Shepherd's Pie, Hold the Meat

Vegetarian comfort food for fall

As a Weekday Vegetarian, I find this time of year to be a little more challenging than others. Because as soon as I feel that chill in the air, I start craving chicken pot pie, and Belgian beef stew. Braised pork shoulders and spaghetti with meatballs. Meat. I start craving meat. And I don’t deny myself — this is, of course, the best perk of being a Weekday Vegetarian™ — but I obviously don’t eat meat as frequently as I used to, which means I’m constantly on the hunt for vegetarian comfort food to fill in the blanks. Bugialli’s minestrone usually checks that box, and so does Alison Roman’s famous stew. But as of this past weekend, I have a new one to fall back on: Shepherd’s Pie.

My love affair with Shepherd’s Pie began and ended in the 1980s with my best friend’s mom, Rosa, a world-class home cook. It was the best day when there were leftovers, and I’d shamelessly eat forkfuls of it straight from the pie dish, standing in front of the fridge. Her recipe called for three meats — pork, veal, and an entire chicken — and was seasoned with allspice, which gave it an exotic, celebratory air. (My teenage self did not know from allspice.) It was the kind of recipe that was safely preserved in Proustian amber — it never occurred to me to make the recipe myself.

Until this past winter, when I had a slab in a pub in London — precisely the place one should have a Shepherd’s pie — and, safe to say, it got the taste-memory receptors firing again. It was time to make Shepherd’s Pie at home, and I had a vegetarian vision for it almost instantly: Mushrooms would stand in for the meatiness; leeks would lend it a sweet oniony depth; the pinchiest pinch of nutmeg would give it a hint of sweet British-Pub warmth; and my favorite mashed potatoes, the ones I make every year on Thanksgiving (plus an egg yolk for color) would blanket the whole operation.

The result was better than I could’ve hoped for and I can safely say that it has officially earned its spot on the Chilly Weather Sunday Dinner rotation. I say Sunday because there are a lot of pots and pans involved, not something you want to deal with on, say, a Tuesday, when you have to get a kid to soccer practice. Here’s the how-to, including a PDF that you can download and print.