Easy English Cottage Pie (2024)

FAQs

What's the difference between cottage pie and shepherd's pie? ›

The main difference between Cottage Pie and Shepherd's pie is cottage pie uses ground beef, and Shepherd's pie uses ground lamb. Both pies are cooked with vegetables and gravy and baked under a layer of mashed potatoes. To make Shepherd's pie using this recipe, simply substitute ground lamb.

Cottage pie is an English casserole that's traditionally made with minced meat (usually ground beef), gravy, vegetables, and mashed potatoes.

More recently "shepherd's pie" has generally been used for a potato-topped dish of minced lamb. According to the Oxford Companion to Food, "In keeping with the name, the meat should be mutton or lamb; and it is usually cooked meat left over from a roast".

So, if you ask nearly anyone what country shepherd's pie comes from, you're bound to get the answer, "Ireland." However, cottage pie probably originated in Scotland, in the North of the UK. Meat pies were common in this region and were topped with pastry crust before the 1700s when potatoes were introduced as a crop.

I'd say either your mash or cottage pie sauce isn't thick enough. Do you add milk to your mashed potato? I've found that mash made with no milk added stays on top far better.

Succulent beef mince combined with carrot, leek, onion, and peas in a thick, richly flavoured gravy. Topped with smooth, creamy mashed potato for a delicious midweek meal.

Pie is a British staple and so are it's classic fillings, so it's no wonder that chicken and mushroom and steak and kidney are the most popular pie flavours across the UK!

Flour power

A classic thickening method for a classic dish. A few tablespoons of flour, cooked-out so you can't taste it, turns a thin sauce into a velvety gravy of dreams.

Steak and ale pie is a traditional British dish where a perfectly cooked pastry shell is filled to the rafters with tender slow-cooked steak, gravy and various vegetables. The early versions of this British staple were first recorded in the 18th century, where a beefsteak pudding was combined with suet.

Mince pies, at Christmas time, were traditionally shaped in an oblong shape, to resemble a manger and were often topped with a depiction of the Christ Child. The early mince pie was known by several names, including "mutton pie", "shrid pie" and "Christmas pie".

Why is Shepard's pie called Shepherd's pie? ›

If it is made with lamb (or mutton, however mutton is rarely sold in England in the modern day) it is usually called "shepherd's pie" (because a shepherd looks after sheep) and has a topping of mashed potato, patterned to represent sheep's fleece.

Adding egg yolks to a pot of mashed potatoes is an easy, dairy-free texture and taste upgrade that doesn't require any special techniques. The yolks harbor all the flavorful fats and emulsifying components and will thus effectively unify the fat and water in potatoes, translating to a smoother, uniformly creamy pot.

Add the tomato puree, tinned tomatoes, stock cube, bay leaf and salt and pepper to the mince mixture. Fill the tomato tin with water and add that as well. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes to reduce. Add the peas at the last minute and mix through.

The only significant and steady difference between shepherd's pie and cottage pie is the type of meat used. Shepherd's pie traditionally features ground lamb; cottage pie recipes call for ground beef.

In the U.S. we refer to mince beef as hamburger or Ground beef. Many of us just call it hamburger even when we are referring to ground beef that has not been formed into hamburger patties.

Cottage Pie – comfort food central! This English classic has a deeply savoury beef mince filling smothered in gravy topped with creamy mashed potato, baked until golden. One of the best cosy foods to make with ground beef!

It's traditionally made with minced meat (usually ground lamb), gravy, vegetables, and mashed potatoes. You may also hear it called "cottage pie." The two terms are used interchangeably, but technically traditional shepherd's pie is made with ground lamb and traditional cottage pie is made with ground beef.

Most workers ate their meat, potatoes and corn separately but workers of mainly Asian origins, combined their rations to create shepherd's pie, a more communal dish. The French-Canadian railway workers liked this new concoction, adopted the dish, and called it “pâté chinois”, which loosely translates to Chinese pie.

Simply put, after making a weekend roast, unused meat was repurposed into a pie using affordable potatoes as a crust. This frugal, albeit clever, meal suggests the name “cottage pie” referred to the consumers of the dish—poor Irish peasants (remember, they lived in cottages).