Cottage pie and shepherd's pie are often used synonymously, but the phrase ‘cottage pie’ predates ‘shepherd's pie’ by nearly 80 years.

I’m of the belief that they’re not actually the same; same idea, same execution, but different protein. Shepherd’s herd sheep, and thus shepherd’s pie should be made with mutton or lamb, and not beef. On the other hand, a cottage is a small house, so there’s not much correlation there in terms of protein choice.

Personal preference and semantics aside, I choose to call this meal Cottage Pie and I make it with ground beef. If you prefer lamb, then go nuts with it and call it what you will. Ground turkey would work great as well; you can make up your own clever name. Just remember that one of the goals of making your own backpacking meal is affordability, and those two other proteins are significantly more expensive than regular ground beef (at least in the United States).

Possibly due to the extremely affordable nature of cottage pie it just doesn’t photograph well. I’d argue it’s one of the most unappetizing looking meals known to man. There’s not many ways to doll up a pile of mashed potatoes and gooey ground beef. Of course I could present it with a delicate creamy smear of mashed potatoes culminating in a heaping tablespoon of ground beef carefully garnished with a disturbingly perfect sprig of parsley. Except I doubt I’d be able to pull it off; but mostly, I prefer my mashed potatoes sloppy.

What I do know is that the taste is inversely proportional to the looks. So what if it looks like a heaping mass of paste, it tastes amazing and you’ll be scarfing it down so fast that before you know it you just might be keeled over in agony because of overeating.

The other remarkable thing is the amount of food this makes. A single packet of mashed potatoes eaten with nothing else is enough to overfeed a large man; it’s just a lot of taters. When the whole packet is used with the recommended amount of beef and other fixings you can easily feed two very hungry people, possibly even three if you stretch it a bit. The dry volume compared to its prepared volume is pretty staggering.

Don’t fret my vegetarian friends! This is probably one of the easiest recipes to substitute ingredients; and it actually reduces the amount of work you have to do. Replace the ground beef with textured vegetable protein, or if you prefer, even dehydrated tofu. TVP comes in various ‘flavors’ but you can use whatever variety you desire and jazz it up as you see fit. 

Go forth and eat this tasty trail paste! And don’t forget to lick your bowls, plates, spoons, and sporks clean because mashed potatoes dries like cement. Fortunately, it also fills your stomach with the same cement feeling, so save this for a particularly famished day.

Remember, this recipe makes TWO large servings.