Cottage pie

Haven’t made this for a long time.

Timings: Prep: 50 min. Cooking: 30 min Eat: 15 min (finished just in time for Doctor Who)

Oven to 180 C (fan). You’ll need two big saucepans and a frying pan as well as an ovenproof casserole dish for the pie,

Meat sauce

Brown the mince until it goes uniform brown and no red bits.

Meanwhile, fry the chopped onions in the oil until they go translucent, then add chopped garlic and fry for another minute. Add the dried herbs and chilli flakes, and stir these in to release the aroma.

Add the tin of tomatoes and a squeeze of tomato puree. Add the browned mince, veg stock (and beef stock) and stir well. Turn off the heat.

Mash

Peel and dice the potatoes. Boil potatoes for about 20 minutes until soft. This is where the type of potato is important; waxy potatoes don’t make good mash. You can keep a portion of the water used to boil the potatoes to add to the mash.

Add a splash of milk and the butter, mash the spuds until they’re a smooth consistency. Add more milk if needed, this will depend on the starch content of the potatoes. Some of the starch-rich boiling water can also be added.

Assemble the pie

Pour the meat sauce into an ovenproof dish.

Add the mash to the top. I was told (can’t remember who by) to add the mash around the edge to begin with and work to the middle. This stops the meat bulging at the edges. To even out the mash, use a fork to flatten the topping and add a bit of texture to the top.

If you’re able, you could pipe the mash over the filling. They do this is some places, but I didn’t have the equipment, inclination or runny enough mash.

Shove it in the oven for 25minutes. Turn on the grill and brown off for 5 minutes or so.

This is enough for four people. Since there’s only three of us at home at the moment, I’ll get to have this for my lunch tomorrow! That’s a win!

On reflection, the beef stock could have been left out. There are enough herbs and a veggie stock cube added the base flavours.