Hachis Parmentier Végétarien/Vegetarian French Shepherd's Pie

Hachis Parmentier is a well known French dish made usually with mashed potatoes, along with meat cooked in a sauce which is later served together after baking for a meal. This baked dish goes for cooked meat in sauce, layered and topped with mashed potatoes which is simply topped again with bread crumbs or else with cheese. This dish is a simple version of Cottage pie or shepherd's pie of French cuisine. The word Hachis means minced or chopped, since this dish goes for minced meat, this dish is named as 'Hachis' but the name 'Parmentier' comes from a French Pharmacist and Nutritionist called Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, as he proved during 18th century that potatoes are edible to the world. Since Potatoes plays an important role for making this French pie, this dish is named as Hachis Parmentier. Traditionally this dish calls for minced beef meat topped with mashed potato puree, but my version is completely vegetarian.

I simply replaced the meat part with red kidney beans along with couple of chopped vegetables. Trust me, if you are meat lover, you wont miss the meat in this vegetarian version. This vegetarian Hachis Parmentier tastes extremely fabulous as this dish is quite filling.Since i used both vegetables and red kidney beans, this dish is loaded with protein. However this dish calls for bit long cooking process as you need to prepare both the vegetable, red kidney beans cooked in tomato sauce and the mashed potato puree. But its really worth to give try to this incredible dish. If you want to give a try to a Traditional French dish, then this dish is definitely a must to give a try. This Vegetarian Hachis Parmentier is going directly to this month's blogging marathon as am running this month's theme with Journey through the cuisines. Since i picked French cuisine, this Hachis parmentier makes the 8th post of this month's blogging marathon.

For mashed potatoes:
5nos Potatoes (big & unpeeled)
1 cup Heavy cream
50grams Unsalted butter
Salt
Pepper powder

For Vegetable & red kidney beans sauce:
1cup Red kidney beans (cooked)
3cups Mixed vegetables (carrots,bellpeppers, zucchinis,leek,celery)
1 Onion (chopped)
1tbsp Garlic (minced)
1cup Store-bought tomato sauce
1/2cup Bread crumbs
2tbsp Olive oil
1tsp Dried thymn leaves

In a small pan, heat the olive oil, fry the minced garlic.

Add the onions and saute until the onions turns transculent, now add the vegetables, cooked red kidney beans, cook for a while.

Now add the tomato sauce, dried thymn leaves and cook until the vegetables gets well cooked and sauce turns thick.

Bring boil the potatoes into a large pot with enough water and salt to the potato water.

Once the potatoes gets cooked, drain the water and let them cool completely.

Peel the potatoes. Mash them using a potato masher. Add butter to the mashed potatoes.

Return the mashed potatoes to the pot, add the heavy cream,pepper powder and salt.

Drop enough of the vegetable-red kidney beans sauce in a shallow baking pan or in an individual baking pan and top it with the mashed potatoes.

Sprinkle generously the bread crumbs. Preheat the oven to 350F.

Place the baking pan in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until the top of pie turns golden brown.

Enjoy warm.

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