With the POD Father working full-time in London again, responsibility for school drop offs, after school pick-ups and getting POD ready for bed has sat with yours truly. The latter is a timely process which involves the usual feeding, bathing and story telling – not to mention multiple sleep delaying tactics! We’re a week into the new routine now and it’s working well for the most part. I’m enjoying spending more time in the kitchen although it’s a little dangerous when it involves making absolute treats like this amazing cottage pie.
Here’s what you’ll need:
3 tbsp olive oil
1 1/4 beef mince
2 onions, finely chopped
3 carrots, chopped
3 celery sticks, chopped
2 garlic gloves, finely chopped
3 tbsp plain flour
1 tbsp tomato purée
1 large glass of red wine (optional)
850ml beef stock
4 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
Few thyme sprigs
2 bay leaves
And for the mash:
1.8kg potatoes, chopped
225ml milk
25g butter
200g strong cheddar cheese, grated
Fresh nutmeg, ground
Method
This recipe was adapted from the BBC Food website but I improvised slightly as we had no Worcestershire sauce or red wine. First up heat 1 tbsp oil in a large saucepan and fry the mince until it browns. As it needs to be set aside once it’s cooked, I’d definitely suggest you do it in batches – it’s much easier! Once done, put the rest of the oil into the pan with the vegetables. They need to be cooked on a gentle heat for about 20 minutes (you can use this time to peel your potatoes for the topping). Once the garlic, flour and tomato purée has been added you can increase the heat and cook for a few minutes before putting the beef back in the pan.
If you’re using wine, you can then add this along with the stock, Worcestershire sauce and herbs. We just added stock and herbs at this point before simmering, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Check it after 30 minutes to see if the gravy looks thick and is coating the meat. If it’s not you can increase the heat to reduce the gravy. You then just need to season and discard any remaining bay leaves and thyme stalks.
While your meat is simmering, you can make your mashed potato. We love to have cottage pie with lots of potato on top so I increased the amount shown above. The potatoes should be boiled until tender then drained well and allowed to steam-dry for a few minutes. You can them mash them with the milk, butter, three-quarters of the cheese, nutmeg, salt and pepper.
This recipe is for 10 people so the meat was split between two dishes. You can either spoon or pipe the mash on the top before sprinkling on the rest of the cheese. The cottage pie then needs to be cooked for 220 degrees (200 for fan ovens) or gas mark 7 for 25-30 minutes until the top looks golden. The purpose of two dishes was so we could eat one that evening and any leftovers for lunch the next day. The larger dish was left in the fridge and cooked within 24 hours, it tasted even better than the first although both dishes were just heavenly. This cottage pie tasted so good we ate it all fairly swiftly and none made it into the freezer, it’s a good excuse to make some more!
I would eat cottage pie every night if I could! Well, I technically can but I’d probably be waddling by the end of the month. Ohhhh we have a bazillion sleep delay tactics here, bedtime is a bit stressful!