COTTAGE PIE RECIPE
(because one Nostrich asked)
This is a basic recipe that lets you build on it according to your taste, but more at the end of the post. Also, it is perfectly fine just as it is, and you should try it like this for the first time, if you are a beginner.
The Cottage Pie has two components, the purée, or mashed potatoes, and the ragu.
For the mashed potatoes:
A pot with water and salt
1 kg potatoes
100 g butter
100 ml milk
100g Parmesan
Salt & pepper
For the Ragu:
800 g ground beef
2 carrots
1 onion
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
A glass of red wine or dark beer (usually Guinness)
Peel your potatoes, cut them into cubes, and put them to boil. (You can be sure they're ready with the toothpick test. If it goes in without resistance, they're ready.)
In a pan, on medium heat, put some oil/fat/ghee/whatever and then the ground beef. Stir it because it's easy to burn it. After it gets a nice colour that shows you that it's cooked, make a hole in the middle and add the tomato paste directly on the bottom of the pan. With circular moves, slowly incorporate it into the ground beef. Now add the grated/finely chopped vegetables (carrots, onion, garlic), salt and pepper to taste, and stir to incorporate for a few minutes.
Add the wine/beer and let it simmer for 15 - 20 minutes, on low heat, and stir once in a while until most of the liquid has evaporated.
When it's ready, put the meat in a wider pot (cast iron in my picture, but you can use anything that's fine in the oven), and spread it uniformly.
When the potatoes are ready, put them in a sieve for a bit, and then move them to a bowl and add the butter, milk, and grated Parmesan. Mash them well, and add a bit more milk and butter if the potatoes are too dry. Parmesan, you can put more if it's to your taste, and you can use any similar dry cheese (Comte, Pecorino, etc.).
Now add the mashed potatoes on top of the meat, level up, add more grated Parmesan on top, and put it in the preheated oven at 180°C for 20 minutes. That's it!
If later you want to improve your recipe, here are a few small suggestions. In the oil/ghee used for ragu, you can add while heating it up a small branch of thyme, which you'll remove before adding the meat; in ragu, you can add green peas; in the mashed potatoes you can finely grate a quarter of nutmeg. Next time I'll make the French version, Hachis Parmentier, and I'll take more than one picture for more details.
Until then, bon appétit!
CC: @Blue
This is a basic recipe that lets you build on it according to your taste, but more at the end of the post. Also, it is perfectly fine just as it is, and you should try it like this for the first time, if you are a beginner.
The Cottage Pie has two components, the purée, or mashed potatoes, and the ragu.
For the mashed potatoes:
A pot with water and salt
1 kg potatoes
100 g butter
100 ml milk
100g Parmesan
Salt & pepper
For the Ragu:
800 g ground beef
2 carrots
1 onion
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
A glass of red wine or dark beer (usually Guinness)
Peel your potatoes, cut them into cubes, and put them to boil. (You can be sure they're ready with the toothpick test. If it goes in without resistance, they're ready.)
In a pan, on medium heat, put some oil/fat/ghee/whatever and then the ground beef. Stir it because it's easy to burn it. After it gets a nice colour that shows you that it's cooked, make a hole in the middle and add the tomato paste directly on the bottom of the pan. With circular moves, slowly incorporate it into the ground beef. Now add the grated/finely chopped vegetables (carrots, onion, garlic), salt and pepper to taste, and stir to incorporate for a few minutes.
Add the wine/beer and let it simmer for 15 - 20 minutes, on low heat, and stir once in a while until most of the liquid has evaporated.
When it's ready, put the meat in a wider pot (cast iron in my picture, but you can use anything that's fine in the oven), and spread it uniformly.
When the potatoes are ready, put them in a sieve for a bit, and then move them to a bowl and add the butter, milk, and grated Parmesan. Mash them well, and add a bit more milk and butter if the potatoes are too dry. Parmesan, you can put more if it's to your taste, and you can use any similar dry cheese (Comte, Pecorino, etc.).
Now add the mashed potatoes on top of the meat, level up, add more grated Parmesan on top, and put it in the preheated oven at 180°C for 20 minutes. That's it!
If later you want to improve your recipe, here are a few small suggestions. In the oil/ghee used for ragu, you can add while heating it up a small branch of thyme, which you'll remove before adding the meat; in ragu, you can add green peas; in the mashed potatoes you can finely grate a quarter of nutmeg. Next time I'll make the French version, Hachis Parmentier, and I'll take more than one picture for more details.
Until then, bon appétit!
CC: @Blue
Making the jam is a breeze, the only possible inconvenience is when you sterilise the jars.
The rule of thumb is that after you clean the very ripe fruits from damaged parts, seeds, stems and whatever else that you don't want in your jam, add sugar 15% of that quantity. Of course, sweetness differs, and your taste, but that's only for you to decide. I use 15% and that's it.
First of all, put the jars and the lids in the dishwasher. For that, I will assume that most programs are about 30 minutes, you don't need more than that.
Then, put the fruits in a pot, chopped to your desired size if that's the case (you don't chop blueberries, for example, but you chop apples). Heat medium to low, stir every few minutes with a wooden spoon. After some juice appears in the pot, add the sugar and mix. The total time is between 60 and 90 minutes, you decide what consistency is to your taste. After you add the sugar, be careful when it boils because that stuff on your skin burns hard, reduce the heat if it jumps everywhere, because we don't need to hurry the process.
Now take out the wet jars and lids from the dishwasher, and put them on a tray in the unheated oven at a medium height. Turn on the oven at 100°C, and you know they're ready when all the water drops have evaporated. When that happens, open the oven's door a few centimetres, turn the heat off, and leave it like this until you finish the jam.
[Right after I turn the heat on, and a few minutes before I consider the jam ready, I add about 30 ml, each time, of Amaretto, Schnapps, etc. If you desire to do the same, take it into account.]
After the jam got to the desired consistency, it's time to put it in jars. Careful, because everything is hot. Also, use only a clean cloth to move the jars while not touching the inside with anything other than the jam (we need them to be sterile). After you fill them with jam, screw the lid while pressing its centre down, and put them like this in the warm/hot oven until everything cools off (overnight is fine too).
That was it. I recommend verifying them every few weeks, because it might happen for a jar to not be properly closed, especially if you use older lids. Have fun and enjoy!
CC: 
