NIC WILLIAMS

Traditionally cottage and shepherd’s pies were made with left over roast meat, not with mince and were completely lined with potato, not just topped with it. Their names were also interchangeable. In recent years we’ve associated shepherd’s pies with lamb as shepherds look after their sheep.

While this recipe uses a whole leg of lamb, you could scale down the recipe and make it with left overs from a Sunday lunch.

Ingredients

• 1 slow roasted leg of lamb - see our recipe, approx. 2Kg
• 2 tbsp reserved lamb fat from the roasted lamb
• Maldon salt and black pepper
• 4 red onions
• 3 large carrots
• 1 medium swede
• 2 sticks of celery (optional)
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 2Kg potatoes - fluffy ones, Maris Piper for example
• 50g salted butter
• Cheddar cheese

Method

1. Pull the lamb from the bones and roughly chop it and the skin. Keep the bones.
2. Setup your EGG with a direct heat at 200C.
3. Dice the onions, carrots, celery and sweet and add to a large heavy duty baking tray that will fit your egg. 
4. Season with salt and black pepper.
5. Add the lamb fat and put the whole pan into the EGG. Cook with the lid down but stir every 5 minutes to stop the veg burning until the veg is cooked through and golden. 
6. Add the flour as the veg is browned and cook for a further 2 mins. 
7. Setup your EGG for an indirect cook (add the plate setter feet up and the stainless steel grid). 
8. Add the meat, bones and any juices (not fat) left from the cooking of the lamb to the roasting tray with the veg. 
9. Pour over 1.5 litres of water. 
10. Return the pan to the EGG and cook for 1 hour at 180C. 
11. Meanwhile prepare mashed potato using the potato and butter. Let this cool.
12. In a large dish coat the bottom and sides with the mashed potato, about 1cm thick. 
13. When the lamb mix has cooked, remove the bones and using a sieve strain off some of the juices, keeping it to serve with your cooked pie later as a gravy. 
14. Add the strained meat and veg to the pie. You might not need all the mixture but you can save some and freeze it.
15. Top the pie with the last of the mash, fork to roughen up the potato and grate on some cheddar. 
16. Return the pie to the EGG. At this stage you could add a few wood chips to the charcoal if you wanted a slightly smoky flavour. 
17. Cook for 1.5 hours at 180C. 
18. Serve with some vegetables and the reserved gravy.

Tips

Add a few wood chips for some smoke while the finished pie is cooking.