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Beautiful blogger and food aficionado Yuki is back with a recipe that both looks and tastes out of this world.

Yuki, the proprietor of “supercute food” blog Yukitchen and the creator of myriad dishes that are as healthy as they are fun to look at, has kindly agreed to share another of her recipes with us here at RocketNews24! This week, the cook, model, web designer and travel writer puts a galactic twist on a traditional British shepherd’s pie with her Jabba the Hutt potato topping!

Take it away, Yuki!

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My first Star Wars-themed food was Chewbacca, and now I return with a new recipe featuring good old Jabba the Hutt!

Why Jabba? Well why not?! I’ve always had a thing for chubby creatures, regardless of what they look like. Jabba is a large slug-like alien who tied Princess Leia up and treated her like a slave. I know that he is a bad guy, but look at him! He is so cute and chubby with his big belly filled with secrets. And when I smell secrets, I just wanna cut them open and see what’s inside!

So that’s how I decided to make Jabba into a pie!

I usually make Japanese recipes with Japanese characters, but this time I decided to make a dish inspired by my travels to Europe last year. As you might already have guessed considering this post, I’m very fascinated by British food! Everyone tells me that the food there is pretty bad, but my experience with British food is completely the opposite; food there was the bomb!! So I want to be the one to redeem the bad reputation of British food, by making Shepherd’s Pie with Jabba the Hut on top!!

Here are some of the pics of my very tasty trip to the UK. Needless to say, I ate everything there!!

I truly loved my trip to UK, and what I loved the most was THE PIES. Oh my goodness! The pies in the UK was to die for! I think they should add pies to their national flag instead of only having stripes! Japanese food is great, but baking pies is not really our cup of tea. So I went nuts hunting for every kind of pie I could find, and then I found this magical food:

It was at one of the very cute bakery stores near Notting Hill that I found this wonderful creation. I immediately took a photograph but alas, I had to leave this glorious-looking food behind because it contained meat. This was the first Shepherd’s pie I had ever laid my eyes on… It looked like food from a fairytale. I immediately knew I wanted to bake this in my own way.

So when I came home I googled “Shepherd’s pie recipes” and found that there were many different ways to make these pies! So I’ve been mixing different recipes trying to find the best taste for a vegan Shepherd’s pie. And this week I finally feel ready to announce my recipe! I’m super excited to share this with you today, with Jabba the Hutt on top! lol

JABBA THE HUTT VEGAN SHEPHERD’S PIE

PREP TIME
30 mins

COOK TIME
1 hour

TOTAL TIME
1 hour 30 mins

Healthy and ethical! This delicious vegan Sheperd’s pie is going to leave you in awe, with a Jabba the Hutt on top!

INGREDIENTS
For the pie:

• ・2 garlic cloves
• ・1 small onion
• ・1 carrot
• ・300g lentils
• ・6 mushrooms
• ・3 okuras (optional)
• ・3 medium tomatoes
• ・1tbsp dried thyme
• ・1 tbsp dried rosemary
• ・1/2 cup tomato puree
• ・1 cup vegetable stock
• ・1/2 cup vegan red wine
• ・2 tbsp wheat flour
• ・Sea salt
• ・Freshly grond black papper

• ・10g cut seaweed (nori)
• ・1 tbsp matcha powder
• ・10g green onion (optional)

• ・5 big potatoes
• ・1/2 cup soy milk
• ・3~4 tbsp vegetable stock
• ・Sea salt

1: Preheat the oven to 400F/200C, then boil the potatoes.

Peel all the potatoes and cut them into 3cm cubes. Prepare a pot half-filled with cold water, add the sliced potatoes and stir in 3 tablespoons of salt. Bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and let it gently simmer until they are soft. It should take about 10-15 minutes.

2: Prepare the ingredients.

Cut all the veggies into small pieces and boils the lentils for 15 minutes and strain. Prepare all the wet ingridients like red wine, tomato puree and vegetable stock. Since there are many things going on at the same time here this will help you to not forget anything (I almost forgot the wine!).

3: Start the actual cooking.

While the potatoes are boiling, start making the pie mixture. Use a large non-stick frying pan and preheat it to medium-high heat. Then add the chopped garlic and fry them until they turn yellow.

4: Add onions, carrots, and mushrooms.

First, add the onions, carrots and mushrooms together with a pinch of salt and pepper. Wait until the onions turn light-brown and the carrots become tender, it should be about 10 minutes.

5: Add the rest of the veggies.

Add the boiled lentils, cut tomatoes and cut okura and mix it well.

6: Add flour.

To make your pie taste more gravy-like, add just a little flour. I added around 2 tablespoons, but you can add more if you like the mixture to be thicker.

7:Add the wet ingredients and herbs.

This is the most fun part! Add one cup of vegetable stock, half a cup of red wine, half a cup tomato puree and finally 1 tablespoon each of dried thyme and rosemary. Mix it well for a couple of minutes and as a result your kitchen will smell wonderful!

This is what the final mixture should look like…. Such beautiful colors! Put this aside while you make the mashed potatoes.

8: Make mashed potatoes.

Get the potatoes out of the pod and drain the water. Add a tablespoon of salt and 2~3 tablespoons of soy milk, then use a masher to mash the potatoes. Don’t add too much moisture, because you don’t want a runny Jabba!

9: Make the Jabba-base.

Prepare a plastic wrap and start forming the shape of Jabba on it. Make sure you have a picture of Jabba nearby so it can guide you on how to shape his body. Have lots of fun making this and don’t try to be perfect. This is what I ended up with, it looks pretty close doesn’t it?

10: Finish the rest of the mashed potatoes.

Add half a cup of soy milk and 3~4 tablespoons of vegetable stock to your mashed potatoes. By adding more moisture it gets easier to spread it on top of the pie.

11: Put it all together.

Pour the pie mixture into a pie plate and spread the mashed potatoes on the surface.

12: Put Jabba the Hutt on top!

Slowly lift Jabba from the plastic wrap that you were using before, and make sure you don’t get too excited and accidentally break him. This should not be too difficult.

13: Bake for 20 minutes!

Your oven should be preheated 400F/200C by now. It’s time to bake Jabba till he turns into a goegeous golden color!

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After 20 minutes…

Tada!! My Jabba is nice and golden, with a bit of brown spots on the edge… Smells so amazing here!

14: Start making face.

For his facial parts, I used thinly cut dried seaweed. wet entire strings of seaweed and start making the face on Jabba. If you don’t wet the seaweed, it won’t stick to the face so be careful!

For Jabba’s green parts, I used matcha powder. Wet a spoon and dip into the powder, then gently start painting Jabba’s surface using the back of the spoon.

15:DONE!

Afterwards, sprinkle some cute green onions and freshly grinded back peppers, and you are done! You just made the Jabba the Hutt Shepherd’s Pie, vegan version!

This is how he looks from the behind… He seems very pensive from this angle!

Jabba the Hutt pie looks even better with Princess Leia. I feel like I should used this photo for a cover of “Star Wars Food Recipe Book”  or something. Hey publishers in the US? I’m ready when you are.

This recipe’s got twice as many potatoes than usual, as you can already see. My family took two days to finish eating this!

Shepherd’s pie is a classic British dish and pretty much everyone I’ve ever met has their own way of making it. This is my way, without meat and animal products, so I’ve kept it really simple!

You might get distracted by Jabba, but this recipe really is the bomb! I kind of almost regret adding Jabba on the top, because the most amazing part of this dish is the taste but the pictures make it seem like it is all about Jabba! Well, I hope you try this with or without Jabba, and enjoy a little bit of British tradition!

The flavor of thyme and rosemary and a hint of delicious red wine, make this a very rich Shepherd’s pie indeed. You won’t even notice that there’s no meat there. They say pie makes everyone happy, so I hope this recipe will make you happy as well! 

Good luck in the kitchen!

xoxo
-Yuki

For more supercute cooking for healthy geeks, be sure to head over to Yukitchen!

All images © and used with permission of Yukitchen