Shepherd's Pie vs. Cottage Pie

Did you realize there’s a difference between Shepherd’s Pie and Cottage Pie? Neither did I, at least not until this week. And I learned that my favorite childhood dinner was NOT Shepherd’s Pie but Cottage Pie! Apparently the difference depends upon whether it’s made with beef or lamb. (That makes sense – shepherds take care of lambs.) Also, Shepherd’s Pie is Irish and Cottage Pie is English; I’m both so either one is fine with me. However, when I decided to use our leftover Easter lamb in a meat pie, we really were having Shepherd’s Pie, and all the other times I made meat pie with ground beef, I should have called it Cottage Pie. Now you’ve been educated and you don’t have to make the same mistake.

Food chain time – A delicious lunch made by plopping some leftover green beans over the leftover Shepherd’s Pie, which was made using onions and broth leftover from our Crockpot Pork Roast along with the lamb from our Easter feast.

This all came about when I first served that Shepherd's Pie after Easter. It’s not one of Wayne’s favorite meals, but it is one of mine, so every so often I make it. (Our first dinner using leftovers was Lamb Curry; he does really like that.) Soon after he came across an article with several recipes, and learned the aforementioned difference. He likes experimenting with new recipes, so over the next several weeks we’ll give these a try and let you know which one is our favorite. You can always tell us which one you like best as well!

• Shepherd’s Pie with Cheese and Carrot Mashed Potatoes

• Shepherd’s Pie with Sliced Potato Crust

• Shepherd’s Pie with Sweet Potato Mash

• Cottage Pie with Potato Crust

The people at Southern Living aren’t as smart as you are now, because even though only one of these recipes is called Cottage Pie, they’re all made with beef. I don’t know if I’ll be a fan of sweet potatoes on my meat pie, but we’ll let you know. It also looks like there’s not much difference between these four recipes; figuring that out for sure will be part of our experiment! (Results are here.)