Okay so this is the basic ‘mash on top of a pie’ dish. Shepherds is when it’s lamb, cottage is when it’s beef. You’ll be unsurprised to know I make the cottage pie with Venison…
The key difference between the two is the gravy. For cottage pie you want a richer gravy, so I use venison stock and add red wine. For the shepherds pie I keep the gravy simpler, using a pheasant stock as the base, or just a bouillon base. You can substitute carrots for squash (especially a firmer squash like crown prince, but don’t be tempted by swede or turnip – they change the taste way too much.
Prep: 10min Cook; 40min (20 on the hob and 20 in the oven)
Ingredients – Shepherds pie
200g lamb mince
300g peeled potatoes roughly chopped
1 onion chopped
1 good sized carrot diced or 120g squash diced
250ml stock (pheasant or veg)
1 heaped dstspn bisto
1 dstspn Worcestershire sauce
salt, pepper, butter
Ingredients – Cottage pie
200g venisonmince
300g peeled potatoes roughly chopped
1 onion chopped
1 good sized carrot diced or 120g squash diced
200ml stock (venison or beef)
50ml red wine
1 heaped dstspn bisto
1 dstspn Worcestershire sauce
salt, pepper, butter
Perhaps the most important thing to get the pie right is the gravy. You don’t want too much or it cooks through the mash and makes it sloppy. But too little is just as bad – a dry pie is no fun at all. The picture shows a shepherds pie pre mash – I cooked it in the cast iron pan so I can get the gravy just right before adding the mash – no guessing – if I transfer it to a crock pot for the oven I can subtly change the balance and I don’t want that.
The filling is a firm layer, the gravy comes up to a few mm lower than the top of the layer – for me that’s perfect. And then…
You can see that even with that little gravy some has bubbled up and onto the mash and browned – that’s fine, because there is still plenty in the pie and the mash hasn’t gone watery at the edges – so now I tuck in.