Shepherd’s or Cottage Pie

First established in the 1700s when potatoes became a staple of the poor, this dish was typically made of leftover meat and vegetables, covered with mashed potatoes and baked. Today it is generally made from scratch and has several variations. 

The meat for example can be ground beef, cuts of stewing beef, ground chicken or turkey, ground pork or lamb while the potato covering can be made with white, golden or red potatoes, sweet potatoes or entirely replaced with rice. For the vegetable mixture, almost anything goes.

As always, here is how I have made it recently, and by that I mean it is rarely ever the same.

Ingredients

Meat Mixture:

1  to 1 ¼  lbs ground beef

2 medium onions

1 largish carrot

½ cup peas
14oz can of Diced Tomatoes

Three cloves (or more) of Garlic

Sprig of fresh rosemary

1 teaspoon of thyme

Dash or three of Worchester Sauce or Braggs Seasoning Sauce (gluten-free option)

Arrowroot powder or corn starch

Salt and pepper to taste

Butter

Olive Oil

Potato topping:

4-5 medium sized potatoes

1/3 cup table cream

Handful of grated cheddar

Preparation

Begin by heating a large pan at medium heat on the stove. I tried once with a candle. Not so good.

Roughly chopping your onions and carrots. Add a pad of butter and a glug of olive oil to the pan once heated.  Add your onions, carrots, drained tomatoes and peas. Stir occasionally. Raise the heat if required.

Fill a pot with salted water and place on a burner set to high. If you don't like potato skin in your mash potato, start peeling, otherwise, roughly chop the potatoes and place them in the pot. Once boiled, start your timer for 15-20 minutes and leave boiling.

When your onions are golden, add the ground beef.

Mix the beef into the vegetables and stir to ensure even cooking of the meat. Chop the fresh rosemary leaves, dice the garlic and add to the pan with the thyme. Stir a few times and add the Worchester sauce.

When the meat has browned to your liking (remember, it is going in the oven) mix a teaspoon of arrow root powder or corn starch in ½ cup of cool water, then pour the mixture into the pan. Stir well and watch as your mixture thickens up.

Set the oven to 400F.

Grease a medium sized baking dish and pour in the meat mixture. Use a spatula to make as even a layer as you can.

Once the timer on the potatoes begins to shriek at you, remove the pot from the stove and drain out as much of the water as possible. Then add the cream and start mashing by hand (Use a hand masher, not your hand... but if that works for you...) or use a mixer if you are so inclined. I won’t tell anyone.

Take a spatula and add an even layer of potatoes to the top of the meat mixture that you've already spread across the baking dish.  When done, take a fork and draw some lines, flow chart depicting the direction you’d like the dinner conversation to take, abstract depiction of Mediterranean scenes.... (But alas, I digress) on the potatoes. These raised bits will brown and go crispy once we....

Place the dish in the oven for 30 minutes.

If you like cheese (And who doesn’t? You don’t? Leave!) sprinkle some on top of the potatoes (Good luck getting it underneath the potatoes!) and put back in the oven for 5 minutes.

Remove, let stand for 5 minutes, serve, enjoy.