Everyone has their own recipe for cottage pie, which is a comforting family staple meal for many. Though cottage pie is usually made using minced beef, this version uses leftover roast beef, which is traditionally how it would have been cooked.

Serves 4

Adapted from BBC Good Food

Ingredients

For the filling

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 500g leftover roast beef or lamb, diced.
• 1 carrot, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 onions, chopped
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 1 bay leaf
• large pinch dried thyme
• 1 tbsp ketchup
• 1 tbsp tomato purée
• generous splash Worcestershire sauce
• 150ml dark ale
• 600ml beef stock made with 1 stock cubes or pots

For the topping

• 750g potatoes, unpeeled and kept whole
• 50ml milk
• 25g butter
• 1 tsp English mustard powder

Instructions

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the carrots and onion and cook until lightly browned. Add the meat to the pan and sprinkle over the flour. Cook for a further 2 mins. Stir in the herbs, ketchup and tomato purée, and splash in the Worcestershire sauce. Pour in the ale, bubble for a minute, then gradually stir in the stock. Leave everything to simmer gently for 1 hr until you have a tender meat in a rich gravy.
2. Use a slotted spoon to lift the meat and vegetables into a large baking dish, leaving the residual gravy in the pan. Drain the gravy through a sieve into another saucepan, then tip what remains in the sieve back into the baking dish.
3. While the meat sauce is cooling, make the potato topping. Tip the potatoes, whole and in their skins, into a large pan of salted water. Bring the pan to the boil and simmer for 15 mins until the potatoes are cooked all the way through. Drain off the water and leave until the potatoes are just cool enough to handle. Meanwhile, boil the milk, butter and mustard powder together in a large saucepan. Peel the cooked potatoes by rubbing their skins off with a tea towel. Mash or pass the potatoes through a ricer into the hot milk and butter and season with salt and pepper.
4. When the meat sauce has cooled, top with the mash. Start from the outside and use a spatula to scrape the mash against the side of the dish, then spread it over the middle of the dish. Using a fork, make lines across the topping.
5. Heat oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5. Put the pie on a large baking tray to catch any drips and bake for 30-35 mins until golden. Leave it to rest for at least 10 mins while you heat up the extra gravy. Serve the pie at the table with green vegetables and the jug of extra gravy for pouring over.