Swineherd's Pie

This is a take on Shepherd's Pie or Cottage Pie but with a twist. A swineherd is an old English word for a person that looks after pigs. We now call them, rather prosaically, pig farmers, but I liked the medieval nature of this name. This is a recipe I saw from Jill Dupleix in Delicious magazine, which is a great publication and gives me hours of food lust! It's a real winter recipe that would be ideal for a Bonfire night, making you feel really satisfied and warm before wrapping up and going to watching explosions.

6 rashers streaky bacon, halved
100g sausages, skinned
½ tbsp tomato ketchup
¼ tsp soy sauce
¼ tsp dried parsley
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
125g potatoes, mashed with butter, milk and seasoning
1-2 tbsp grated cheddar

Yorkshire pudding tin

Preheat oven to 180ºC/Gas 4

Line 2 of the divots in the Yorkshire pudding tin with the bacon.

Put the sausage meat, ketchup, soy sauce, parsley, nutmeg and some seasoning into a bowl and mix together well. Split the mixture into two even balls and place on top of the bacon, then pat down to fill the tin.

Divide the potato evenly between the two pies, making sure all the sausage meat is covered, then use a fork to rough up the surface a little. Sprinkle the cheese over these.

Bake for 25-30 minutes. The pies should be golden and the cheese looks slightly souffled. They will be very hot, as the cheese and potato act as a fantastic insulator, so go steady.

This is good dressed up or down, by which I mean served with something a bit everyday like baked beans (a favourite in my home) or spruced up with fancy veg. You could try some of the stacking that chefs seem to be so keen on; sit it on a bed of spinach or greens or perhaps serve it with some beautifully roasted butternut squash segments for a wonderfully autumnal meal.

Variations

I think that one of the easiest ways to make this a bit more fancy perhaps, would be to ramp up the pedigree of the meat you're using. Use Proscuitto instead of streaky bacon, and a very herby or unusual sausage. My local butcher does sausages with leek, apple, basil. And my brother, who has become a rather avid and skilled amateur sausage maker, has created a couple of fantastic mixes; a pungent garlicky one and one loaded with chilli which I imagine is like a cross between a chorizo and a Cumberland. You could also use a more chic cheese, such as Parmesan or even something blue such as Stilton or Gorgonzola.