Weekend Cooking: Allotment Cottage Pie

We are currently trying to do one meat free dinner every week. We are also watching Jamie Oliver's Keep Cooking and Carry On series which is on at the moment. The idea is that he gives satisfying meal recipes but also along the way gives lots of tips about how you can swap ingredients based on what is available in your pantry (or in the shops back when we were seeing shortages).  For example, in the recipe below, we swapped out dried porcini mushrooms for brown mushrooms and we used Vegemite instead of Marmite. We are, however, such bad Australians that we didn't even have any Vegemite in the cupboard (because it is horrible, horrible stuff) so we had to go and buy some just for this recipe. Oh, and we used dried lentils instead of a can. A lot of the series is actually filmed by his wife in their house rather than the usual slick production values he would have

So this week's recipe is a meat free cottage pie (link to recipe). It has been quite cool here, so a hearty cottage pie was perfect for a Monday night dinner.

We have also tried a cauliflower macaroni cheese recipe from the TV show but I don't think that we will make that one again. It was a bit underwhelming. I am earmarking meat free recipes all over the place, but it was only after a few weeks that we realise that one of the favourite recipes we make regularly (Baked Zucchini, Tomato and Parmesan Risotto) is already meat free!

One of the funny things about this recipe happened a couple of weeks after we first cooked it. My sister and her family came around last weekend and we were talking about the things that we were doing differently food wise during this period of social isolation, and we mentioned making this recipe. My son pipes up and says "oooh that's why it tasted a bit different! " He never realised that there wasn't any meat in it!

Allotment Cottage Pie

10 g dried porcini mushrooms
2 large leeks
3 carrots
500 g swede
500 g celeriac
olive oil

3 sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 kg potatoes
40 g unsalted butter
1 splash of semi-skimmed milk
1 onion
1 teaspoon Marmite
3 tablespoons tomato purée
1 x 400 g tin of green lentils


In a blender, cover the porcini with 600ml of boiling water.

Trim, wash and slice the leeks 2cm thick, then scrub the carrots, swede and celeriac and chop to roughly the same size.

Drizzle 2 tablespoons of oil into a large casserole pan on a medium heat, strip in the rosemary, fry for 

1 minute to crisp up, then remove to a plate with a slotted spoon.

Add the cumin seeds and prepped veg to the flavoured oil, season with sea salt and black pepper, and cook for 30 minutes, stirring regularly.

Meanwhile, peel and roughly chop the potatoes, cook in a pan of boiling salted water for 15 minutes, or until tender, then drain well. Mash with the butter and milk, and season to taste.

Preheat the oven to 190ºC/375ºF/gas 5.

Quarter the onion, add to the porcini in the blender along with the Marmite and tomato purée and whiz until smooth.

Pour into the veg pan and cook for 20 minutes, or until dark and caramelised, stirring regularly and scraping up any sticky bits from the bottom of the pan.

Tip the lentils (juices and all) into the veg pan, bring to the boil, then season to taste.

Spoon over the mash, place on a tray, bake for 30 minutes, or until lightly golden and bubbling at the edges, then sprinkle over the crispy rosemary.

Serve with simple steamed seasonal greens !






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