I’m not a fan of potatoes, so much empty starch, so I decided to craft a recipe for shepherds pie that uses cauliflower instead of potato. The result turned out very tasty indeed.
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 1.5kg of Beef or Lamb – Diced
- 3 Medium Carrots – diced
- 3 stalks Celery – diced
- 1 large brown Onion – diced
- 4 cloves garlic – crushed
- 100g tomato paste
- 1 tbsp thyme
- 1 tbsp rosemary
- 4 tbsp worcestershire sauce
- 3 cups Beef Stock
- 250g packet frozen Spinach
- 2 good size heads of Cauliflower
- 50g Butter
- 75g Cream
- 50g grated Cheese
Make sure you have defrosted the spinach. You can microwave it to do this. Once it’s defrosted you need to squeeze the excess moisture out of it.
Coat the meat in the olive oil, put in the baking dish and bake in the oven at 180 degrees until the meat is cooked through.
Crush your garlic. The thermomix is great for this step.
While thats cooking “rice” your cauliflower in the thermomix. About half a head at a time, ripped into smaller bits, should be done at speed 5 for 3 seconds each. once it’s all riced, put in a microwave bowl and steam it for about 12 minutes. Don’t add liquid, and take it out every 3 minutes and give it a stir so it doesn’t burn. Set it aside to cool a bit.
Once the meat is cooked, drop it into the thermomix and shred it. A few seconds on speed 4 should do it, you might want to hit it for a second, then turn it over in the bowl as this much meat is quite a lot.
Combine the meat with the carrots, celery, onion, garlic, tomato paste, thyme, rosemary, worcestershire sauce, beef stock, spinach leaves, put it all back into the baking dish, and bake the mixture at 180 degrees for an hour.
While it’s baking, use a cloth to wrap up a portion of the cauliflower at a time and squeeze the moisture of it it. You’ll get quite a bit out; It doesn’t need to be flour dry, but you want to squeeze most of the moisture out so your finished product doesn’t end up soggy.
Once thats done, put the butter and cream into the thermomix, put the cauliflower on top and blend on speed 4 until it’s all combined. Using the TM spatula to keep it turning over is a good idea. Add more cream if you feel it needs it.
Once the hour bake is up, take the pie out of the oven, and cover it with the cauliflower mix evenly. Sprinkle the top with some grated cheese and bake some more until the top is golden brown.