Cottage Pie with Mustard Spiked Mashed Potatoes

This hearty and delicious Cottage Pie with Mustard Spiked Mashed Potatoes is a great recipe to teach you how to develop flavour and cook for comfort. It’s savoury and rich with a heavy hand of red wine that is reduced for maximum flavour and topped with a smooth and creamy mash.

I never truly appreciated a Shepherd’s Pie until I went to culinary school. Which is probably not something you would expect a culinary student to say. Why would you need to go to culinary school to appreciate something as simple as a meat pie? But hear me out!

#1 – Shep’s is perfect for a crowd.

The school I attended served a different menu every night from Tuesday-Saturday that was run mainly by the second year students with the first years assisting with dishes and serving. The amount of work that would go into each service from the staff and students was truly astronomical. Every single night the entire team would sit together for family meal before service, which was more often than not a stew or Shepherd’s Pie. Did I get sick of it? ABSOLUTELY. But there are very few things that are so inherently versatile, can use up a variety of ingredients to prevent waste, provide sufficient nutrition and can feed a large crowd in as short of a time as Shepherd’s Pie.

#2 – You can show off your cooking skills.

Shepherd’s Pie is also the perfect place for you to show off your cooking skills. Searing the meat creates fond, those crispy little bits on the bottom of the pan, and when you deglaze with wine or stock you are lifting them up off the bottom and into the dish. Then you continue to add flavour by adding your ingredients in stages. After the meat is browned and the vegetables have softened you can pop in some tomato paste, and since there isn’t currently any liquid in the pan the sugars can caramelize and the flavour will deepen. Then comes the wine, which may not be included in your standard recipe but it is here! By adding it on its own and reducing it you are removing the alcohol and leaving behind the flavour. Finally, there’s the broth, which is added last and bubbles away until the meat is tender, the vegetables are cooked and the flavour is rich and savoury.

And let’s not forget the mashed potatoes! Maybe it’s because I come from a family who notoriously undercooks the potatoes that these are so important to me – but the potatoes need to be creamy. Not loose. Not Claggy. Making mashed potatoes may seem easy peasy, but there are a plethora of ways you can fuck up a potato.

Here’s to making better mashed potatoes.

These are simple things you can do to improve your mash:

• Use Yukon golds.
• Rinse the diced potatoes. Cover them in water, give them a swish, drain and cover them again.
• Make sure there are a few inches more water than potatoes.
• Season your water generously with salt.
• Use a potato ricer.
• Mix in the butter BEFORE adding the milk.
• Add your milk in stages. You don’t want potato soup.