A Korean Shepard's Pie (An Ode to Ireland)
My wife has Irish heritage (she still has family in Galway!) Weirdly, I always had the feeling that I was going to marry a woman with Irish descent. Korea and Ireland are basically entwined. Both countries faced brutal oppression by their neighbors. Britain didn't want to criticize Japanese occupation of Korea too much because then it would make their own control of Ireland hypocritical. But there's similarities in food. Love of seafood and cabbage! My dream is to write a Korean-Irish cookbook!
Anyway for St. Patrick's day, I decided to be cheeky and make a Korean's take on Shepard's pie. In Korean cuisine, we have these little meat patties called wanja-jeon!
Basically, I make little meat patties and put the mashed potato on top of them! I made a vegetarian version with fake ground beef, but you can use real ground beef.
Again haphazard recipes
- Chop up onion, celery, and carrots. Cook until semi-soft
- Combine the vegetables above with the fake ground beef (or real ground beef)
- Shred a block of firm tofu (even for the real ground beef, you need to add tofu)
- Add in soy sauce, sesame oil- really anything, this is a super forgiving recipe.
- Make into little patties (palm-sized).
- Dip patties into flour and egg
- Pan fry!
I made a mashed kabocha squash to go on top. But I think a classic russet mashed potato would work better.
My wife was pretty charmed by these tiny Shepard's pies.