Too Much Cottage Pie

This is a picture of a completely different cottage pie, so don't get your hopes up. 

Serves three, but you'll eat it all yourself because you're “adulting” today, and that apparently entitles you to a reward.

Ingredients:

500g of lean minced beef

2 medium onions

Packet of 4 baking potatoes

1 really big carrot

2 tablespoon of olive oil

½ teaspoon of powdered cinnamon

½ teaspoon mixed dried herbs

1 tablespoon of plain flour

1 tablespoon tomato puree

1 beef stock cube

1 tablespoon of beef gravy granules

Mixed dried herbs? Remember that vulgar BBQ powder you bought last summer, the one just marked “Chicken”? Probably just use some of that, yeah? 

Start by boiling the kettle. Also heat the oven to 200 degrees (gas Mark 6). Do it now because it will take literally ages for that knackered old thing you call an oven to get up to temperature despite the fat-spatterrd fan. 

Get a big pan, half fill it full of water and add salt like they do on TV. Cut the potatoes into quarters and place them in the water to boil. Now put a plaster on the finger you just sliced into. 

I think you know my views regarding onions well enough by now, so let's just get on with things. Put a large frying pan on a medium heat and bung in 2 tbsp of olive oil. While it's heating, cut the onions into pieces small enough that if you found one unexpectedly in an egg mayo sandwich from a local shop run by little old ladies, you'd probably be OK with it as long as it was the only one. Fry the bits of onion until one or two start turning brown at the edges. This takes quite a while. Fill the time and mask the screams by cutting the carrots into pieces small enough to stick up your nose.

Next, we need beef stock, which is clearly beyond the low rent capabilities of the supermarkets you patronise. Instead, crumble a beef stock cube into 250ml of water from the recently boiled kettle, then stir in a tbsp of gravy granules. You won't notice the difference because you're cheap. Squirt the tomato puree onto the spoon, noticing how much it resembles a dead tapeworm leaving the body unexpectedly in a public lavatory. Stir the puree into this travesty of a stock until it dissolves.

When the onion is cooked, add the carrot pieces and the mince to the pan. Dump the spatula, fish slice, shatter-proof ruler or whatever else you've been using to bully the onions, and grab a couple of forks. Use these to pull the mince apart. Mix it into the onions and carrots as if tossing the salad you always promise you'll make yourself every damned summer.

As it cooks, the mince will become excited and will wet itself. Mask its shame by adding the stock, flour, and spices, using the forks to make sure everything is nicely mixed together. Trust me on the cinnamon, by the way. It brings out the meatiness of the mince, and adds the slight sweetness you get with cheaper cuts of horse.

Much like your dreams, the potatoes will be done when they fall apart with a little resistance. Drain them well and realise you left the skins on. Mash the potatoes with a big blob of low fat spread until either they're smooth, you get bored, or your arm hurts because this is the most exercise you've done since leaving school.

By now, the meat will have been bubbling away for a few minutes, so pour the contents of the pan into a deep baking tray that holds about a litre and a half. You don't have one, do you. Seriously, what did you think we were going to do with all this meat? While you go and buy the cheapest tray available, or desperately fashion something from about 10 sheets of foil with bulldog clips keeping the corners rigid, I'll continue.

Spread the mash over the top of the meat. Pull it out to the edges with a fork. Some people grate cheese over the top of the mash, but those people need to shut up and sit down!

Put some foil on a shelf in the oven and place the cottage pie on the foil. Look, you can either put some foil down now, or clean the oven when the gravy (sorry, the “stock”) boils and bubbles over the edge. Bake for about 25 minutes or until the mash browns, or until you get bored. I mean, it's all cooked right? You could just dig in now. 

To add an extra touch of class to this dish next time, why not buy the ingredients from Morrisons, or have Ocado deliver them?