There are four recipes on the ‘NeedARecipe.com’ website which seem to confuse people, so let me try and explain.
Shepherd’s Pie is what most people tend to call any variation, but the original Shepherd’s Pie was made just with onions, lean minced (ground) lamb, and topped with mashed potato. Shepherd’s Pie is an original English recipe that is inexpensive and ideal for a hungry family. Great with a glass of beer or cider.
Shepherd’s Pie is the sort of food that brings a smile to everyone’s face! That saucy, full-of-flavour filling, that creamy potato topping, and that awesome golden potato crust. This is a timeless classic – make this once and you’ll make it over and over again.
Cottage Pie is similar BUT it’s made with beef and not lamb. The Brits have a national fascination with minced meat pies and, when they combined it with mashed potatoes, the Cottage Pie was born. In early cookery books, the dish was a means of using leftover roasted meat, and the pie dish was lined with mashed potato as well as having a mashed potato crust on top.
This classic favourite makes a comforting meal, especially on a cold day. Lean minced beef is a healthy filling that takes minutes to cook, and the topping is quickly browned under the grill. Serve with peas or seasonal greens. Delicious!
Duck Pie (Parmentier de Canard) is similar again BUT it’s made with confit de canard – duck confit. This simple recipe will give you a different take on Shepherd’s Pie or Cottage Pie. It’s a duck version that will delight your family and your guests alike. The only drawback is that you may not find it easy to get hold of Confit de Canard. We’re lucky, living as we do for six months of the year in France. But you can order Confit de Canard online from Godard the best producers in France.
Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie meets the needs of an increasingly vegetarian population. The meat is replaced by vegetables and a rich gravy is produced with a combination of wine and vegetable stock. And it’s this last one that had me scratching my head.
To be honest, I do love a my meat. And by meat, I mean beef, lamb, pork, chicken, duck, whatever. I’m a damned carnivore! But I also really like vegetables, when they are good quality and properly cooked
And the vegetables in Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie taste good … REALLY good. Served up in a red wine gravy and baked under a layer of creamy mashed potatoes – they are THAT good!
I suggest you add full fat Greek yogurt to your mashed potatoes to get that extra creamy-tangy taste. That red wine, garlic, olive oil, rosemary… it’s my version of aromatherapy.
If you’re using up leftover mashed potatoes, they usually need a little help since they can be a bit dry out of the fridge. Just cover with clingfilm and pop them in the microwave. As they heat up, they will become creamy again. Then spread that magic on top of your silky, veg-packed mushroomy gravy. Yummmmm!
When you pull this out of the oven and the sauce is bubbling up around the sides under the gently-golden potatoes, you’ll be delighted you gave this Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie recipe a try. This is total comfort food and you’re best to attack it when hungry as hell with a big appetite.
I have a niece called Rebecca who, a year or so ago, went to live in New Zealand with her new partner, Robin. Since then, we’ve all got to “know” Robin via Facebook, but none of us had actually met him. Rebecca decided to rectify this gap in our knowledge and she and Robin came to the Isle of Man to spend Christmas and New Year with her parents (my brother and his wife, Steve and Jeanette). And so, on Christmas day, we at last met Robin and discovered for ourselves what a really nice guy he is.
As a starter, we tried a little recipe of tuna-stuffed eggs which, I have to say, was rather uninspiring and it’s one we won’t be repeating.So, rushing past the bad news and onto the main course, we’d done one of our favourites, 
For Christmas, Marie-Danielle had bought me a case of Chateauneuf-du-Pape (both red and white) so, never being one to waste a good Christmas present, we enjoyed both the red and the white with this meal and it truly was a great Christmas gift (I even have a few bottles left!). Robin is a programmer and runs his own company, 
After a “Trou Normand” (calvados, served over sorbet) we moved on to the cheeseboard before actually celebrating the changing of the years and watching the London firworks on TV. After the last firwork had died out, we sat down to Orange Carpaccio with Gâteau Creusois which proved to be an excellent way to end a family New Year meal and welcome in another year of culinary delights!
The postscript to this pleasant evening was that, the following day, Robin and Rebecca braved the harsh Manx winter and took part in the New Year’s Day swim on Peel beach. Dressed as viking invaders, they did New Zealand proud! A couple of days later, they left the island and (going via England and Paris) they eventually found their way back to New Zealand with temperatures of 31ºC (91ºF)!
It had to be simple and straightforward, so we opted for foie gras as a starter, 
The day before, I had prepared a 
The Isle of Man is only about 36 miles x 12 miles at its longest and widest points. Today, about 85,000 of us perch on this rock in the middle of the Irish Sea, and every summer we are subjected to hundreds of motorbikes racing through the streets of our towns and villages and around the island on the 37.7-mile Snaefell Mountain Course. Their average speed is over 130 mph and in places they exceed 200mph!
Never mind the visitors, the TT races themselves are extremely dangerous (over 250 rider deaths to date on this circuit). Imagine riding at over 200 mph on tiny, narrow, twisting streets, roads and lanes flanked by stone walls and buildings, dodging manhole covers and stray dogs! Some, including a few former competitors, have called for the race to be banned, but for the most part the riders love the TT. They know it’s dangerous, but they also know it’s the absolute pinnacle of motorcycle racing. It’s the ultimate, and if you’re good enough – and you’re brave enough – then you go for it, regardless of the risks. Personal responsibility and the love of speed triumph the desire for safety here.
Oh yeah – I almost forgot about “Mad Sunday.” One day every year at the TT, they open up the 37 mile course to the public. That means anyone on a motor bike can try his or her luck trying to match the professionals for speed (and insanity!). Imagine, if you can, a Formula 1 or NASCAR event where they let 50,000+ fans onto the track, charging around in whatever vehicle they came in. In recent years, to try and reduce the carnage (and maybe also to give the visitors even more thrills!) the roads have been made one-way for about 8 miles over the mountain section of the course. Big, powerful road bikes hitting their top speeds of 170mph-180mph is not unusual on this section.
Last Saturday evening, we invited our neighbours, Terry and Julie plus Dominic and Kate from over the road for a meal. We decided to mix the best of the Isle of Man with the best of France (as you do!) so (after polishing off a couple of bottles of Champagne with the aperitif) we started the meal with one of our favourites – beautiful fresh Manx scallops, and prepared the excellent 
As we always do, we served the meal French style (dessert last) and I dug around in M-D’s wine cooler and came up with a really nice bottle of 2008 Côtes de Bergerac. The Côtes de Bergerac is a deeply smooth sweet white wine that complimented our 
Naturally (as you do) we kicked off with a couple of bottles of fine Vranken Champagne Demoiselle Brut Premium Cuvée (it helps wash down the apperitif biscuits and olives!!)
Now when you are cooking for eleven, it’s essential to reduce the level of complexity to a minimum and Muriel had done exactly that. Her starter course was foie gras which is, of course, pre-packed and just needs slicing. Her dessert was a chocolate brownie cake that Clémence had made, and her main course, and pièce de résistance, was