GREEK STYLE SHEPHERD'S PIE

Arabella has been asking to have cottage pie for a while and so I decided this was a great dish to make for Pascal's welcome home supper. However me being me, wanted to make it with a twist and I found the perfect recipe in Fay Ripley's latest book. It was right up my street as I love Greek food and anything with feta. I was a little worried Arabella wouldn't like me messing with a classic, but I couldn't have been more wrong.

Ingredients for 4 people:

1 red onion
Olive oil
500g lean minced lamb
2 tsp dried oregano
3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 red pepper, deseeded and chopped
200ml of red wine (change to stock if not using - I used stock)
300ml beef stock
2 tbsp tomato puree
70g black pitted Greek olives (Kalamata)

Mash
800g potatoes, peeled and diced
2 tbsp olive oil
juice of half a lemon
30g bunch of fresh mint leaves, chopped
120g feta, crumbled

Preheat the oven to 180 C fan / 200 C / gas mark 6.

First of all start preparing the mash by peeling and dicing the potatoes. Next bring them to the boil in a large saucepan of salted water and finally simmer for 20 minutes (it doesn't matter if you go slightly over this time - I did as I was busying cooking the mince).

Meanwhile in a large non stick frying pan, fry the onion in some olive oil for 5 minutes.

Then add the lamb and cook this until it turns brown - it should take another 5 minutes.

Next mix in the oregano, garlic and chopped red pepper and once again cook for 5 minutes.

Now add the wine or 200ml of stock and let it bubble away over a high heat for 5 minutes.

Pour in the remainder of the stock and add the tomato puree. Cook for around 10 minutes so the stock reduces (you don't want too much liquid).

Finally add the olives!

Transfer the lamb mixture into a medium sized oven dish around 3 litres - I have no idea what size mine was!

At the same time this was cooking, I also made the mash topping. Once the potatoes were cooked, drain and then transfer to a big bowl.

Mash (I added a chunk of butter to help the process although this is entirely optional) and then stir through the olive oil, lemon juice and chopped mint. (To easily chop the mint into small pieces I put the leaves in a mug and then used scissors - a great tip/trick).

Crumble in chunks of feta, season well and mix again.

Finally fork the mash roughly on top of the mince and bake for 30-40 minutes (I did 40 minutes).

This was totally unbelievably good! Wow! We ate the whole lot between the 3 of us as we all had seconds - even Arabella. It was excellent. I am just gutted there were no leftovers as I cannot wait to have this again. Definitely a great dinner party dish - you can easily cook it the day before and then pop it in the fridge (just cook for an extra 15 minutes on the day).

A perfect meal as it was then followed by my millionaire's shortbread. I am proud to say that both Arabella and Pascal were very impressed and in fact so was I.

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