Hachis Parmentier / Aaardappeltaart

Belgo/French

ingredients

500g of minced porc/beef
3 big sweet onions
500g of potatoes (flowery)
20cl milk
butter
olive oil
beef stock cube
500g of spinach
Chopped garlic
Milk

preparation

Set oven to preheat at 180°c
Clean and cut potatoes and place in closed microwave dish.
Microwave potatoes for 12 minutes.
Melt butter in frying pan. Add chopped garlic.
SEar the minced meat in pan till it's brown. Add stock cube and some milk and condense.
Rinse the spinach and put in oven dish.
When potatoes are done put add some butter and mash. If necessary add milk. Mash or puree.
Microwave spinach for 2-3 minutes.
Scrape spinach to one side and put meat in dish. Work the spinach on top so that the bottom of the dish is covered with a layer of meat and the meat with a layer of spinach.
Cover spinach with potatoes. Put dish in oven till the meat juices are boiling.
If necessary use oven grill to get a crust on the potatoes.
Serve very very carefully.

Story

Parmentier of course was the first and greatest proponent of actually eating potatoes- if you're familiar with Blackadder you have an idea of how ridiculous that must have seemed at the time. It was also illegal until Parmentier convinced the king otherwise.
My parents used to feed this to us as 'aardappeltaart', and it was one of our most beloved dishes. I introduced it to Petra as "Hunter's dish" because of it's similarity to "shepards pie".
Originally it's not made with minced meat, but rather leftovers of roast.