I wanted to called it Shepherd’s Pie but read somewhere on the Internet that the dish uses lamb. Makes sense. Since beef is used here, it should be called Cottage Pie. Oh well.
Eh, this recipe is named thus as it uses similar ingredients and produces similar taste. It may sound like a lot of prep work but trust me, it is QED (quite easily done). So here’s my version:
Ingredients (serves 1 chinese bowl)
- Potato (1 small or medium)
- Carrot (1/2 of a small stick)
- Garden/sweet peas (2-3 tbsps)
- Cherry tomato (1, sliced) – I bought the Sakura brand as no pesticides were used on their tomatoes
- Cauliflower (1 small floret)
- Minced beef (1 heaped tbsp)
- Laughing Cow’s plain cheese cube (1)
Method
- Peel the carrot and potato and then slice them thinly. Slice cherry tomato and cauliflower.
- Roughly spread out the carrot, potato, tomato, cauliflower and peas on a plate.
- Steam the vegetables for 15 minutes. (Do not overcook the potato as it can become gummy.) Peas can get overcooked easily and hence I usually use other veggies to cover them.
- After 15 minutes, take out the vegetables and replace with minced beef and *steam for 2-3 minutes.
- While the beef is being steamed, puree the vegetables.
- After about 2-3 minutes, take out the beef. Mash the beef finely by pressing down with a fork.
- Mix the vegetable puree, cheese cube and mashed beef thoroughly with a spoon or fork. Add some formula milk / fresh milk to thin out the mixture if necessary. Stir the mixture well.
- Place the entire bowl in a hot water bath (i.e. a bowl of very hot water) to heat up the mixture while getting the baby ready for the meal.
- Stir the mixture well to distribute the heat evenly before serving. Enjoy the cottage pie! :D
Note: The recipe could be used to make fish pie too. I usually replace beef with salmon to make fish pie :)
Wow, I don’t know that I’ll actually be preparing baby food from scratch… we did buy a food processor cos we thought we’d puree stuff for her, but I think I remember those Gerber baby foods in glass bottles that I grew up with… they actually look yummy too!
It’s up to the parents really. :)
wa, ling… you really put in a lot of effort. i feel hungry…
I’m okay with it la. In fact, this gives me a chance to cook and be creative. :) Since Hannah was born, I hardly have time to do baking and cook dishes that require a longer time.
Another enjoyable thing about cooking for Hannah is that she is a great fan of my cooking! :) She would eat up all the food even though sometimes they tasted rather bland.