Shepherd's pie, cottage pie, or in French cuisine hachis Parmentier, is a savoury dish of cooked minced meat topped with mashed potato and baked, also called Sanders or Saunders. The meat used may be either previously cooked or freshly minced. The usual meats are beef or lamb. The terms shepherd's pie and cottage pie have been used interchangeably since they came into use in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, although some writers insist that a shepherd's pie should contain lamb or mutton, and a cottage pie, beef.

History

Cottage pie

The term was in use by 1791. Parson Woodforde mentions "Cottage-Pye" in his diary entry for 29 August 1791 and several times thereafter. He records that the meat was veal but does not say what the topping was. The dish was known in its present form, though not under the same name, in the early 19th century: in 1806 Maria Rundell published a recipe for "Sanders", consisting of the same ingredients as cottage or shepherd's pie: minced beef or mutton, with onion and gravy, topped with mashed potato and baked as individual servings. Sanders or Saunders could also have a filling of sliced meat. The name "Saunders" is still used in some cookery books.

In 20th-century and later use the term cottage pie has widely, but not exclusively, been used for a dish of chopped or minced beef with a mashed potato topping. The beef may be fresh or previously cooked; the latter was at one time more usual. Well into the 20th century the absence of refrigeration made it expedient in many domestic kitchens to store cooked meat rather than raw. In the 1940s the chef Louis Diat recalled of his childhood days, "when housewives bought their Sunday meat they selected pieces large enough to make into leftover dishes for several days". Modern recipes for cottage pie typically use fresh beef.

Shepherd's pie

A recipe for shepherd's pie published in Edinburgh in 1849 in The Practice of Cookery and Pastry specifies cooked meat of any kind, sliced rather than minced, covered with mashed potato and baked. In the 1850s the term was also used for a Scottish dish that contained a mutton and diced potato filling inside a pastry crust. Neither shepherd's pie nor cottage pie was mentioned in the original edition of Mrs Beeton's Household Management in 1861.

More recently "shepherd's pie" has generally been used for a potato-topped dish of minced lamb. According to the Oxford Companion to Food, "In keeping with the name, the meat should be mutton or lamb; and it is usually cooked meat left over from a roast". As with beef, it was commonplace in the days before refrigeration to cook a Sunday joint to last in various guises throughout the week. Dorothy Hartley quotes a traditional verse, "Vicarage mutton", showing not only the uses to which the joint was put, but also the interchangeability of the terms "shepherd's" and "cottage" pie:

Hachis Parmentier

The dish Hachis Parmentier is named after Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, who popularised the potato in French cuisine in the late 18th century. It is documented from the late 19th century. It is usually made with chopped or minced lamb or beef; in either case it may be made with either fresh or left-over cooked meat. (The modern English term "hash" derives from the French hachis, meaning food "finely chopped".)

In some recipes a layer of sauté potatoes is put in the cooking dish before the meat filling and mashed potato topping are added. A more elaborate version by Auguste Escoffier, named Hachis de boeuf à Parmentier, consists of baked potatoes, the contents of which are removed, mixed with freshly-cooked diced beef, returned to the potato shells and covered with sauce lyonnaise.

Variations

There are no universally agreed ingredients for any of the three dishes. The 24 recipes cited in the table show the varieties of titles and ingredients recommended by cooks and food writers from Australia, Britain, Canada, France and the US.

Cook/writer	Name of dish	Meat used	Fresh or left-over	Ref
Mary Berry	Cottage pie	Beef	Fresh
Mère Biasin	Hachis Parmentier	Lamb	Left-over boiled
Paul Bocuse	Hachis Parmentier	Beef	Left-over boiled
Robert Carrier	Cottage pie	Beef	Fresh
Felicity Cloake	Cottage pie	Beef	Fresh, chopped, not minced
Jean-Pierre Coffe	Hachis Parmentier	Beef	Left-over boiled, mixed with fresh calves' liver
Elizabeth Craig	Shepherd's pie	Lamb	Left-over casseroled
Jane Grigson	Shepherd's pie	Beef or lamb	Fresh
Michel Guérard	Hachis Parmentier	Veal sweetbreads and duck gizzards	Fresh
Mark Hix	Shepherd's pie	Beef and lamb	Fresh
Graham Kerr	Cottage pie	Beef	Fresh
Tom Kerridge	Cottage pie	Beef	Fresh
Jean Paré	Hachis Parmentier	Beef	Fresh
Henri-Paul Pellaprat	Hachis Parmentier	Beef	Left-over
Gordon Ramsay	Shepherd's pie	Lamb	Fresh
Jay Rayner	Cottage pie	Beef and pork	Fresh
Gary Rhodes	Shepherd's pie	Lamb	Fresh
Michel Roux, Jr.	Hachis Parmentier	Lamb	Left-over roast
Madame Saint-Ange	Hachis de bœuf au gratin	Beef	Left-over
Joan Schwartz	Shepherd's pie	Lamb	Fresh
Delia Smith	Cottage pie	Beef	Fresh
Martha Stewart	Shepherd's pie	Beef	Fresh
John Torode	Cottage pie	Beef	Fresh
Anne Willan	Hachis Parmentier	Beef	Fresh

Similar dishes

Fillings for other pies with a mashed potato topping are numerous, and include artichoke hearts and red peppers; black pudding; chicken and spinach; chorizo; curried chicken; duck; rabbit; salmon; salt cod; turkey and ham; and flaked white fish with shrimps, in a white sauce.

Other pies with non-pastry toppings include:

Name of dish	Place of origin	Description	Ref
Cumberland pie	England	Pies of this name exist in two versions: traditional Cumberland pies, still served in Cumbria, have a pastry case, but others have a lamb or beef or pork-sausage filling covered by mashed potato topped with cheese and breadcrumbs.
Empadão	Portugal	Meat, often veal, stewed in a tomato-based gravy and layered several times between mashed potatoes. Poultry or fish is sometimes used instead of meat
Escondidinho	Brazil	The name, indicating "hidden", describes the way sun-dried meat is covered with a layer of manioc purée. The dish often includes cheese and chicken; cod is sometimes used instead of beef.
Pastel de carne	Uruguay	The filling is similar to that of a cottage pie, with the addition of sliced hard-boiled eggs.
Pastel de papas	Argentina, Chile	Similar to cottage pie; may also contain peppers.
Pastel tutup	Indonesia	Made with any of several meats, with vegetables such as carrots and green peas and boiled eggs, all topped with mashed potato.
Pâté chinois	Canada	Also known in Canada as shepherd's pie, consisting of a bottom layer of beef, a middle layer of creamed sweetcorn, topped with mashed potato.
Pióg an aoire	Ireland	The Irish for shepherd's pie.
Shepherdess pie	Other	Also called shepherdless pie: a vegetarian version made without meat, or a vegan version made without meat and dairy.

See also

Notes, references and sources