This week, thanks to our friends at eatlove.com.au, we're featuring a warming cottage pie by Matthew Evans, from his book Winter on the Farm (Murdoch Books) which came out of his series on SBS, The Gourmet Farmer.  

The secret to making this cottage pie memorable is frying the onion to brown without burning it, and using good-quality beef mince, which doesn't mean lean. I don't add tomato paste to my cottage pie, letting the meat speak for itself.

Ingredients (serves 8)
Savoury mince:
50 g (1¾ oz) butter
3 large onions
1 kg (2 lb 4 oz) (ground) beef
3 thyme sprigs
1 bay leaf
60 ml (2 fl oz/¼ cup) worcestershire sauce
500 ml (17 fl oz/2 cups) beef stock

Potato topping:
1 kg (2 lb 4 oz) floury potatoes
250 g (9 oz/2½ cups) cheddar cheese
100 g (3½ oz) butter
2 tablespoons English mustard
2 teaspoons horseradish

Preparation
To make the savoury mince, heat the butter in a large heavy-based frying pan over medium heat and cook the onion until it starts to brown. Add the meat, a little at a time, and cook for about 3–4 minutes — ideally you want the meat to brown without the onion burning, but usually mince is hard to colour because it sweats and boils before it has a chance to brown. It's more important to get the onions to brown than the meat in this dish, but if you can do both, even better. Add the thyme, bay leaf and worcestershire sauce and cook for 1–2 minutes, then pour in the stock and bring to the boil. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for at least 40 minutes, preferably 1 hour. Stir occasionally to stop it sticking to the pan and add a little more stock if it's getting too dry. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper (remember the cheese in the mash on top is a little salty), then pour into a 2 litre (70 fl oz/8 cup) capacity casserole dish.

To make the potato topping, preheat the oven to 200°C (400ºF/Gas 6). Steam or boil the whole potatoes until tender. Drain, peel, then mash well. Add the cheese, butter, mustard and horseradish and stir to combine; some potatoes may need a little milk, but I usually don't bother.

Spread the mashed potato over the mince in the casserole dish and scrape the top with a fork or similar to get lots of peaks and troughs — these will caramelise during cooking and add more flavour. Bake the cottage pie in the centre of the oven for about 30 minutes, or until the pie is browned and starting to bubble up from the edges.

See more at eatlove.com.au where you can follow your favourite chefs, share their recipes and buy their books.