Bank Holiday Dinner - Cottage Pie

This is one of the best dinners I have ever made! This is a Mary Berry inspired recipe, by no means her actual cottage pie recipe. This dish consists of a meat sauce base topped with a 'lazy' potato dauphinoise served with long stem broccoli. This recipe was really hard to write out as I'm a messy cook and don't really follow a recipe, so if your like me this is the perfect recipe, no matter how varied you make it, it always turns out great.

For the meat sauce;
Minced Beef
2 tbsp Olive oil
1 Onion
2 grated carrots
2 Garlic Cloves
Beef stock cube
200ml Bolied water
Glug of red wine
2 tbsp Tomato puree
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

For the topping;
Potatoes (1 per person)
150ml of pouring or single cream
50g of grated cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 200ºc 180ºc (fan) Sauté onions, grated carrots and garlic in a casserole pot on a medium heat until softened. Brown off the meat in the pot. Add in beef stock cube crush and pour in water stir and turn heat up high to reduce some of the water. Pour in glug of wine and reduce on high/medium heat. Stir in tomato puree and Worcestershire sauce, add salt an pepper to taste, simmer on low heat for 15 mins, stirring occasionally...

Meanwhile poke potatoes and microwave for 4-6 mins on high. Slice potatoes (thick or thin, whatever you prefer). Turn off meat sauce and cover with a layer of potatoes, drizzle over half of the cream and half of the cheese and repeat in layers as desired. Place in a preheated oven for 20 mins or until potatoes are golden brown. Serve with seasonal vegetables.

This is such a delicious dish and its really easy to make, perfect for a cosy night in. You could adapt this dish however you like or even just use the topping as a side dish to a steak maybe. Here are some ideas;
Use the topping as a topper for a fish pie recipe.
Shepard's pie - instead of beef use lamb and add in a little mint or rosemary.
Another variation is to uses aubergines instead of potatoes, if your going for a carb free dish.

Let me know how it goes? Enjoy! Ruby x