I have been making a few of these cottage or shepherd’s pies, so I thought I would document the recipe, which is essentially the same for both pies, except that the meat used is Beef for Cottage Pie and Lamb for shepherd’s pie.
Ingredients:
- 1000g / 2 X 500g minced beef or minced Lamb
- 3 tablespoons of olive oil
- 2 onions
- 3 carrots
- 3 celery sticks
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 3 Tablespoons of flour
- Maybe a cup of frozen peas
- 1 or 2 tablespoons of tomato puree
- 500- 800 ml of beef stock/chicken stock will also do
- Thyme / Bay leaf
- Salt, Black Pepper, White Pepper, Piments de l’Espelette
- 1.8kg of potatoes
- 200ml Milk
- 25g of butter
- 200g grated cheddar
- nutmeg / Salt / Pepper
How to Make:
- Brown the meat with some olive oil in a creuset pot / do in batches / put aside
- Stir the chopped carrots, onion, and celery until tender (10-15 minutes). This should lift the suck from the Creuset pot.
- Add the tomato puree and garlic, then return the meat to the pot. Strong heat.
- Add chicken stock, thyme, and Bay leaf; cook for 10-15 minutes. (want the juices to concentrate and evaporate).
- Add a bit of flour to make the juices stick to the meat.
- Season with Salt and Pepper and taste.
- Make the mash with the potatoes. Add butter, milk, and most of the cheddar. Keep some to make the top crust.
- Season well with salt, pepper and the nutmeg.
- Put meat/vegetables and peas in the bottom of an oven dish.
- Cover with the mashed potatoes, make some pattern with a fork
- Cover with the remaining cheddar.
- Put into the oven at fan-assisted 180 degrees for 30 minutes.
- Add a bit of parsley on top at the very end to make it pretty.
