Shepherd’s Pie is one of my favorite comfort foods. The use of sweet potatoes, instead of the traditional white potatoes, makes this really special. I tweaked the recipe, which is from Cooking Light Magazine, a bit to make it paleo friendly. I love the use of the chipotle pepper to give the sweet potato topping a bit of spice-not too much, but enough to make it interesting. The beautiful thing about Sheperd’s Pie is that you can make it the night before, hold it in the refrigerator and just bake it for a delicious, one dish meal. It also freezes great, so you could easily double the recipe and make two; one to enjoy now and another to freeze to enjoy another time.
Topping:
1 (7 ounce can) chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
2 ¼ pounds peeled sweet potatoes cut into 1 inch pieces
6oz coconut milk
1 tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp ground black pepper
Filling:
2 lbs ground meat (beef, buffalo, lamb or a combination)
1 Tbls olive oil
2 cups chopped onion
1 cup chopped carrot
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup diced red bell pepper
½ cup crushed tomatoes
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
3 Tbls red wine
2 Tbls tomato paste
½ ground black pepper
Preheat oven to 400°
To prepare topping, remove 1 chili and 2 tsp of sauce from can, reserve remaining chiles and sauce for another use. Coarsely chop 1 chile.
Place potatoes in a saucepan; cover with water. Bring to a boil; cook 15 minutes or until very tender. Drain. Place potatoes, chopped chili, 2 tsp of adobo sauce, coconut milk, salt and ¼ tsp pepper in a large bowl. Beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth.
To prepare filling, cook meat in a large skillet over medium high heat until browned, stirring to crumble. Remove from pan, drain.
Wipe pan and then heat with 1 Tbls olive oil. Add onion, carrot, red pepper and garlic; sauté about 8 minutes, or until tender. Return meat to pan, stir in remaining ingredients. Cook 2 minutes.
Spoon meat mixture into a 3 quart casserole; top with sweet potato mixture, spreading evenly. Bake at 400° for 30 minutes or until thoroughly heated.