Lovely Bubbly Cottage Pie

Cottage pie is a classic British dish. Stewed beef mince cloaked in mashed potato and baked in the oven until hot and oozy. Wintry comfort food which is tasty, but somewhat lacking in vegetable content. Here in the UK we are being urged to eat more vegetables, and sometimes it is difficult to ensure enough are eaten without resorting to the same old standbyes such as steamed veggies, boiled veggies or salad.

Bubble and Squeak is another classic British dish. It's a Monday institution, having been made from the leftover cooked vegetables from Sunday lunch for generations. The cooked vegetables are mashed together loosely, put into a hot pan and fried. 

The more you mash it, the more indistinct the individual vegetables' character becomes, a great way of hiding vegetables from fussy eaters. (I'm not suggesting for a minute that there are young children who look out for the particular colours and flavours of vegetables so that they might turn their noses up, saying "why can't we have chips? Veg is horrible!") 

On the other hand, light mashing means the vegetables maintain some of their texture and structure, allowing their presence to be discerned. Bubble and Squeak (sometimes simply called "bubble") makes a pleasing accompaniment to an undemanding dinner on a Monday night. Just what you need after getting over the first day of the week and the rigours of going back to work after the weekend. 

My thought was why not put these two iconic dishes together? Oozy stewed beef mince and baked mix mash topping. Healthy, comforting and cheap. If you were to make double the quantity of the filling, you could cook one batch and freeze the other so that you can save time on a weekday night. 

As Del Boy (from Only Fools and Horses) might say "lovely jubbly!". Del, that famous denizen of Peckham, which is just down the road from me, is the inspiration for the name of the dish.

Lovely Bubbly Cottage Pie

You will need:

An oven proof dish to cook the pie in.

A baking sheet to make taking the oven proof dish out of the oven at the end much easier.

A saucepan for making the filling.

A saucepan for boiling the bubble topping vegetables.

Serves 4 people as a main

Ingredients

For the Bubble and Squeak topping:

3-4 potatoes (depending on size), peeled and cooked

1 handful each of the following cooked vegetables:

cauliflower

broccoli

swede

carrot

(can be replaced with most leftover veg from Sunday lunch)

50g butter

A dribble (around 1 tbsp) of milk

For the Cottage Pie filling:

500g beef mince

1 carrot, very finely diced

1 onion, finely diced

1 clove of garlic, crushed

1 tbsp tomato puree

1 tbsp Worcester sauce

1 tbsp Mushroom Ketchup (optional)

300ml hot beef stock

1 tbsp beef gravy granules stirred into the stock

Olive oil for frying; between 1 tbsp and 2 tbsp

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160 deg C (fan oven setting), or I would estimate that 180 deg C on a non-fan setting would be equivalent. 

2. If you have not cooked your Bubble and Squeak topping vegetables, including the potatoes, then cook them now.

3. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan. 

4. Add the onion and carrot. Fry, without browning, for 5 minutes, stirring to prevent sticking. 

5. Add the crushed garlic, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes, lowering the heat if needed to prevent the garlic burning.

6. The beef mince should go in now, and the heat may need to be raised to help the meat change colour. The beef should be browned all over.

7. All the liquid ingredients should then be added (stock with gravy granules, tomato puree, Worcester sauce, mushroom ketchup). Stir thoroughly.

8. Turn the heat down to a simmer. Allow to simmer for 15-20 minutes. 

9. Mash up the vegetables for the bubble topping to whatever consistency you prefer. 

10. Put the oven proof dish on the baking sheet. Empty the simmered beef filling into the oven proof dish. 

11. Now you will need to top the beef with the mashed bubble topping. Take care and don't be heavy handed or it will sink to the bottom. If you are better at presentation than I am, do feel free to use a piping bag to pipe out onto the top of the pie. Smooth out as best as you can if you are not using a piping bag. 

12. Put into the hot oven for 30 minutues, plus another 5 if needed. 

Serve and enjoy!

Thai style salad with stewed beef

Thai salads are spicy, fresh tasting and glorious. They are vibrant, colourful and full of flavour. Seared beef is a common Thai salad ingredient. We love to have a hot, fiery, fresh tasting seared beef salad every now and then. Other than the preparation of the salad ingredients, is a swift and easy weekday supper. 

But every now and then you crave something a little different. As we are still in the middle of Winter, we've been enjoying lots of casseroles, curries and stews with slow cooked and tender meat. So we got to thinking, what would a Thai salad be like with a slow cooked and tender beef instead of quickly seared?

This dish was the result of our experimentation. Much of the credit goes to Him Indoors, my stalwart life partner and joint head chef. I don't profess to say that this dish is authentic. Hence the "Thai style" moniker. It is an imagining of a Thai salad with a few twists. The first being the slow cooked beef. The second being the dressing, which although it includes a number of classic Thai ingredients, would be highly unlikely to include Oyster Sauce. It was chosen as it so beautifully complements beef.

This recipe will require overnight marinading. So please note that there are definite stages to this recipe. Stage one is the marinading overnight, so you need to plan ahead. Then there is the second stage, the stewing, which will take a fair amount of time. Then the third is preparing the salad and dressing. You will need to plan when you want to make this dish accordingly.

Hopefully you will like this new recipe. Please get in touch with your impressions, thoughts and feedback in the comments below.

Happy cooking and happy eating!

Thai style salad with stewed beef

Serves 2

Ingredients:

350g sirloin steak cut into 1" (2.5cm) cubes

For the beef marinade:

1 stick lemongrass, peeled and very finely sliced

50ml fish sauce

For the beef stew:

1 stick lemongrass, peeled and cut into chunks of 1" (2.5cm)

1 birds eye chilli, chopped

1 400ml can coconut milk

For the salad:

8 cherry tomatoes, halved

1 yellow pepper cut into slices/chunks

a handful of fresh coriander leaves, chopped roughly

a handful of fresh mint leaves, chopped roughly

1 to 2 Thai shallots, sliced finely

For the dressing:

1 lime, juiced

1 birds eye chilli, chopped finely (deseeded if you don't like your food too hot)

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tbsp fish sauce

1 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce

1 1/2 tbsp palm sugar, crushed/ground

Method:

Prepare your beef by cutting to size and then marinading overnight with the fish sauce and lemongrass in the fridge in a non-metallic container. A plastic sealable container would be perfect.

The next day, drain away the marinade and discard the first stick of lemongrass. Put in a saucepan with the second stick of lemongrass, the chilli and the contents of the can of coconut milk. 

Put on the hob and cook on a simmer for 40 minutes. 

Drain away the coconut milk and pick out the lemongrass. 

Prepare your dressing, ensuring it is thoroughly mixed. The oyster sauce and palm sugar will be difficult to mix. Either whisk up or put in a jar and shake vigourously. Leave for 10 minutes or so for the flavours to combine.

Assemble the salad, by mixing up the tomatoes, red onion, peppers and herbs, piling the beef on top and then dressing.

Enjoy immediately before the herbs get soggy.