Cottage Pie

 

Made this the other night with inspiration from Delia 🙂

The basic ingredients are:

• 800g mince beef (or lamb mince for shepherds pie)
• 2 onions
• 3 carrots
• 1/4 swede
• Fresh parsley
• Fresh Thyme
• Cinnamon Powder
• Beef stock (or lamb stock)
• Salt and Pepper
• 1.8kg Potatoes
• 3 leeks
• Good handful of cheese

According to some wise words (thanks Claire :)), it’s better to make sure your mashed potato is cold before spreading on top of your mince mixture. So first thing I did was peel the potatoes and boil for around 10 minutes. Once they were boiled they were drained off and mashed with some butter.

While the potatoes are boiling it is a good time to peel and chop your veg. Half the onions and slice about 1/2cm thick. The carrots and swede are just diced into small chunks.

Heat some olive oil in a frying pan and add the onions. Once they start to brown, add the carrots and swede and fry for about 5 minutes. Put to one side to cool

Put the mince into another frying pan or sauce pan or whatever you have and brown off. Next add the onions , carrot and swede and mix together. Season this mixture with a good pinch of salt and pepper then add your herbs. If you want you can add some flour to soak up the fat that has come off the meat as it cooks or just pour it out. Gradually add the stock until it has all combined then cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees. I used a 6″x12″ baking dish for the pie. Once the mixture has cooked, pour into the baking dish. Next get your mashed potatoes and spoon over the top and make sure it covers the mince mixture. Wash and peel your leeks and cut into 1cm thick slices then scatter over the top. Scatter over the cheese then put in the oven and bake for 25 minutes or until the leeks are starting to brown.

Et voila! you should have what is in the picture

Thrashing to Send More Paramedics while making this!