Brussels sprout cottage pie

A vegetarian cottage pie is a treat and should be made more often. I wasn't sure if I should call it a cottage pie, shepherd's pie or something else as the meat is missing, but I decided to go with cottage pie anyway. This is a little bit similar to Tuesday's Lentil pie, and that recipe actually made me think of this variation.  Also this one is easy to veganise by simply replacing the butter with plant based products, even the cider I used is suitable for vegans.

Ingredients

250g Brussels sprouts

250g Potatoes

2 Onions

1 cup of frozen soy beans

A handful of walnut pieces

4 Garlic cloves

1 cup Vegetable stock

1 cup Wyld Wood organic cider (Read my Wyld Wood review.)

Butter

Rosemary

Olive oil

Salt

White pepper

And how on earth could I leave the sprouts out of my ingredient photo? Oh well, I assure you that they were in the pie. By the way my ingredient photos hardly ever feature all the ingredients I used!

Method

First wash the potatoes and boil them in salt water until they are soft and ready to be mashed. If the potatoes are new potatoes I usually leave the skins on. Let them boil on the side and start the other preparations.

Wash and quarter the sprouts. Chop the onions and garlic. Prepare the vegetable stock. I normally use Kallo vegetable stock powder and mix it with water. Rosemary can already be added to the stock at this point.

Heat some olive oil in a pan and gently fry the onions for about 10 minutes. Then add the sprouts and garlic. Let it all fry for a while and then add the cider and let it reduce. Once cider is almost fully reduced add the vegetable stock to the pan and slowly boil under a lid until everything is almost cooked and the stock has reduced. Season with white pepper.

Prepare the potato mash by mixing the cooked potatoes with butter and salt until smooth. Add some liquid if needed. You could use vegetable stock, milk or just water.

Place the sprout mix into a large oven dish and cover it up with the potato mash. Make decorations with a fork and bake at 180C until the top becomes brownish. My decorations looked like the spines down a hedgehog's back.

Stay hungry!

Your VegHog