Shepherd's Pie

An English classic adapted to the slow cooker

Traditionally Shepard's pie is made with just lamb and cottage pie is with beef. However, I have combined the two mostly due to be resourceful with what I had leftover but also gave an extra tasty twist.

You can make this using beef mince, leftover beef joint, lamb mince or leftover lamb joint. My lamb was left over from my slow cooker stuffed lamb roast recipe (see the recipe here) and then I also used some beef mince.

I added petit pois and carrots to get in my veggies but these are optional.

Ingredients

Serves 6

• 500g lamb, chopped (unless using mince)

• 500g beef, chopped (unless using mince)

• 2 white onions, diced

• 4 carrots, diced

• 200g passata

• beef stock cube

• 200g peas or petit pois

• 4-6 potatoes

• dash of milk

• knob of butter

• mustard (optional)

Directions

1. Heat a little oil in the pan and fry of the meat until brown until and add to slow cooker

2. Add onions, carrots, peas, passata, 200ml water and crumble in the stock cube

3. Cook on low for 7 hours or 3 hours on high

4. About an hour before the slow cooker is done, make the mash by peeling the potatoes and cutting into small chunks. Boil in water for around 45-50 mins (until soft), drain of the water and out potatoes in a bowl. Mash up the potatoes and then add in the milk, butter, seasoning and mustard (optional) and mix together.

5. Add the potato on top of the slow cooker mix and top with some cheese and cook for another hour on low or 30 mins on high. If you would like it to be crispy on top then finish off in the oven for 15 mins at the end (which is what I did)