You’ve got to roll with it…

I’m always looking for variations on the humble cottage pie because, at this time of the year, the weather demands at least one pie a fortnight.

It’s cheap, very cheerful and with bags of flavour, it’s the perfect Monday night supper when you’re consoling yourself that the weekend has just finished.

Variation in my pies isn’t hard to achieve, seeing as how I’m habitually making the cottage pie with whatever I have in the fridge at any given time. No carrots? No problem. I use peas. No peas? What odds. It’ll be grand without them.

The only ever-present is mince, which is routinely fried up with onion and garlic and draped in luxurious gravy.

A recent variation I have adopted works as a great idea when it comes to serving up individual portions.

As you can see from the picture, this cottage pie is baked in a hollowed out bread roll, which, prior to entering the oven is painted with butter for maximum crispiness.

I’ve tried the pies two ways, topped with mashed potatoes as per a traditional cottage pie, and topped with puff pastry as per a non-traditional cottage pie (which probably means it isn’t a cottage pie at all). Although, I’m not right sure which type is the best – which means I’ll have to make more and keep sampling.

The toasted bread case has a two-fold effect: It becomes saturated with the gravy on the inside but on the outside, it achieves a highly satisfying crunchiness – not unlike upmarket toast.

Just make sure to use large bread rolls, otherwise the filling space is going to be too small for filling. Also, it’s best to use rolls that are a couple of days old so that they’re structurally strong. I suppose they’re kind of like the trenchers of old, those medieval flat rounds of bread which served as the forerunners of plates. Tradition held that after the meal had been eaten, the trenchers, sodden with gravy or sauce, were distributed as alms to the poor. Call me Scrooge McDuck, but my trenchers are eaten as part of the meal. Alms, bedamned.

I won’t insult your intelligence (or cooking prowess) by offering a recipe for the meat filling (or brown stew as it’s called in our house) but I will give you a top tip: Mixed herbs, Worcestershire sauce and lots of freshly ground black pepper. I’ve routinely used red wine, stout and red ale in these recipes to mix things up a bit but I always return to the alcohol free version.

Another element that I always use whatever the variations on the meat filling is cheddar cheese. This can be on top of the potato or underneath the potato – or on both sides – and I always use lots and lots.

To make the pies all you do is cut the top of the roll, pick out some bread then press the remaining bread down in the inside of the roll and along the sides and then fill with your brown stew. Top with either the potatoes or the puff pastry, brush the bread with butter and roast in the oven for 15 minutes.

Drop me an email if you fancy the full run-down.

SIDENOTE

After last week’s recipe for the Cheeto chicken goojohns, a local lady contacted me to ask about the pineapple salsa which I mentioned as an accompaniment to the goujins.

The problem, dear Ellie, is that when I tried to reply to your email, I keep getting a bounce-back. So here you go…

My pineapple salsa is so simple, it hardly constitutes a recipe. The only thing I would say is that I always used tinned pineapple rings in juice and I always drain and char them in a dry frying pan before chopping. Just add the drained rings to the dry pan, turn the heat up medium high and dry fry until slightly blackened on both sides. The whole process might take about ten minutes – if even.

To a tin of four pineapple rings (charred) I add half a small red onion, finely diced, one medium tomato (de-seeded and chopped) and a squeeze of lime. If I have any, I’ll add some chopped coriander to my own portion, since no one else in the house likes it. Mix in a bowl and that’s it.

Hope you enjoy it, Ellie.