500g lamb mince
1 medium onion, cut into ½cm dice
1 stick celery, cut into ½cm dice
1 carrot, peeled and cut into ½cm dice
150ml red wine
½l lamb stock or beef stock (see Basics pp. 284–5)
½ x 400g tin good-quality chopped tomatoes
thyme and rosemary bouquet garni in muslin
cornflour to thicken
Maldon sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the mashed potato topping
1kg Maris Piper potatoes (peeled weight), boiled and mashed with a little milk and butter
For the rumps
3 lamb rumps, trimmed and fat scored
50ml olive oil
25g unsalted butter
1 clove of garlic, smashed
4 sprigs of thyme
Maldon sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the greens
2 heads of spring greens
25g unsalted butter
100ml water
Maldon sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. To make the shepherd’s pie, first brown the mince and then add the vegetables. Cook for 5 minutes and then drain off any excess fat. Deglaze with the red wine and reduce completely. Add the stock, tomatoes and bouquet garni. Season and simmer for 2–3 hours, topping up with water as necessary. It really is worth taking the time to slowly cook the ragout for those 2–3 hours. Before making the final adjustments to seasoning, give the muslin bag a hard squeeze to get all those herby juices out.
3. Thicken the sauce with a little cornflour slaked in some cold water. Pour the ragout into an ovenproof dish or individual dishes and top with the mashed potato. I like to push the mash through a sieve to make it silky smooth and then pipe it onto the meat mixture, but spooning it on and finishing with a fork works well, too. Grated cheddar cheese is always an option to finish. Bake in the oven for 20–30 minutes until piping hot and golden brown on top.
4. Heat a heavy-based frying pan and season the fat on the lamb rumps, placing them fat side down in the pan. Cook over a medium heat to render the fat. Season the flesh and colour well all over. Add the oil, butter, garlic and thyme. Turn the meat so it is fat side down, baste and transfer to the hot oven. Cook for 4–8 minutes, basting occasionally, until the required doneness is reached. I am a big fan of using a temperature probe for cooking meat; medium rare will be around 48°C when the meat comes out of the oven. Remove to rest on a wire rack, fat side up.
5. While the lamb is resting, cook the greens. Remove any tough or damaged outer leaves and cut the heads into quarters. Remove the core and then cut the cabbage roughly into 2cm squares. Rinse in a colander and then tip into a large shallow pan that has a tight-fitting lid. Add the butter, water, a good pinch of salt and a generous grind of pepper. Place over a high heat and, when the water starts to boil, put the lid on. Cook for 3–4 minutes until the leaves are nearly tender, remove the lid to evaporate all the water.
6. Slice the lamb rumps into thick slices and either plate if using individual dishes for the pie or pile onto a board for all to help themselves.