My rich soulful Beef Cottage Pie recipe

Here is my soulful Cottage Pie recipe, perfect for them cold evenings to bring comfort to you & anyone you may share with.

Welcome to my winter meal recipes I'm sharing with you on this winter season.

Here you can find the full list of ingredients and method to making this rich cottage pie & my creamy mash potato recipe.

Serves: 4 Preparation Time: 30 Minutes Cooking Time: 1 Hour & 15 Minutes

Ingredients

Cottage pie:

Beef Mince 500g

Beef Stock 500ml

Carrots, 2 large

Onion, 1

Celery, 1 stick

Garlic, 3 cloves

Fresh Rosemary

Tomato Paste, 1 tablespoon

Red Wine, 1 glass

Balsamic Vinegar, 1 tablespoon

Worchester Sauce, 1 tablespoon

Bay Leaf's, 2

Dried Thyme, 1 teaspoon

Dried Parsley, 1 teaspoon

Dried Oregano, 1 teaspoon

Plain Flour, 3 tablespoons

Olive Oil, 1 tablespoon

Salt & Pepper to taste

Mash potato:

Maris Piper Potatoes, 9

Dijon Mustard, 1 teaspoon

Olive Oil, 3 tablespoons

Milk, 200ml

Double Cream, 100ml

Cheddar Cheese grated

Fresh Parsley

Salt & Pepper, to taste

First off we want to get our pot onto a medium heat on the hob, adding 1 tablespoon of olive oil, once heated we want to add our 500g of minced beef, season to taste with salt and pepper add 2 bay leaf's and finely chop up our fresh rosemary we want 2 tablespoons worth and add it to our beef, we want to get a nice sear here on our beef, you looking for a brown colour on our mince not a grey as this will give a real beefy kick to our cottage pie, once we have a good sear on our beef, remove the access fat, save a tablespoons worth in the pot and remove the rest into a grease safe pot, then remove the beef from pan and place into a bowl, we then want to dice our carrots into cubes, chop our celery stick finely, dice our onion and mince our garlic, return the pot to the hob on a medium heat, then heat up our remaining bit of fat we left earlier and add our onions, carrots and celery, season to taste with salt and pepper and we want to get a nice colour on our veg here to boost the flavour to our cottage pie, once we have a good colour on our veg, add our minced garlic and cook until the raw garlic smell is gone, we then want to add 1 tablespoon of tomato paste and cook this off for a little bit, now we want to add our 3 tablespoons of plain flour to thicken our sauce, make sure you cook off the flour here as we don't want a floury taste to our pie filling, you'll know it's cooked off when the flour is no longer white, then we want to return our mince beef to the pot, then we add 1 glass of red wine, we want to cook off the alcohol here so continue cooking this off until you can no longer smell the alcohol, we then want to add our beef stock 500ml, shop bought or homemade is fine however homemade would add a lot more depth to our cottage pie, we then want to add 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, 1 tablespoon of Worchester sauce, add our dried herbs, thyme 1 teaspoon, parsley 1 teaspoon, oregano 1 teaspoon. We then want to bring our pie filling to the boil here and then turn down to a low heat, cover with a lid leaving a gap to allow to sauce to reduce, we want to allow our pie filling to cook on a simmer for 30 minutes to allow all the flavours to infuse with one another.

While that is simmering we can begin our mash potato topping for our pie, peel and chop 9 Maris piper potatoes, chop them reasonably small as it will allow them to cook quicker. Put a pot of salted water onto the hob and place on medium heat, add our peeled and chopped potatoes to the pot of salted water and place the lid on top, once brought to the boil allow our potatoes to cook until fork tender.

Once our potatoes are cooked, drain the water from the pot and begin either mashing your potato until smooth or use a ricer which I prefer to use to get a smooth mash, once our mash is mashed and lovely and smooth, add 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, here we are using olive oil as a replacement from butter for a more healthy mash, add our 200ml of milk and our 100ml of double cream and finally salt and pepper to taste, mash can take a fair bit of salt so be generous as nothing worse than a under seasoned mash potato, taste test as you add seasoning to make sure you get the right amount of seasoning and then give it all a good mix up so all the ingredients are fully combined and place our mash potato to the side.

30 minutes later, add a bit of salt and pepper to our pie filling, taste before hand to see how much seasoning you need then remove our 2 bay leaf's and remove the pot from the hob.

Now pre heat our oven to 200c/fan 190c/gas 6, place our pie filling into a large oven proof dish and even it out, add our mash potato on top of our pie filling and smooth it out, go over with a fork on the mash potato to create spikey bits so we get more crispy bits when it comes out the oven, then add grated cheddar cheese on top of our mash potato, place our cottage pie into the oven for 45 minutes at 200c/fan 190c/gas 6 and relax until our pie is ready.

And when 45 minutes has passed, remove our cottage pie from the oven and allow it to sit for 10 - 20 minutes to cool slightly, this way when you dish up our cottage pie it won't fall apart when plating, and when that time has passed, the best bit has arrived! Dish up our cottage pie onto plates, garnish with chopped fresh parsley a tablespoons worth and tuck in!

Be sure to check out my other winter meals recipes, all will give you a hug this winter.

Please leave me any comments or reviews of the recipes as I would love to know how you got on and any thoughts on the dish.

Much love,

Dylan