Our food and wine pairing to make you yearn for Fall
Savvy match: While it may seem traditional to pair Shepherd’s pie with a dark ale, switch up and give a red blend a try. The acidity in the red wine with its mild tannins takes on the rich flavor of this meat pie. So the next chilly evening, you decide to pop this in the oven, make sure you’ve got your bottle in hand for the perfect balance. You may even want to pour some in the stew for an extra pop of flavor.
English cuisine is primarily constructed of gravy, meat, and potatoes. But, on an island where the sun is mostly MIA is constantly covered by grey clouds and misting precipitation, I think you’d want some good old-fashioned stick to your bones comfort food. Most of us look to the body and soul-warming stews and casseroles during the winter months. The good news is Shepherd’s pie checks both of those boxes. It’s the perfect dish — it’s a stew covered in decadent creamy mashed potatoes and baked into a casserole that’s guaranteed to warm you up after shoveling snow, a day on the slopes, or even if you were sitting by the fire thinking about how cold it is outside!
It’s simply delicious no matter how you make it, so feel free to experiment and make it your own. If you want to make it gluten-free, add a slurry of 3 tablespoons of corn starch and enough water to absorb it after adding all of the liquid to the filling and then reducing rather than adding the flour earlier in the cooking process. This thickening method is often my preferred technique anyway.
