A New Mexican twist on Shepher's Pie. A main dish entree' with beef and chorizo, red chile, mushrooms, feta, and mashed potatoes. This should spice up your love and give you a full belly at the same time.
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Revised February 2018
Preheat oven to 375°F.
One person makes the mashed potatoes.
One person chops and cooks the meat mixture and the mushrooms.
When the meat is cooked through, add the red chile sauce and corn. Stir to incorporate, simmer for 1 minute, then remove from heat. Spread the meat mixture to cover the bottom of the skillet.
Spread the mushrooms across the bottom of the skillet and cook for 2 minutes.
Scoop the mashed potatoes in large scoops across the top of the feta. Gently spread the potatoes evenly across the surface of the dish.
Bake @375°F for 20 minutes, then place under broiler for 3 to 4 minutes until tips are brown.
Dish - If you don’t have an ovenproof skillet or Dutch oven big enough, you can use a casserole dish for assembly and baking.
Chorizo – Mexican chorizo is perfect with this dish – spicy, and flavorful. If you don’t have any or don’t want to make your own chorizo, just use pork sausage or even turkey sausage. If you do this, then you might want to increase the amount of red chile to make it spicy enough.
Red chile sauce – If you don’t have red chile sauce, you could substitute with 1/2 cup spicy salsa or use 2 tsp. red chile powder (chile with an “e”), ¼ tsp. ground cumin, ½ tsp. oregano, and 1/2 cup water. Red chile can be made from pods or made quickly, using red chile powder.
Mushrooms – You could use a variety of mushrooms. I used button mushrooms, but you could easily substitute cremini, baby bellas, or shiitake. Just be sure to not overcook the mushrooms. They should be lightly brown and juicy.
To shorten the stovetop cooking time – add the mushrooms to the meat mixture after cooking the meat for about 3 minutes. Continue to cook until the mushrooms start to release their liquids, then add the red chile sauce.
Feta – Once I didn’t have any feta, so I used 1 cup of a sharp cheddar. It was delicious. So don’t be afraid to try out a different cheese or to use a cheese you already have in your refrigerator.
Potatoes – For mashed potatoes, I find Yukon gold or yellow potatoes to be the best. However you could use in type of potatoes, including mashed sweet potato.
Because I use organic potatoes, I don’t peel them. There are a lot of nutrients in the peel that I’d rather have in my body than in the compost pile. So I just scrub the potatoes, cut and cook.
Cooking the potatoes – There are three ways to cook the potatoes: boil them, microwave them, or bake them. I chose to boil them this time, but most of the time I microwave them. Baking would add time to the overall process, so I wouldn’t recommend that. You’ll be baking them anyway once the dish is assembled.
Recipe author: MJ of MJ's Kitchen