This was comfort food of the highest order. Hachis Parmentier, the french name for shepherd's pie, is essentially chopped beef under a mashed-potato topping. Hachis means chopped, but I had to look thumb through wikipedia to learn that Parmentier was a nutritionist who convinced the french to eat potatoes. And we are thankful for his work!
Parmentier had nothing to do with the flash-to-bang ratio though - that term comes from our army-based family member who has shared the ever-useful term with us. High flash-to-bang? You get a lot of flash for the size of the bang. Low flash-to-bang? It wasn't really worth the effort. You can see how this could apply to cooking, right?
This dish had flash. We made it on a Saturday and therefore had time to babysit a large pot of simmering beef while it became tender and made bullion. We then had time to boil potatoes and mash them up. Then we had time to chop the cooked beef into delightfully small pieces (this actually took relatively little time since it was falling-apart tender). The hands-on time wasn't terrible, but it was worth every moment. And I am really glad we made a double batch! It freezes well and the leftovers are even better.
It was agreed by all that this was a keeper, and worth making from scratch. There's a full recipe and a shortcut version using ground beef in "Around my French Table," or you can find recipes online.
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