Cottage Pie – Recipe by Dave

On a rare occasion Dave will cook an evening meal, but what a delight… This cottage pie recipe has been a family favourite for over a decade. Winter evenings bring with them comfort food cravings and this dish does not disappoint. Oozing savoury meaty sauce and glistening melted gooey cheese it feels like the quintessential British family meal.

A quick search of cottage pie recipes brings tons of delicious looking pie like dishes. They say that shepherd’s pie version is made with lamb. While the cottage pie is made with beef: mince beef is so versatile, don’t you think?

When Dave is cooking, it feels like a special event. He clears the decks, preps everything up in advance and always buys ingredients on the day he cooks. It makes no difference if I say we already have these ingredients in cupboards or fridge, it is quite a unique approach. But I leave it be, otherwise I’m interfering with the cottage pie gods and that is undesirable.

There is a story that goes like this: Iggy (our youngest) came from school one day and asked Dave “what are you cooking? I don’t like cottage pie!”. To which he replied: “do you like potatoes, carrots, peas?” And once out of the oven, she was converted.

I looked at the way some recipes found in my searches turned up a watery kind of sauce, but this easy recipe keeps everything nice and tight. Although the fluffy mash melts in your mouth, the portions can be cut really well and hold their shape.

By the way, Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce is optional, but worth the try: it lends another dimension to this amazing dish.

What to do with your leftovers

This recipe yields quite a lot, Dave always fills two large Pyrex dishes. One to eat for dinner, the second one to take lunches or eat for the next evening. I loves that it tastes even better the next day – that’s published knowledge!

Cottage Pie

Flossie

Dave's yummylicious cottage pie with Lea Perrins Worcestershire sauce

5 from 1 vote

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Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr

Total Time 1 hour hr 30 minutes mins

Course dinner, dinner ideas, Main Course

Cuisine british

Servings 6

Ingredients

  

For the mash potatoes

• 8 large potatoes (red potatoes or Maris Piper are best for mash)
• 150 ml milk
• 50 g butter
• half tsp salt (or to taste)

For the sauce

• 1 kg beef mince (we use lean)
• large red onion
• 1 large white onion
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• 2 large carrots
• 2 handfuls frozen peas
• 2 cans chopped tomatoes (400g each)
• 2 chicken or beef stock cubes
• 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tbsp sunflower or vegetable oil
• half tsp salt (or to taste)
• 1 tsp black pepper (or to taste)
• 300 g grated cheese (mature Cheddar)

Instructions

 

Prep your ingredients

• Sort out enough bowls for the raw ingredients to be prepared into before cooking.
• Peel the potatoes. Chop into quarters then rinse in cold clean water until most of the starch has been rinsed off and the water runs almost clear. Put into a large pan of water covering the potatoes and put onto boil with a few pinches of salt (salt to taste). The potatoes can be left to boil whilst the rest of the ingredients are prepared.
  
• Peel then chop the carrots into slices. Put the carrots and peas into the same pan and add water until they are covered then put onto the boil and add a few pinches of salt. The peas and carrots can be put onto boil whilst preparing the rest of the ingredients.
• Peel the onions. Thinly slice the onions then place into a bowl in preparation for adding to the pan.
  
• Crush or thinly slice the cloves of garlic and place into a bowl.

Make the sauce

• In a large frying pan add 2 tablespoons of oil and bring to heat. When oil is hot add the garlic and stir until slightly cooked (a couple of seconds should be enough to avoid burning).
• Add the beef mince and separate with either a spatula or wooden spoon. When mince starts to brown then add a few pinches of salt and stir in. Add the stock cubes and stir until mixed in. Add 2 or 3 teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce and stir in. Taste as you go.
  
• When the mince is nearly cooked through make a hole in the middle and pour in the onions, fold the mince into the onions and then stir together. Onions can be cooked until soft or slightly crunchy depending on preference.
  
• Check on the peas and carrots. If cooked or nearly cooked, drain off water and pour peas and carrots into the frying pan. stir all together until evenly spread throughout the pan.
  
• Turn down the heat and add the chopped tomatoes. Stir all together then leave to simmer.

Make the mash potatoes

• Whilst the frying pan is simmering check the potatoes as they should be cooked and take off the heat and drain the water.
• Heat the milk. Add the butter to the hot potatoes and mash together until mixed in. At this point the potatoes will still be lumpy so slowly add the milk and mash together. Keep adding milk until the mash has become creamy.
  

Assemble and bake the pie

• Preheat the oven to 200 deg Celsius. Prepare two large glass dishes and with a large perforated serving spoon (leaving the liquid in the pan) dish up the contents of the frying pan into the large dishes evenly. Add the excess juice accordingly if required.
  
• Add the mash potato on top of the mince just off the edges of the dishes, gently smooth the potato across the mince smoothing outward to the edges until you have and even amount across the dish.
  
• Once the potato is smooth, gently draw a fork (prongs down) along the length of the dish until the lines cover the length. Then draw the fork width-ways however only do a couple of draws across.
  
• Add the grated cheese evenly covering the entire dish.
• Place dishes in the oven on a middle shelf for 30 minutes or until the cheese has started turning golden brown.
  
• When cooked, take out of the oven and let sit for a few minutes before dishing up (it will be very hot!!!)
  

Keyword cottage pie, dinner, dinner ideas, main meal, mash potato, shepherd’s pie