Your recipe for a good cottage pie

Also, for corned beef hash, never made this before , but would like to try it.

Mince leftover meat. Slice onions and carrots and microwave cook them. Add to dish with Oxo/bistro/cornflour gravy. Cut up spuds. Cook in other microwave. Mash them well.. Spread on top. Add bits marg. Half hour-ish in hot oven.

Never mad pe corned beef hash. Don actually know what it is.

Sigh! Can you work out what that last line was supposed to say?

(that is a very simple cottage pie, but DH loves it)

Mince leftover beef with onions, clove of garlic, celery and carrot. Fry lightly in tablespoon of olive oil. Add two or three peeled and chopped tomatoes, fresh thyme and bayleaf and home-made stock. Cook for about 45 minutes. Make cauliflower or celeriac mash with half an ounce of butter and top with tablespoon grated cheese. Brown in oven.

Or buy a nice one from Waitrose.

Gently fry chopped onions in large deep frying pan with lid. Add fresh minced steak or beef (5% fat). Fry until browned. Add gf beef stock cube dissolved in water and some herbs (dried or fresh) cook the beef until tender. Thicken with cornflour or mix of cornflour and Bisto powder (not those greasy granules). For gf version use more cornflour or gf plain flour and add a little gravy browning to colour. Season to taste.
Put in ovenproof dish
Meanwhile, cook potatoes, drain, mash with butter and a little milk, season to taste and put on to meat, forking the top.
Or a mixture of potato and parsnips, mashed
Or sweet potato, mashed.

Grated cheese on top optional

Bake in the oven until nicely browned.

For Shepherd's Pie use fresh shepherds lamb minced.

Corned beef hash - chopped onions, gently fried, diced boiled potatoes, peas, cubed corned beef. Microwave. DH likes it, I don't, so this is a quick and easy option for him which I devised myself.

Minced beef, onions, carrots, tin of tomatoes, stock cube, water and s&p cooked until tender approx 45 mins. Put in dish, top with mashed pots. Put in oven until pots are brown. Or if in hurry brown under grill.
Like the idea of using mashed cauliflower or celeriac, will try that

You have two microwaves, Jingl? I have only one, which doubles up as a bread bin in my tiny kitchen.

Parsnip or Swede also make a very nice topping for Shepherds Pie. I put in whatever I have way of veg. herbs, and sometimes a little bit of sausage if you have a couple left over from anything.
Corned Beef Hash is lovely with baked beans and fried egg. Very bad for you of course.

I have three microwaves. I'm a great believer in microwave cooking. Preserves flavours and vitamins.

Peel and boil spuds
Meanwhile brown mince in a pan add a jar of Homepride cottage pie sauce. Put mince in oven proof dish.
Mash the spuds with butter and a little milk
Spread over the mince sprinkle with grated cheese and put in oven for 40 mins.
?? ( I do do it from scratch too)

I have tried it with chopped carrots in with the mince and even a layer of mashed carrot between meat and potato - I like that but DH doesn't. Even a variation on mashed potato on the top brings forth a sometimes
So veg are served on the side.

Just had it for tea. I cook the mince in the pressure cooker with carrots, mushrooms, a couple of beef stock cubes and occasionally a few sticks of chopped celery. Drain and put liquid aside to make the gravy and put meat in a dish then cover with mashed potato and cheese then brown under the grill. I've also put a layer of mashed swede under the potato. Lots of black pepper and thick gravy - yummy!

Thank you all for responding, have made notes!
I make it with fresh beef good quality minced beef, gently fried in a spoonful of olive oil, chop some carrots thinly and soften in microwave and add to meat, ditto some chopped onion cooked first ( in microwave) then add a sachet of Colman's cottage pie recipe mix to 300 ml of cold water, stir well and add to meat and veg then cook for about 15 mins on high. It all thickens nicely, when ready tip into a flat pyrex dish and top with mashed potato ( made earlier!) Then sprinkle with pepper and grated cheese and a half hour in hot -ish oven until brown and bubbling.This gives a good cottage pie, but I will be trying out other ways now, as DH likes this in colder weather.

All of the above methods
But don't forget to add a very important ingredient
'Worcester sauce'

have never bought this item! Am I missing a treat?

I do this one for corned beef hash.It was a Waitrose recipe card years ago. I don't bother topping it with an egg

Corned beef, sweetcorn and red onion hash

Great family supper

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Total time: 45 minutes
Serves: 4

Ingredients

1 large red onion, finely chopped
340g can corned beef
330g can essential Waitrose Sweetcorn, drained
½ x 20g pack flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 tbsp Cooks’ Ingredients Chilli Sauce
500g pack Charlotte potatoes, halved
2 tbsp olive oil
Method

Cook the potatoes in a large pan of boiling water for 12–15 minutes until just tender. Meanwhile, heat half the oil in a frying pan, add the onion and cook for 5 minutes until soft but not browned. Drain the potatoes and leave until cool enough to handle before cutting them in half again.
Mix the potatoes, onion, corned beef, sweetcorn, parsley, chilli sauce and seasoning together in a mixing bowl. Heat the remaining oil in a large non-stick frying pan; add the corned beef mixture and cook, stirring, over a medium heat until the mixture starts to brown and the potatoes crisp up.
Preheat the grill. Pat the hash mixture into a flat-cake shape and fry the base over a high heat for a couple of minutes. Then place the pan under the grill for 3–4 minutes to brown the top. Serve with green beans.

stansgran that sounds so delicious, am def going to try that one out.

Gently soften chopped onions, carrots and celery in olive oil. Turn up the heat and brown mince. Add red wine, redcurrant jelly, Yorkshire relish ( or Worcester sauce) chopped rosemary, chopped anchovies and a squirt of tomato puree - simmer for short-time. Add stock and gently simmer, partially covered, for 40 minutes or so.

Cover with bought mash to which has been added butter and grated nutmeg. Top with grated cheese and bake. I usually make this with 5lb of mince and freeze in portions

If you mean Worcester sauce, Rosesarered
Yes you are!
Lovely on cheese on toast.

This is the shepherd's pie I make. Sauté a chopped onion until soft, add one pound of good quality minced beef and brown. Stir in a tin of Campbell's condensed cream of mushroom soup, a little water (just under quarter of a pint should do it - I judge it by eye, but you don't want to thin it down too much), and an oxo cube. Simmer until the meat is tender, stirring occasionally to prevent it sticking, top with mashed potato and sprinkle with grated cheese. Cook in oven at 160 degrees until top is browned. You may see it bubble at the edge a bit. The filling is very creamy and savoury. You could put chopped celery and carrot in at the onion stage if you like.

Sometimes I vary....

1 Add baked beans to the basic beef/saute onions base.
2 Add a dollop of HP sauce (also add this to beef stew)
3 Add a splash of Worcestershire Sauce.
By the way, Worc Sauce and grated cheese is lovely on beans on toast.

I must be the only person on here to make cottage pie without onions!
A very simple cottage pie for me is either good quality minced beef dry fried in a wok, or leftover roast beef finely chopped.
Add to either of these a packet of Batchelor's oxtail cup-a-soup made with half the amount of liquid stated - if this doesn't thicken straight from the kettle, then pop in the microwave for 20 seconds or so before stirring into the meat.
Put meat mixture into casserole dish and top with creamy mashed potato. Dot with butter and bake for around half an hour at gas mark 5.
I sometimes add a selection of veg, or a tin of baked beans (or half a tin depending on size of cottage pie)