Cottage Pie

Last night we had cottage pie. Cottage pie is from England and uses ground beef filling with a mashed potato topping. It is also often called shepherd's pie. But I've always heard that it's cottage with beef and shepherds with lamb, and since I strongly dislike lamb, cottage pie it is!

Filling

1 tbl oil
1 onion minced
2 carrots diced
1 celery stick diced
1 1/2 lb ground beef
2 tbl flour
1 1/1 c beef broth
1 tbl soy sauce
1 tbl Worcestershire sauce
2 tbl tomato sauce
1 tbl tomato paste
2 bay leaves
2 tsp chopped fresh parsley

Topping

1 1/2 lb potatoes
1 oz butter
1/2 c milk

Cook onion, carrot and celery in oil over medium heat until softened about five minutes. Add ground beef and cook through. Drain fat. Add flour and cook for another two minutes. Add beef broth, tomato sauce and paste, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and bay leaves. Simmer over low heat for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove leaves and stir in parsley.
For the topping, peel and thinly slice potatoes then boil until cooked through. Drain and mash with butter and milk.
Heat oven to 350 and lightly grease a two quart casserole dish. Put the filling in and top with potatoes. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.


I think this is a nice warm comfort food and I love it, as does my husband. My children both turned their noses up at it, but then, when they hate potatoes, what should I really have expected! I served it with salad, that being all I had energy to do after making it and cleaning the mud off my children before dinner!