Keith Richards' Cooking Tips: Bangers and Mash, Shepherd's Pie

My Recipe for Bangers and Mash

1. First off, find a butcher who makes his sausages fresh.
2. Fry up a mixture of onions and bacon and seasoning.
3. Get the spuds on the boil with a dash of vinegar, some chopped onions and salt (seasoning to taste). Chuck in some peas with the spuds. (Throw in some chopped carrots too, if you like.) Now we're talking.
4. Now, you have a choice of grilling or broiling your bangers or frying. Throw them on low heat with the simmering bacon and onions (or in the cold pan, as the TV lady said, and add the onions and bacon in a bit) and let the fuckers rock gently, turning every few minutes.
5. Mash yer spuds and whatever.
6. Bangers are now fat free (as possible!).
7. Gravy if desired.
8. HP sauce, every man to his own.

My granddad Gus made the best egg and chips you'd ever believe in the world. I'm still trying to get up to the mark on that, and shepherd's pie, which is an ongoing art. Nobody's actually made the quintessential, absolute shepherd's pie; they all come out different.

My way of doing it has evolved over the years. The basic thing is just great ground meat and throw in some peas, some carrots, but the trick I was taught by, bless his soul, he's gone now, Big Joe Seabrook, who was my minder, is before you spread the spuds on the top, you chop up some more onions, because the onions you've used to cook with the meat have been reduced, and he was damn right--it just gives you that extra je ne sais quoi....Just a tip, folks.

UPDATE:
2018-01-27 Made Shepherd's Pie using this recipe:

• 3 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and diced
• 2 tablespoons butter
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 large white onions, chopped
• 2 pounds ground beef
• 2 large carrots, grated
• 24 oz. beef broth
• 5 tablespoons water
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch