Serves: 4
Approx cost: €5
Approx calories (per serving): ~450
Approx preparation and cooking time: 50 mins
While I can certainly appreciate fancy food, where great time and effort is put in to making things “just so” I still feel an urge to return to hearty, traditional dishes sometimes. Now this isn’t really a summer dish. It’s so much more appropriate for cold winters when everyone is huddled around the fire longing for some warm food to fill their hungry stomachs… wait, I think I may be getting my life confused with something out of Charles Dickens. Regardless – cottage pie is awesome! I say cottage pie because I make it with beef mince. While Google doesn’t seem to distinguish between the two types, I’m going to continue to call it cottage pie, because a shepherd’s pie, made with lamb, seems so much more logical, but I digress… again. There’s not much in here to not like – awesome, juicy meat, creamy potato topping, soft, sweet peas and tender carrots. All swimming around in a delicious meaty sauce.
Ingredients
– 350g Minced Beef
– 700g Potatoes
– 200g Green Peas (Petit Pois)
– 20g Butter
– 0.2 litres Milk
– 2 tsps Olive Oil
– 1 large Onion
– 2-3 Carrots
– 3-4 cloves of Garlic
– If you have any left over gravy, meat sauce, or even instant gravy granules this will also come in handy
Instructions
- Start off by preheating the oven to around 140 degrees Celsius. Next, peel and finely chop the onion, peel and slice the carrots as thinly as possible and mince the garlic.
- Add the Olive oil to a large frying pan and transfer in the onion and garlic. Fry lightly for a couple of minutes before adding in the minced beef. Stir well until well broken. When the meat is starting to brown add in the carrot and the peas. Add in a bit of salt and pepper and a small glass of water. If you have any leftover gravy add this in too. If you only have gravy granules then add in about 1 heaped tbsp of these and mix well. If you have neither then don’t worry. Whatever the case, allow the ingredients to simmer and the liquid will reduce.
- While the liquid is reducing, peel the potatoes and place into a pan of boiling water and boil until you can stick a fork through them. By this time the meat should be quite tasty looking as per the the picture above. Transfer the meat into a large, deep, oven-proof dish, so the meat mixture is about 2cm – 3cm thick. Meanwhile, mash the potatoes. Add in the butter and milk and a good sprinkling of salt and mix well.
- Scoop the potato onto the top of the meat mixture and spread out carefully. Draw a fork over the top to create a cute little pattern (this will ensure crispy ridges of potato too).
- Place into the hot oven and bake for about 30 minutes before opening the oven door and setting the oven to the grill (broiler) setting to brown/crisp off the top of the potato. When a nice golden brown, take out and serve out with some nice vegetables and enjoy!
I love a good cottage pie and this one looks great. Now that we've succumbed to the heat and turned on the AC, we can use the oven again.
We even had some rain last night and it's not the warmest of weather right now. I'm gonna be getting my hands on some lamb mince soon so I'll be able to try a "shepherd's pie" for the first time ever too!
Gotta make this one when we pick Britain. This looks delicious. I love the crispy ridges on the potatoes. Would it hurt to leave out the peas? (Another one of my vegetable aversions. 😉 )
I guess it wouldn’t hurt to leave out the peas, although think of all the peas you’re making sad by not allowing them to be included in the dish!! I think it does give the dish a nice background flavour but it’s certainly not the end of world without them – maybe add a bit of extra onion instead 🙂
Hi Charles, Lots of hearty ingredients here – perfect for post cottage work! (have you tried it with sweet potato on occasion?) k.
Hi Kelly, thanks for stopping by. It is a great hearty meal indeed. I never did try it with sweet potato – They’re not something that is so commonly cooked with in Europe compared to in the US and Canada it seems, although they are getting more common in the stores. As a result I’ve never really used them much, although it is something I’d love to try more of. Do you know any good recipes or ideas on what sort of things I could start off with?
I simply substitute sweet potato for white in recipes that call for white – I find they are tastier and more nutritive. Sweet potato fries – cooked in the oven – are also delish… I’ll have to post on that one sometime =)
The fries sound really good actually – I’m thinking some sweet potato wedges done with a bit of chilli would be awesome! Thanks for the idea!
Wow, you are really a great cook!!!:) and all your recipes are just so cost-effective too…amazing!:D
I don’t think we can get cottage pies at a quarter of what you have there:p
Thanks Christy! I try to put a fairly accurate cost of the recipe, but it’s going to change a lot from country to country unfortunately. In France, where I am, lamb is super expensive, compared to England for example, in my experience – equally, some of the things you have in the food on your blog I can’t find at all here… although I *wish* I could – it looks SO good!
I usually call this shepherd’s pie, but we don’t use peas. Well, we don’t make it with lamb either–we use beef. One of my favorite hearty dishes! My mom has mastered our recipe, but I have yet to make it on my own. I’ll give it a shot soon. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Yeah, I’m not sure how “traditional” the peas are to be honest 😀 My mother used to put peas and carrots into a lot of stuff, maybe as a way to make me eat more vegetables when I was a child (ha ha!) so perhaps this is something I’ve adopted subconsciously from her – I just love seeing the little bits of colour in amongst the sauce!
Oh, yes, peas are definitely traditional. It wasn't just your mum's way of getting more vegetables into you. Must have peas! I let those who don't care for peas pick them out of their serving! This looks delicious. You are correct in your distinction between "cottage" and "shepherd's," but I make it with so many things besides minced beef (turkey or lentils or …) that I just call them all shepherd's pie.
Ah, good to know. You know – my mother read my post and then claimed that she didn't actually put peas inside the pie and always served them on the side! Personally I love peas inside – seeing them nestling amongst the meat… little green "pearls" in there… it's very cute and a great taste blend too.
I never had a cottage pie with lentils before… I *love* lentils though, although isn't it a bit to carbohydrate-y with both lentils *and* potato on top? I mean, I wouldn't mind, but I can imagine it would be super filling!
That was simply delicious 🙂
I already tried another shepherd’s/cottage pie recipe (don’t remember the source tho) which I didn’t like as much. It seemed as if there was something missing.
So Google led me to your recipe which was the complete opposite. The peas and carrots really freshened the whole thing up. Instead of gravy I used a small jar of beef stock and added a pinch of nutmeg to the mashed potatoes. Yum! 🙂
Hi Kat – I’m really glad you enjoyed it – great idea to add nutmeg to the mashed potato (do you add nutmeg to cooked spinach too? yum!) I’ll give that a try myself next time too 🙂 After posting this I spoke with my mother who claimed never having put peas inside, lol – Maybe I was imagining that part, but it’s still pretty tasty 🙂