Shepherds pie

Shepherds pie = lamb. Cottage pie = beef. Come at me.

Absolutely typical of the food I make, in that it defies beautiful presentation (being mostly shades of brown with the occasional flash of pea green), but tastes mouthwateringly good and will cause people to swoon with contented delight when they put it in their mouths. Comfortably feeds 6

• 500g minced lamb
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• ½ leek, washed and chopped
• 1 carrot, chopped into small cubes
• 40g salted butter
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
• 1 chicken stock cube
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and pepper
• A couple of handfuls of frozen peas

• 1 kg floury potatoes
• 50g butter
• 50ml milk

If you don’t want to eat it straight away – maybe you’re just being super-organised and snatching an hour at lunchtime to prep for dinner, or you are making it as a present for someone who deserves a bit of delicousness in their lives – you can construct it all the way through from step 2 to 15, then either chill or freeze it til you’re ready to finish it off in the oven.

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C fan (200C) – maybe halfway through the making process
2. To make the pie filling, put half the butter into a large, heavy-bottomed pan over a medium-high heat. Add the lamb and brown it quickly, breaking up the pieces with a spoon
3. Once browned, remove the lamb from the pan, leaving as much of the fat as possible
4. Add the rest of the butter, turn the heat down to low and add the onion, leek and carrot. Cook gently for 10-15 mins until completely soft and golden
5. Sprinkle over the flour, crumble in the stock cube and add the tomato puree. Stir everything in and cook, stirring, for a couple of mins
6. Pour over 250ml boiling water, add the worcestershire sauce, season generously and throw in the bay leaf. Stir the browned lamb and any meat juices back into the pot, scraping any brown bits off the bottom of the pan with your spoon
7. Bring to the bubble and then turn down to the lowest possible simmer for 30 mins, stirring occasionally to make sure it’s not catching on the bottom
8. Once it’s finished, turn off the heat and stir through the peas
9. Whilst the filling cooks, you can crack on with the potatoes! First, peel and roughly cut up the potatoes into 2 cm chunks
10. Bring a large pot of water to the boil, salt it and then add your potatoes
11. Cook for 15-20 mins – test with a knife to see how done they are
12. Once they are cooked through, drain them and return them to the pan with the butter and milk
13. Mash with a masher (or you can use a ricer if you like it super-smooth – I quite like a few lumps personally), making sure you incorporate the butter and milk mixture throughout
14. Season well, taste and then decide if it needs more butter/salt/pepper. It might do
15. Tip the shepherds pie filling into a large ovenproof baking dish, remove the bay leaf and smooth the surface with a spoon. Dollop the mashed potato gently over the top and work it across the whole dish to cover the filling. Run a fork across the top to spike the potato up into little peaks and swirls. I guarantee you this will be the most fought-over part of the whole dish
16. Pop the it into the oven with a smile of anticipatory delight on your face and bake for 20-30 mins until the top is golden brown and there are little pools of delicious lamby goo forming at the edges. I really hate cleaning the oven, so I tend to put a baking sheet on the shelf below just in case there’s an eruption
17. Take it out and, if you can bear to, let it stand for 10 mins before serving, as it’ll be absolutely molten inside

Serve with some lovely steamed greens. My mum eats her shepherds pie with baked beans on the side. She’s normally such a sensible person so this is a wild aberration. She’s always really defensive though, she must realise it’s wrong.