Sheppard’s Pie Potato Tips

Sheppard’s Pie, the mysterious Irish comfort food, said to be originally from England, will be prepared almost a million different ways over the next couple of days. Like casseroles or “hot dishes” we find on the tables of Americans for decades, each sheppard’s pie has its own familial adjustments to the recipe. Some use ground beef instead of lamb, some with peas and other root vegetables even some with just meat and gravy. One fluffy, golden brown component that is always present is the potato mixture that caps the hearty stew.

No matter what variations to the recipe you have for the stew there are a few tips and things to watch out for that will set your sheppard’s pie apart. Most recipes call for the potatoes to be boiled before mashing.  Cooking the potato properly is the foundation of the topping. If you do like to boil the potatoes don’t forget to add salt to the water and after you drain the potatoes, spread them out onto a buttered baking pan. Put the baking pan into a preheated oven (350 degrees) and bake until the steam no longer comes off the potatoes but before the brown. The excess water will only weigh down the potatoes and where the water was you can now fill it back up with butter and egg yolks.

After drying out the potatoes, put them into a mixer on medium speed, add the butter and egg yolks whisking just to incorporate. If you leave the potatoes in the mixer to long they will begin to get “gluey” and lose their delicate texture. Fold some scallions and herbs into the mix for more flavor and a bit of garnish. Put the somewhat cooled mixture into a pastry bag with a large star tip and pipe onto the top of your stew. Remember that the more surface area you create with the star tip and piping pattern, the crispier the golden brown crust gets.

For the next few nights we are infusing our Winter Tasting Menu with some traditional Irish fare. Tomorrow night we will serve our version of sheppard’s pie to celebrate St. Patrick. To put our unique touch on it, we are gently braising lamb shoulder in broth with cipolinni onions, baby carrots and garlic until if falls apart. The fluffy and golden brown potatoes will crown each individual crock and bake until golden brown. To finish the dish, rather than the peas in the stew we are gently draping sweet pea tendrils. Erin go braugh!   Chef Jeremy

A splash of vinegar, a glug of oil and a bit of sunshine

I think most will agree that summertime salads are a staple at backyard barbeques, patio parties and outdoor picnics. However, the type of salad dressing that best compliments such warmer weather fare often seems up for debate. When walking down grocery store aisles, rows of multi-colored, textured and stabilized dressings provide shoppers with hundreds of choices. To create a summer salad dressing that is both light and can be made to suit the tastes of most everyone, I want to explain the basics of creating a vinaigrette.

Vinaigrettes, the combination of oil and vinegar, are typically made of three parts oil to one part vinegar. However, this basic ratio is relative to the amount of finished dressing that can be made, as small as 3 teaspoons oil to 1 teaspoon vinegar, all the way up to 3 gallons oil to 1 gallon vinegar. If you like your vinaigrette a bit more tart you can use two parts oil to one part vinegar, but be weary to let the dressing sit on your salad for long, as the lettuce will wilt much faster.

When making vinaigrettes, don’t feel confined to just using vinegars, but try using naturally acidic juices from citrus fruit and even fruit juices like that of berries or apples. These juices just need a splash of vinegar before mixing with oil. Allow the vinegar to sit or macerate with onions, garlic and ginger, along with salt and pepper for 20 to 30 minutes before mixing. This will allow the flavors to be extracted and the salt to dissolve.

When choosing oil, select an extra virgin olive oil that is very aromatic, but don’t feel confined to using the Italian staple.  I encourage you to experiment using other oils both for their flavor and for their texture, like peanut, corn, vegetable, sesame and even nut-infused oils. When creating Asian style vinaigrettes I tend to make my own blend of oil with peanut oil, for its light texture and add a little sesame for flavor. To infuse other flavors into oil gently warm up a neutral oil like vegetable or grape seed on your stovetop in a sauce pot over low heat with aromatic spices and/or ingredients. Allow it to sit at room temperature until cool before straining and making the dressing.

I don’t think that there is or will ever be a comprehensive collection of all the possibilities of vinaigrette and I hope there never is. As long as a cook at any level can understand the basic ratio and has an appreciation for the elemental ingredients of vinaigrette, the possibilities are infinite, bound only by the imagination. The next time you walk down a grocery aisle or through the farmer’s market; let your imagination run and experiment with different flavors and textures in your salad. Whatever you do, don’t confine yourself to a recipe, as the result of creativity almost always leads to something unique.

Welcome to the Site

After months of designing, planning and biting my lip as to what this site looks like, I am happy to officially launch this blog. While I am quite green to the process, as a reader you will be able to watch me progress as I have the opportunity to pass on plenty of tidbits from my culinary quiver in the ‘Courses Column’ and through the Archives. Seventeen years of working in a variety of kitchens has provided me with more than a few anecdotes along the way I can’t wait to share with you.

You’ll find recipes throughout that read simply as cook’s notes. Professional chefs aren’t taught to follow recipes, but rather to gain an understanding of ingredients and apply time-tested methods and techniques that have been honed along the way.  I tend to look at recipes as a general guideline and oftentimes, it is from this starting point that my imagination is let loose, ultimately creating something more unique than the original. It’s fair to say that there are more than several ways to cook something, but until you have seen it done or do it yourself many  times and perhaps fail a few, you may never truly understand.

Alongside the blog, you now can connect with us here at Niche Restaurant via the new generation of the information superhighway. I know that plenty of you spend some free time keeping tabs on friends via Facebook and Twitter. With this new platform, I am able to keep you informed of not only upcoming events and happenings around the restaurant, but also the creative process of a dish that will be on the menu that evening, almost in real time. This site will open a portal into the kitchen here at Niche Restaurant and give you access to information most chefs keep tucked away in food-stained notebooks.