How to Cook Cottage Pie – The Ultimate British Comfort Food

[Music][Music]all right cottage pie all right there’sa difference between a cottage pielinear shepherd’s pie and that is thatthe cottage pie uses beef mince orground beef and only shepherd’s pie usesground lamb or minced lamb or mutton sothat’s that cleared up traditionallycottage pie is the oldest of the cut ofthe of these type of pies whereasshepherd’s pie was invented sometimeduring the Victorian era and cottage piecame to be somewhere perhaps in the 16thcentury right let me run you through theingredients we’ve got 20% fat beef minceyou can go for an even lower fat contentthan that if you can get it I can’t atthe moment so I’ve got this one so I’vegot what 500 grams the best part of apound in a bit I’ve got half a yellowonion cooking onion and I’ve got aboutthe same weight of celery and I’ve gotabout the same weight of carrot I’ve got2 spuds and the spuds that come to aboutthe same way as the meat all right sothat makes a bit of sense doing that sospuds and meat same wait I’ve got somebutter I’ve got some milk I’ve got somesalt pepper and they’ve got a dash ofWorcester sauce which needs to go in itall right so the first thing you need todo is get all these vegetables preppedup I need to get these potatoes peeleddiced and cooked I want to cook themthoroughly because they’ll be turnedinto our mashed potatoes for this andI’ll show you my technique for mashedpotatoes all right all right I’vechopped my spuds up some of them areactually over here in the water and youalways start your squads off in coldwater that’s important that’s in coldsalted water at the moment and there’smy cellarI carrot my onion and there’s my groundbeef with a little lifted off andeverything else is just ready to go sowe need to get some heat under this panand get things started just kept the yesrest of these spuds in the panthat’s plenty salted boiling water underit you’ll need a fork and you’ll need awhisk for the potatoes I’ll be showingyou that later all right let’s get someheat under that I’ll turn that up to maxand I’ll get the big one up to maxstrike heat okay that pans coming up tohis heat I’ve got the potatoes on fullboil and I just want to drop in a coupleof tablespoons worth avoid in thatcooking oil and into that I want to gomy first of all I want to go in with myonions get a turn on those and then withmy celery and carrotsI just want to stir and fry that forabout a minute[Music]okay that’s been stirring and throwingfor about a minute and I want to go inwith my feet now get that all mixed inwith the vegso I’ll stir and fry that now until themeat starts to brown okay as we’restirring the meat we break trying tobreak up the larger lumps and make itlook less like solid pieces of meat soas that’s cooking we’ll break those downand there’s one little thing I neglectedto mention in the ingredients and thatis you’ll need a beef stock cube I’musing an oxide cube which we’ve got alittle technique with these we canflatten them out keep them in the foiljust keep squashing it and then you endup with a little bag of beef powder andvery very useful so what I do as soon asthat is in that position I break it openand just let it fall into the beef andstir that to mixas soon as we started in liquid to itall that will come all start to breakdownokay you can see it’s been shiftingliquid and now it’s starting to fryagain as its as all the liquid isboiling off and this is a chance you’vegot to get that lovely umami flavor intoyour meat let that just keep cookingaway in that oil don’t worry about theoil we can drain that off later or theoil of fat so right now we need thatthey’re doing its work all right justlet that cook and let it begin to fryagain let it fry hard and it starts togive off that lovely fried beef smellall right to fry up real nice now andyou’ll notice that the fund is beginningto form on the bottom under all that fatcooking that’s what we want we want thatbecause that helps to flavor the meat soonce we’ve got to this stage we can addin a couple of more items and the mainone is going to be liquid so I’m gonnaadd in a full glass of waterand stir in stir everything into mixsome good flavors going on in thereright now and at this stage I’m going toadd a little bit of salt so I’m gonnaadd a pinchwhat’s that about teaspoon of salt maybea little bit more and just intraditional cottage pie we don’t usegarlic garlic is not a traditionalEnglish ingredient at all and neither iscovering the top of the pie with cheeseall rightthat’s for cheese addicts only just tryit without cheese occasion that youmight find you like it and the – ofWorcester sauce no a lot you don’t needa lot in this just too little – and nowI’m gonna cook that down again I’m goingto add just a little bit of tomato pastejust at it from a tube it’s not a baddessert spoon two teaspoons full that’sall you need tomatoes add a wonderfuldepth of flavor to tomato in itself hasgot a great flavor but I don’t want thisto be all about the tomato so only use alittle bit just to give it another layerof flavor and you’ll find that that pimpfeel really nice actuallyright I’m gonna test it now taste it andsee what it’s like oh he’s goodhmm YUM that’s bang on for now we’ll letthat go as that is pretty good and thenone of the days I want to still keep itcooking at high heat and we’re stilltrying to break up the bigger clumps ofbeefI want this a little bit more smooth Ithink I might add a little bit morewater just about that much that goes inand I’m going to turn the heat rightdown there to about one third of myavailable heat so that’s right downunder turning down to two on thismachine on this cooker and then I’mgoing to put the lid on that and letthat simmer for about half an hourspuds are done yeah they’re coming apartnicely right drain those and I’ll justshow you another little technique that’sthem drained and I put back on the heatand steam them for a couple of secondsjust a few seconds turn the heat offjust give em a quick steam just pullthem off the heat for a secondsteaming nicely actually and then thatshould just about doing so it’s only afew seconds and now we take them awayand work the magic on them all right solet’s get our spuds out fresh from theirsteaming and then into the spuds I wantto put some of this lovely Welsh butterand you need to be generous with thebutter look and I want a little bit morethan thatso I’m going to put in that much as wellso what’s thatprobably good slice of the butter youwork it out and then what I want to dois drop in some milk splash of milk andthen we mash it we get them spuds mashedup you can put them through a ricer ifyou like it’s up to you I’ve got a riceof it hardly ever use it I use it formaking spaghetti ice cream so you mashit and you get it to that stage and thenyou mash it again and you’ve got to useflowery spuds for this you can’t use newpotatoes or anything right you’ve got touse your flowery old potatoes for thisand they’re nice and loose so it’s stillquite loose very very tasty now I cutthose in quite a lot of salt and waterso we shouldn’t need to salt them toomuch but I’ll give it a tastefirst that’s good needs more mash socompletely savage with the mash in andyou want to mash them till you’re nottasting any lumps talk not even let wantbecause that’s the secret people give upthe mash in too soonright let’s see where we are with thatanother taste another spoon that’s rightit’s bang on the money right the nextthing we do is we give it a good oldwhipping with a cork all rightnotice that no time during this wholeprocess did any cheese get added to ityou can add cheese to it if you’re thatmuch of a cheese addict but don’t callit English cottage pie because if youput cheese in it it isn’t so there youare the taters are mashed and whippedlovely I’m going to put those to oneside now and finish cooking my meat soonce you’re half hours it as he elapsedthat’s been simmering away there forquite a while I’m going to take aslotted spoon and then I’m going to takeout the beef lifting it away from itsliquid and spoon it into aone-and-a-half liter pyrex dish you canuse a baking tray as long as it’s got afairly steep sides it won’t matter andthen I’ll get all that out pull the meatout and into the Pyrexand then I’ll show you what we’re goingto do with the the liquor that’s leftbehind so you see we’ve got to the stagewhere we’ve listed most of the meat outof it and then we’re left with thisliquor now what we want to do with thatis just tilt it and skim it and the wayI do that is to get a spoon so I get abowl I get a spoon and then I just tiltit and skim it off the top until they’vegot most of the fat off ityou can also pour it into a fatseparator but I find that a bitcumbersome and you carry on until you’vegot most of the fat removed okay you’renever gonna get all the fat off it sowe’ll leave it like that and I’ll showyou the next phase all right so we takethe stuff that’s left in the fat and wepour that back on and it should be justabout enough let me just move thataround a bit mix in see what it lookslikepush it down but not so much till itgets like that okay right the next stageis we take our bodies and we just startputting them on top in the corners firstin little dollops like that and then wework our way aroundnotice how loose the potatoes are fromwhipping really nice and loose verycreamy very light the best potatoes easyto use or something really fluffy like arusset or King Edward’s they’re reallygood or if you can’t find russets theKing Edward’s just can find a baconpotato because they’re gonna be reallysoft and fluffy and perfect for thiskind of dish any kind of mashed potatoyou need to really soft fluffy potatoesso new potatoes will not do in anydisguise and then we get those on topandmy brother will be delighted if I leaveany in the pot because he will eat thatand then I’m just gonna get a fork nowso now with the tines of a fork I liketo go across it and then just work likethat and then go across it in the otherdirection and then work towards themiddle so you end up with these nicefork two ridges and they when it bakesthey crisp up and turn up real nice soget that in and now that is just aboutready and that now goes into the oven180 degrees Celsius which is about 350Fahrenheit and that goes into the roomfor between 30 and 40 minutes but keepan eye on it you don’t want the top toburn and really once the top is brownedand looking perfect then the pie isgoing to be absolutely wonderful you allright I just have a look at this oh yes[Applause]very nice indeed so there we have itright let’s um let’s cut into this badboy and see what it looks likeit’s probably wise to let it cool downfor about 10 or 15 minutes before youserve it but I’ve got no chance of thathappening in this household so here wego oh yesso there you go the ultimate Britishcomfort food cottage pie[Music][Applause][Music][Music][Music]if you have enjoyed this video pleasegive it a thumbs up if you would like tofollow my channel please subscribe andbe 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