Pat Hay Chin Wa or something like that.

Although French is not my native tongue, I understood all I needed to when the instructions said meat and potatoes!


Shepard's Pie or Paté Chinois, if you happen to resonate to the French version, is nothing but good hearty food.  Meat and veggies all topped with potato goodness.  I was totally ready for this....but....I am not a huge fan of ground beef so I had to use a meat that I liked more.  What to choose?

PORK!

There is something about a nice shredded pork that makes me smile and adding it to a Shepard's Pie would bring me nothing but joy.

And so the adventure began....

I cooked a lovely pork derriere (that is french you know) and without eating too much of it, I shredded it up into the most fragrant pile of yum.

Is your mouth watering yet?  Mine is.  Next, I made the mashed potatoes.  I happen to love the ones with the golden yellow insides, I think that they are more flavorful so that is what I used.

I also raided my fridge to see what veggies I had on hand that I could use.  I found carrots, parsnips,onions and peas.  I also used the onions that had cooked with the pork derriere, they were soft and sweet and porky.

I started to feel like Dr. Frankenstein as set out to build my monster. 

(insert evil laugh here)

First came the pork and the sweet porky onions.

The next layer was the root veggies that I sauteed with onion.

Some little frozen peas were sprinkled on top and then the coup de grace!

POTATOES!

But wait...something was wrong!  My sweet son protested loudly that he would have nothing to eat for dinner!  Damn!  OK, so I dug around and found ground chicken, carrots and some kale fresh out of garden.  In a mini loaf pan I made Max his own little Shepard's Pie, tailored to suit his particular tastes.  He will eat potatoes if they are not mashed.  Why you ask?  It all comes down to my middle brother who, while eating dinner at my parents house, mentioned that the mashed potatoes were ruined with the addition of...whatever it was...and ever since then Max won't eat mashed potatoes.

Thanks Mike!

On Max's dish I added thin sliced potatoes on top so that way he would eat them.

Now time for the baking and then the eating.  These turned out great.  Even Max loved his, which was infused with a sweet barbecue sauce on the cooked ground chicken.  Here is the final pork version.

And this is Max's BBQ chicken and kale version.

There really are no recipes for what I made, it was all just improv and I have to say that I really enjoyed doing it that way.  On the spot and with essentially no plan.  But I will give you the recipe for the pork derriere.

Shredded Pork Derriere or Plain Old Pulled Pork in a Pot

To Andy of  Today’s the Day and Today’s the Day I Cook!, I will say merci for such a great challenge AND a little bit of a French lesson.  Be sure to check out Daring Kitchen to see other wonderful food fare that has been produced.

Our Daring Cooks’ December 2012 Hostess is Andy of Today’s the Day and Today’s the Day I Cook! Andy is sharing with us a traditional French Canadian classic the Paté Chinois, also known as Shepherd’s pie for many of us, and if one dish says comfort food.. this one is it!




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