Irish Guinness Cottage Pie - Recipe For Adventures (2024)

FAQs

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

The Difference Between Shepherd's Pie and Cottage Pie

Cottage pie uses minced lean ground beef as its base and beef broth as its gravy. Shepherd's pie, on the other hand, uses ground lamb, and the juices of the minced lamb become the gravy for this comfort food.

Irish Shepherd's Pie is a delicious comforting dish perfect for celebrating the upcoming St Patrick's Day. Ground meat is cooked with lots of vegetables and Guinness, topped with delicious mashed potatoes and cheese and then baked to create a perfect golden crust.

A good shepherd's – or indeed cottage – pie, needs a solid, but fluffy top: too much milk or butter, and you'll end up with a sloppy puree instead. Make sure you steam the potatoes dry before mashing, and season generously; I like Bareham and Hopkinson's nutmeg as well as the usual salt and pepper.

The dish originates from the British Isles, but some might argue that it is an Irish dish by origin. The name "Shepherd's Pie" was first recorded in an 1877 cookbook. In this same cookbook, it was noted that the dish was of Scottish origin. During the period between the 18th and 19th centuries, money was very tight.

Although Cottage Pie is now known for being a dish specifically made with beef, vegetables, and potatoes, at the time, any pie made that had meat and potatoes in it was considered a “Cottage Pie.”

Cottage Pie pairs best with medium-bodied red wines with plenty of acidity and earthy, smoky, or peppery notes, such as, Pinot Noir, Chianti Classico, Rioja Crianza, Côtes-du-Rhône, Shiraz and Beaujolais-Villages.

To stop the mash sinking into the filling, allow the meat to cool before topping with the mashed potato.

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.

How do you keep shepherds pie from falling apart? The eggs in the mashed potatoes help keep the pie together. You should also make sure to spread the potatoes and press down a bit.

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.

What are pies in Scotland? ›

A Scotch pie is a small, double-crust meat pie, traditionally filled with minced mutton (whereby also called a mutton pie) but now generally beef, sometimes lamb.

Corned beef is not an Irish national dish, and the connection with Saint Patrick's Day specifically originates as part of Irish-American culture, and is often part of their celebrations in North America. Corned beef was used as a substitute for bacon by Irish immigrants in the late 19th century.

Cottage pie or Shepherd's pie is a type of savory pie. It is made with minced meat, onions, vegetables, and gravy made from the meat juices and Worcestershire sauce, (often with Bovril added to enrich the gravy), with mashed potato on top.

The term cottage pie originated in England in the 18th Century to refer to a peasant food dish. It was a meal usually eaten by poorer people living in small cottages because the ingredients were affordable. Over time, it became more popular and was crowned cottage pie.

Shepherd's pie, cottage pie, or in French cuisine hachis Parmentier, is a savoury dish of cooked minced meat topped with mashed potato and baked, also called Sanders or Saunders. The meat used may be either previously cooked or freshly minced. The usual meats are beef or lamb.

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.