The Taste of the Med in a Vegetarian Chickpea & Lentil "Shepherds" Pie.

I love a food festival, row upon row of delicious produce being offered up to endless willing guinea pigs and the plethora of weird and wonderful ingredients and brand new foodie delights… what’s not to love. Today’s recipe is actually the result of a trip to one of these branches of culinary heaven…

A few years back, I went along to a vegetarian food festival with my friend Vikki and we watched a demonstration by Rose Elliot (if you’ve not got any of her books, head out now and get Vegetarian Supercook). One of the dishes was a green lentil shepherd’s pie that was so tasty it compelled Vikki and I to buy the ingredients on the way back to my rather dilapidated flat  (affectionately known as The Crack Den) and cook it for that evening’s supper.

I’ve been playing about with the recipe but I must confess, I am little reluctant to call this a shepherd’s pie or even compare it too much. It doesn’t contain any mince, there’s no gravy and the flavours within aren’t particularly British either. That said, the cheesy mash encrusted pie with a robust Mediterranean-flavoured filling retains the comforting element that is an essential component of the shepherd or cottage pie.

Chickpea and Lentil "Shepherds" Pie

For the filling:

2 white onions – finely chopped

2 garlic cloves - crushed

1 tbsp olive oil

Sundried tomatoes (1/2 jar and the oil) – roughly chopped

2 large grilled pimento peppers – roughly chopped (I swear by the jarred ones from Lidl, a cheap and cheerful ingredient that I always have lurking in the cupboard, they are lovely and sweet with a very mild kick to them) – if you don’t have these, grill some red peppers until the skin goes black, pop them in a plastic bag for 10 minutes and the skin will peel right off.

2 tbsp tomato puree

1 tsp each of thyme and oregano

½ tsp rosemary

2 x tinned plum tomatoes – squashed with the back of a wooden spoon

1 Stock cube

1pt Water

1 400g tin chickpeas

¼ cup red lentils

For the Topping:

Potato

Cheddar Cheese

Mustard

Double Cream

Parmesan

1. Pre heat the oven to gas mark 6.

2. Put your potatoes in a big pan of water, bring to the boil and cook for 20 minutes or so until they are nice and soft.

3. In a hob-to-oven casserole dish (if you have one), fry off the onions in the olive oil and oil from the jar of sundried tomatoes over a low heat until they have reduced by a third and have a slightly translucent look about them.

4. Add the garlic, sun-dried tomatoes and peppers. Fry off for a further couple of minutes then add the tomato puree and cook through for 5 minutes, stirring every now and then.

5. Add in the lentils and herbs and make sure everything is well coated.

6. Add the tomatoes, stock cube, water and chickpeas. Bring to a simmer, cover and leave bubbling away for 20 minutes. Keep an eye on it, give the mixture a stir every 5 minutes or so and if it needs a drop more water then add that too.   

7. Drain the potatoes and either put them through a ricer or assault them with a masher. Stir through the cheddar cheese, cream, mustard and plenty of seasoning.

8. Take the filling off the heat and top with a layer of the mash in the same pot (if it’s not oven safe, you’ll need to transfer the mix to a suitable dish). Ruffle up the topping with a fork and sprinkle over the parmesan cheese.

9. Pop in the oven without the lid on for 30-40 minutes, until the top is wonderfully golden brown with a slight crunch to it.

I served this with fine green beans that I drenched in a simple dressing made from grated onions, tomatoes, garlic and lemon juice.

If you want to see Rose’s recipe, click here for a copy of the hand out that we were given.

Also, I noticed that if you go back a page there is a veritable treasure trove of recipe hand-outs from the rest of the day. The list is here.