Chefs from The Culinary Studio share classic shepherd's pie recipe

Food can provide comfort in stressful times and a delicious meal, like this shepherd's pie by Jody O'Malley and Kirstie Herbstreit, owners of The Culinary Studio in Kitchener's Belmont Village.

They created the dish using items that would mostly be found in an emergency food hamper from The Food Bank of Waterloo Region.

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They showed off the dish and gave the audience a sample at CBC K-W's annual Sounds of the Season campaign kickoff on Friday at TheMuseum in downtown Kitchener.

They wanted to show how a simple preparation of ingredients can result in a delicious and nutritious meal.

• SOTS 2016: Chef Jonathan Gushue's Japanese breakfast salad
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"It's a classic dish, and you can put any sort of meat in it that you have on hand," O'Malley said. "We used ground beef, but it is traditionally made with lamb. You roast up the vegetables, and then anything topped with mash potatoes is going to be delicious."

'Simple can be better'

O'Malley, Herbstreit and the Studio — the business is just a few months shy of being seven years old — are riding a wave of growing interest in food and cooking among the general public. 

Both chefs were born in Waterloo and attended school here. O'Malley went to the University of Waterloo and then the Stratford Chefs School, while Herbstreit attended Wilfrid Laurier and the culinary program at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.

In teaching about food and culinary technique, they encourage people to imagine the possibilities in the ingredients.

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"People are excited by food," O'Malley said. "Customers love watching the bread being made here and that it will be used for making their sandwich."

"Keeping it simple can be better," Herbstreit added.

Using the Food Bank ingredients is really no different, she explained. As they planned the dish for the Sounds of the Season audience, they focused on simplicity without worrying too much about being inventive or overly creative. 

"It's sort of the Italian philosophy," she said. "Concentrate on one ingredient and do it well. You can make a pan of onions taste like candy if the technique is right."

The Culinary Studio's shepherd's pie

Ingredients:
½ cup vegetable oil
4 lbs ground beef
3 tablespoons thyme
1 tablespoon rosemary, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 cup squash, diced
1 cup celeriac, diced
1 cup parsley root, diced
1 cup leeks, chopped
1 cup rutabaga, diced
1 cup onions, diced
¼ cup celery, chopped
¼ cup tomato paste
½ litre beef stock
2 bay leaves
mashed potatoes

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 375-degrees.

2. In a large pot, heat the oil. Add the beef and cook until brown. Remove the beef from the pot, drain and reserve warm. Add the herbs, garlic and vegetables and cook until brown and just soft. Add the reserved cooked beef into the vegetables and stir together. Add the tomato paste, the beef stock and the bay leaves and stir. Cook over low heat for 1 hour. 

3. Transfer the ingredients into a casserole dish and top with mashed potatoes. Bake at 375-degrees until the potatoes are golden on top.