Potager Pie

In English, a potato topped 'pie' made with lamb is shepherd's pie, if it is made with beef it is supposedly cottage pie. In French a dish like this is a parmentier, named after Auguste Parmentier, who popularised the potato in France. French parmentiers are often made with duck. But I wanted to make a vegetarian one, and decided that potager pie might be Franglais, but it is nice and alliterative, so it stays.

 

Ingredients

2 cups of cooked lentils (2/3 cup of uncooked lentils)

2 cloves garlic, crushed

A yellow onion, diced

2 tbsp olive oil

4 carrots, diced

4 celery stalks or half a celeriac, diced

350 g button mushrooms, sliced

3/4 tsp salt

Several sprigs of thyme

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

Ground black pepper to taste

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp flour

1 cup vegetable stock 

1/2 cup red wine

1 cup frozen peas

700 g potatoes, cooked and mashed with butter and milk

Method

1. Heat the oven to 250C.
   
2. Sweat the onion and garlic in the olive oil in a Dutch oven for 5 minutes.
3. Add the carrots and celery and sweat for another 5 minutes.
4. Add the mushrooms, salt, thyme, paprika and pepper and sweat for a further 5 minutes.
5. Add the tomato paste and flour, stirring so everything is coated.
6. Add the wine and stir to deglaze.
7. Add the stock and bring to the boil so it thickens.
8. Stir in the lentils and peas.
9. Dollop and spread the mashed potato on top of the vegetables in their gravy, roughing up the mash and giving it a pattern.
10. Bake for 30-40 minutes.
11. Serves 6. 
    

 

Buying organic vegetables at the farm (Jardins Vergers de la Petite Rabaudière).

Organic vegetables at the market in Preuilly (Jardins Vergers de la Petite Rabaudière).

Greengrocer stall at Loches market.

Local market garden stall (Ets Tarnier from Beaulieu lès Loches) at Loches market.

Localy grown spring carrots.

Locally grown rose lentils (from the Berry, to our east).

Homegrown Stemster potatoes.

Garlic drying at a local farm.

Celeriac, peeled and sliced.

Yellow onions (imported to France from Australia!)

Local cave grown chestnut mushrooms (Caves Champignonnières des Roches).

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UPDATE -- RESPONSE TO COMMENTS

Colin & Elizabeth -- yes, well, I think you know how well Simon would respond to pumpkin in his pie.