Cottage Pie
Serves: 3 to 4
This delicious Cottage Pie has a rich meaty beef sauce as the base, topped with creamy mashed potatoes and baked until deliciously golden.
Ingredients
For the Cottage Pie Filling
- 1 quantity Bolognese Sauce
- 1-2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce, optional, or to taste
- 1 cup frozen peas, optional
- parsley, finely chopped
For the Mashed Potato Topping
- 1 kg potatoes
- sea salt
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 250 ml milk, you may not need all of it
- 3 tablespoons parmesan, finely grated
- white pepper, freshly cracked
Instructions
To Make the Cottage Pie Filling
- Follow my recipe for Bolognese Sauce with step-by-step photos for instructions on how to make the sauce. The sauce takes approx. 2 ½ hours to make.
- Once the Bolognese Sauce is ready, add the Worcestershire sauce, if using.
- Stir the peas and chopped parsley through the sauce.
- Half fill a baking dish with the sauce. Depending on how many people you are serving, you may not need all of the sauce.
- Set the dish aside to cool while you prepare the potatoes (see Kitchen Notes below).
To Make the Mashed Potato Topping
- Peel and chop the potatoes.
- Place the potatoes in a big saucepan filled with cold water.
- Once the water comes to the boil, add a few teaspoons of coarse sea salt.
- Cook until the potatoes are tender.
- Drain the potatoes.
- Using the same saucepan that you used to boil the potatoes, return it to the stove on low heat.
- Add about half of the milk.
- Once the milk has warmed through a bit, return the boiled potatoes to the pan, together with the butter and a good pinch of sea salt.
- Use a potato masher to mash the potatoes into a purée.
- Keep adding more milk until you have a smooth and spreadable consistency.
- Taste the mashed potatoes for seasoning.
- Dollop the mashed potatoes on top of the sauce in the baking dish, and use the back of a spoon (or the tines of a fork) to create uneven ridges in the mashed potatoes. This will help the mashed potatoes to crisp up on top.
- Sprinkle the mashed potatoes with the grated parmesan.
To Bake the Cottage Pie
- Preheat the oven to 200°C (390°F) (without fan).
- Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the mashed potatoes are golden brown and the sauce underneath is bubbling.
Kitchen Notes
- HOW MUCH BOLOGNESE SAUCE TO USE
How much sauce and/or mashed potatoes you need depends on how many people you are feeding and how large your baking dish is. For the quantity specified in this recipe, I think it would serve 3-4 people generously. - MAKE AHEAD TIPS
If you make the Bolognese Sauce ahead of time, making this Cottage Pie only requires you to make the mashed potato before baking. I like to make a double or triple batch of this Bolognese Sauce and to freeze the sauce in portions, ready to defrost to use in dishes such as this Cottage Pie. - TIPS FOR MAKING THE BOLOGNESE SAUCE FOR A COTTAGE PIE
* Make the sauce on the slightly runny side. Once you have topped it with mashed potatoes, the potatoes will soak up some of the liquid. But if you make the sauce too thin and runny, the mashed potato topping will sink into the sauce.
* When adding the mashed potato topping, the sauce underneath should be cool or even fridge cold, so that the mashed potatoes will sit on top of the sauce as a separate layer. If the sauce is warm or hot, the mashed potatoes might sink into the sauce. - OVEN & STOVE TEMPERATURES
All recipes on this website have been tested on an induction stove and/or with a conventional oven (i.e. an oven without fan). All recipes on this website use temperatures for a conventional oven, unless otherwise mentioned. Convection ovens (i.e. fan-forced ovens) are typically 20°C/70°F hotter than conventional ovens, but please check your manufacturer’s handbook. - CONVERSIONS
To convert from cups to grams, and vice-versa, please see this handy Conversion Chart for Basic Ingredients.