Stop all the fuss, the fact is Shepards Pie is really an Irish recipe.

Where do you get we like cheese on everything and use Jello in salads. Ya'll must be talking about Yankees. Ya need to taste some down home true southern cooking. No cheese here and we don't use Jello....I think you Brits listen to to much gossip. As a life-long Texan I was hoping to come here and get some good Brit recipies like this one. I loved the recipie but not the comment. The writer must have been beat up by an American in his childhood.......

It depends on whether you are a serious cook or just a cook. The fact is that cheese added to the top of either the Shepherd's (please, get your spellings right!!) or Cottage pie, is not correct and I agree that most people, Americans, Australians and many other western cultures use cheese too much. In this type of recipe, if cooked properly, no such additive to give more taste, should be necessary. Shepherd's or Cottage pie does taste absolutely wonderful properly cooked, seasoned and without the unnecessary use of cheese. This guy knows his stuff. I do not believe it is any more correct to have a mishmash of foods mixed together and then called something that was previously a well known dish, than it is to use bad spelling or bad language in place of the correct expressions. Let's have a shift back to correct cooking, correct spelling and correct and respectful vocabulary and written expression. We will lose some of the parts of our cultures that may then be impossible to reinstate.

Wow, I've read a number of recipes on this site, but never one that is so didactic, rude and WRONG. I've had "shepherd's pie" all over the UK, and lamb was not mandatory--optional, yes, mandated, no. Also, I have to wonder what the shepherds of yore did without BISTO to make their recipes!

I LOVED reading ALL the comments!! It is so late now I am going to go out to eat dinner. I used all my prep time reading..... I lived in London a short while and have been to Ireland also and had "Shepherds Pie" many times in both places. EVERYTIME was different, even at the same Pub (different day). All were good and some were great! I will have to try this recipe soon, when I do... I will change nothing!

Way to go Neil (and others), I've always believed Shepherd's Pie should rightly be made with lamb. Most Americans don't care for lamb much. I learned the beef dish as hamburger or cowboy pie. As a Californian I top with not only chesse, but sliced black olives as well.

I'm using this recipe as a base as I always do (I've never been one to follow recipes). I was wondering what kind of controversy it would cause if I posted I was planning to make Shepard's Pie with lamb AND ground beef. Shepard's Pie and Cottage Pie's b*stard son - I expect it will be pretty tasty!

If people are taking offense to this man's remarks in his recipe than you are some touchy, sensitive people. Go crybaby somewhere else, its called freedom of speech.

We are obsessive with cheese lmao bout your recipe sounds flipping good!! gonna try it and leave off the cheese :) I never put enough cheese to even taste it on mine i mostly put it on after potatoes reach that yummy golden peaks and then i take it out and sprinkle very small amount on mostly cuz it looks nice but u cant even ever taste it lol! but i laughed cuz you were right about us!! cheese is good!!

I'm from Belfast...we make our shepherd's pie with either beef or lamb..what makes it shepherds's pie is the minced(ground)meant in a gravy ..baked in a (single)dish with mashed potatoes on the top. Cheese isn't ordinarily included however that sounds lovely on top of the beef mince. Also, ours always has a tin of peas included unless my mother-in-law is over. (She doesn't like them.) And yes, we use Bisto. ;)
PS We don't even serve a dish called Cottage Pie. :) Cheers!

Completely humorous. Im South African now reside in the US. Originally SA was a British Colony so we do have many English dishes that as a SA we adopted. The irony of this is I like this original recipe even tho my family and I have made it with beef. Thanks Neil.!! For the humor; drama and the recipe. There is nothing like British humor.

Clara you need to learn to spell dear. I am also a Brit and have NEVER heard of Sheppards Pie! It was our Shepherds who invented this pie.

My french Canadian friend Aline, made this for us at her home in Canada last week! She uses beef, layers with corn, and doesn't decorate the top with basket weave. It was fantastic as always! You can buy Bisto in Canada grocery stores (they bring it to Florida with them), its a meat flavored thickening, they thicken hot broth or meat drippings like we do with flour and water or corn starch. It has some artificial flavor, which I don't like in my homemade gravy, but if your hamburger needs some help, its fine. I dont think it has MSG. I thought the recipe comments were tart and spunky, a bit rude and what the heck does it have to do with our economy???

So, made my version as posted before. It was awesome. My husband (from Ireland) thought it was the best Shepherd's pie ever.
Here's a note to recipe readers/followers. Food is created by the maker. This argument about the cheese is silly. People can cook how they want and perhaps don't care if their recipe is authentic to the an original recipe. I'm sure the original shepherd's pie didn't have bisto in it. And probably had very few flavorful additions like butter. But people added what they thought tasted good. Imagine that! A cook adding what is flavorful and available. Thats a requirement in cooking, following a recipe is not. If the way the noodle was eaten was never influenced across europe, we'd always eat noodles the way the chinese did. Now, think of all the great pasta dishes that exist today because of creativity.
If we want to be insulting to one another perhaps another forum would be appropriate. Let's face it; the recipe poster was rude with the obsession comment, even if it was unintentional. Maybe my mother-in-law is English, not Irish, hmmm.

I don't eat anything "cute" so I guess I will never try Shepard's pie. I watched Gordon Ramsey make it and he piped on the potato....He shoulda known better...oh, and, my final comment: MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM cheeeeeeeeeeeeese.....