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Recipe

Lamb maisonette pie

Back when I brought our first baby home from hospital, dear old friends delivered scores of tinfoil-wrapped, mince-and-potato cottage pies for the freezer. My French husband inquisitively heated one and promptly turned his nose up at the first mouthful of the, admittedly, bland brown and white offering. Me? Sleep-deprived and breastfeeding, I couldn’t have cared less what I ate. However, from then on cottage pie was a no-go for my Frenchman, until a few years later when I came up with this kumara-topped version to swing his vote. It has a classic Moroccan filling of lamb, prunes, a little chilli and warming spices.

Sep 02, 2015 6:09am
  • 3 hrs cooking
  • Serves 8
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Ingredients

  • 2 kilogram boneless lamb shoulder, cut into large dice
  • olive oil
  • 3 slice red onions, sliced
  • 1/2 teaspoon each ground cinnamon, ground cumin, ground fennel, ground coriander
  • 3 clove garlic, chopped
  • 2 centimetre piece ginger, peeled and julienned
  • 2 stems coriander (leaves and roots), roughly chopped
  • 1 fresh red chilli, chopped
  • 1 1/2 litre chicken stock*
  • 800 gram can chopped tomatoes
  • 1 tablespoon tamarind paste
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 200 gram pitted prunes
  • 80 millilitre maple syrup
  • 3 juice fresh limes
  • 6 gold (toka toka) kumara, peeled and chopped
  • butter (or more as required)

Method

  • 1
    Preheat oven to 160°C fanbake. Season lamb generously. Heat a large ovenproof saucepan on the stovetop, add 2 Tbsp olive oil and brown lamb in batches on high heat. Set aside.
  • 2
    Pour excess fat from pan. Lower heat and cook onions until they begin to soften. Add the ground spices and gently stir to release flavours. Add the garlic, ginger, coriander and chilli, and cook for a further 2 minutes. Add the chicken stock and bring to the boil. Add the tomatoes, tamarind and cinnamon stick.
  • 3
    Put the meat back in the pan, cover and bake in oven for 40 minutes. Remove from oven and stir, add the prunes and return to oven to cook for a further 30 minutes. The meat should now be very tender; if not, cook a little longer.
  • 4
    Add maple syrup and lime juice. Taste and adjust seasoning. Set aside.
  • 5
    Meanwhile, cook kumara in boiling salted water until soft. Drain and mash with butter until light and fluffy. Season.
  • 6
    Heat oven to 200°C fanbake. Transfer lamb and pan’s contents to an ovenproof serving dish, approximately 30cm x 20cm, and top with mashed kumara. Drizzle with a little olive oil and bake until hot and mash is starting to brown.
  • 7
    Serve with a peppery salad of rocket and shaved parmesan, dressed with lemon juice and olive oil.

Notes

*Check label if eating gluten-free

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