Looking for a traditional meat pie or more into avant-garde delicacies? Check out this Cottage pie recipe that encompass future and history!

Cottage pie has not much to do with what they actually are called pies which are supposed to be some sort of (preferably pastry) casing, contain various sweet or savory fillings.

Although cottage pie fits into the savory category, it hasn’t got any casing to hold the filling, apart from the dish it is made in. In fact, early cottage pies were only leftover meat topped with some kind of potato on a plate. Traces of this tradition can still be found when preparing shepherd’s pie which is a cottage pie made with lamb, uses whole cuts of quality meat instead of ground one.

Some modern British cottage pie still use sliced potato as a topping but since commercial food production mostly use mashed potatoes everywhere, this feature is not so prevalent in the visible pop cuisine.

Recent addition is the cheese which is sprinkled on top before roasting the cottage pie to golden brown perfection. Similarly, fairly new but welcome ingredients are the various vegetables like peas and carrots that are mixed with the ground meat.

Some of them go as far as completely substituting meat with various plants, like beans or lentils, creating a not only vegetarian but holding up to modern day standards, a completely vegan cottage pie.

Luckily, it’s not shepherd’s pie as it would be a darn tough task explaining why a shepherd’s pie is called what it is if it doesn’t contain nor shepherds nor part of the herd. After all, a dish, that was designed to be up-cycled any leftover, can contain anything that is still edible.

In fact, pies are most likely to get their names from the bird magpie that have a tendency to collect all sort of things into their nests. Early pies contained just that sort of variety when it came to fillings without making any distinction.

Over time various branches of pies separated, making more pronounced differences, not just between sweet or sour but among particular ingredients too.

This is how we ended up having cottage pie as a savory meat pie, and its subordinate, the shepherd’s pie which, as previously mentioned, is supposedly made of lamb. Or at least for now because what changes tomorrow will bring to our cottage pie no one can tell.

Ingredients

Mashed potatoes

4lb / 2000g Potatoes
⅞ cup / 200ml Sour cream
2 teaspoon / 10g Salt

Cottage pie sauce

2 tablespoons / 30ml Cooking oil
1 medium / 200g Onion
1 big / 100g Carrot
1 rib / 100g Celery
1 teaspoon / 5g Salt
1 sprig / Rosemary (¾ teaspoon dried)
1 sprig / Thyme (¾ teaspoon dried)
2 lb / 900g Ground beef
½ cup / 100g Tomato paste
½ cup / Red wine
2 teaspoon / 10g Salt
1 teaspoon / 3g Black pepper
2 pieces / Bay leaf
1 cup / 130g Peas

How to make Cottage pie

Make mashed potatoes by cooking potatoes, drain then mash them. Add salt and sour cream for best results. If in doubt, check out: Mashed Potato with Skin
Heat oil to high then sauté diced onion, carrot, celery and salt until the onion gets a glassy / translucent look.
Reduce heat and stir-fry until the onion caramelizes, about 15 – 20 minutes.
Mix in garlic, thyme and rosemary.
Increase heat then add the ground meat with more salt and some optional ground pepper.
Stir-fry until the meat is browned then add tomato puree, laurel and some optional wine.
Bring it to boil then simmer until half of the liquid is evaporated, about 10 minutes.
Add the peas and any other vegetables that tickles our fancy. Put the lid on and cook the vegetables ready. Peas takes about 3 minutes, even when frozen.
Portion the meat out.
Top it with mashed potatoes. Don’t forget to poke holes into the mashed potato to allow the steam to escape otherwise the aesthetics of our pretty looking pie may suffer the consequences.
Some like to add some grated cheese on top. It’s absolutely not necessary.
Place the cottage pies into the middle rack of a 350°F / 180°C preheated oven until the top starts to get a golden brown color, about 30 – 40 minutes.