Leftover Shepherd’s Pie!
Ok. So if you use my shepherd’s pie recipe, you’d have enough for 10. Maybe even more, if you use a bigger baking dish than the one I had. So what do you do with the extras? I used a package of frozen pastry, and made mini cornish pasties. It’s actually VERY simple.
Mash the shepherd’s pie until it’s just a heap of mixed meat and potatoes. Take a sheet of pastry and roll it out to 1.5 times its original size. Cut into 4 pieces, and put a scoop of shepherd’s pie in it. You can use an ice cream scoop. Flatten it, and fold the piece of pastry to a triangle. Seal with a dab of water (press to seal it - like playdoh.) and brush the top with melted butter, and stab a fork through the top for steam to escape. Repeat with as much shepherd’s pie as you have left. Bake in a 400 degree oven until top is golden brown, about 30 minutes. Let it cool on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes before serving.
You can wrap them individually after they’ve completely cooled and freeze them if you like, but pastry tastes best when they’re fresh. Reheating in the oven is ideal; microwaving them will cause the pastry to get soggy. These are so good you might even consider halving the shepherd’s pie recipe and make it into pastie filling instead - it’s a perfectly acceptable appertizer.
