Traditional Cottage Pie
Serves 4 (or 3 with hearty appetites  )
Ingredients:

½ tbsp Olive Oil  
1 clove garlic
1 medium onion
1 medium carrot
1 large stick celery
300g lean (10% fat) beef mince
Few sprigs thyme
Approx 1 tbps mixed herbs or Herbs de Provence
200g chopped tinned tomatoes
150ml beef stock
100ml red wine (optional - if not using just add an additional 100ml water)
Good dash Worcestershire Sauce
1 tsp Umami paste
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tbsp flour
Salt & Pepper
250g potato
250g sweet potato
10g butter
1 tsp Dijon mustard
50g milk
50g cheddar cheese

Preparation:

This recipe is part converted, and part Thermomix - either way, it all seemed to work quite nicely!

1.   Grate cheddar, Speed 6  for about 10 secs or until desired consistency.  Set aside.
2.    Add onion, carrot, celery, garlic & herbs to Thermie.    Chop for 5 secs, Speed 4.  Scrape down sides.
3.   Add Olive Oil, Cook for 5 mins, Varoma, Reverse Speed 1.
4.   Add mince, Cook 4 mins, Varoma, Reverse Speed 1.
5.   Add chopped tomatoes, stock, wine, Worcestershire sauce, tomato puree, ketchup, flour, umami paste and Salt/Pepper to season.
6.   Cook 20 mins, 100 degrees, reverse speed 1, with measuring cup on an angle to let the steam escape.  Check consistency once done.  If gravy is still too runny, cook 3.5 mins, Varoma, Reverse speed, NO measuring cup but upturned basket on top to catch the splashes, just to reduce the gravy a little bit
7.   Spoon mince mix into cooking dish and set aside.  Wash Thermie.
8.   Add 350ml water and some salt to Thermie.   Cut up Potato and Sweet Potato into 2cm chunks.  Insert basket to Thermie, add the Potatoes.  Cook Varoma, Speed 3 for 18 mins.
9.   Drain potatoes and discard cooking water.   Fit butterfly, then add potatoes back into empty Thermie.
10.   Add milk, butter & Dijon mustard.   Blitz on Speed 4 for about 6 seconds, check consistency.  If still a bit lumpy, remove butterfly and blitz on Speed 6 for about 4 secs until smooth.
11.   Top mince mixture with Mash, spread over.  Top with Cheese.
12.   Cook approx 25 mins at 180 degrees until browned.    Let stand for 5 minutes before serving.

My bf pronounced it very tasty    Here's a pic after he'd started to demolish it!

I made this today from For Food's Sake....

The recipe is easy to follow, and making it was event free - all instructions worked well.  The only thing that confused me a bit is that it says in the recipe to fill the jar to the halfway point with the hazelnut spread, but the accompanying picture shows the jar 2/3 full of the hazelnut, with only a little Dulce de Leche on top.  I filled to the 2/3 point with the hazelnut spread like the picture, but that turned out to be incorrect and I couldn't then fit in all the Dulce de Leche I'd made.

Be warned that making the Dulce de Leche is REALLY messy, even with the basket on top of the lid - the dulce de leche went up the walls, down the back of thermy, all over the place.  Still, we got there in the end.

The hazelnut spread is not very sweet at all - it's got quite a dark chocolate flavour to it.  The spread is very slightly grainy, but none the worse for that.  It's very rich - couldn't eat much of it.  It doesn't take long to set, so you won't have to leave long before you can add the Dulce layer.

The Dulce de Leche is quite salty (I know it's supposed to be, but the taste takes some getting used to).  However, the real beauty of this recipe is only appreciated when you taste both layers together - they complement each other perfectly and the sweetness of the Dulce makes up for the dark chocolate taste of the hazelnut.  

My only minor complaint is that if you had a thick Dulce layer (ie; half a jar as implied by the recipe), then it would actually be quite difficult to get down far enough into the jar to sample both layers at once, and they are definitely nicest together.

Overall, very nice 4/5 (mark deducted for the clean up operation needed after making the Dulce!!)

I don't see any photos on threads within this forum... What am I doing wrong?!

Hi everyone

I am new here (first post), and have had my Thermomix for 5 days.   So far I have made:

- Soup (x 2 different kinds)
- Bread rolls
- Chorizo & Capsicum Risotto
- Smoothies
- Chili Con Carne (dinner tonight)

So far, I am loving it.  However I have a couple of newbie questions that I'm hoping you guys can help me with:

1) Are cooking times in the Thermomix from cold?  For instance, tonight my Chili needs to be cooked at 100 degrees for 15 mins... but obviously it will take about 5 of those 15 mins to get up to the temperature of 100.  I am assuming I just put it on for the specified time and don't worry about the heating up bit, but just wanted to check as I'm finding it a bit confusing.
 

2) The one thing that keeps catching me out at the moment is removing the lid, turning it upside down and having the MC skeeter all across the kitchen!!  I know this is just user error, but any tips on lid removal in general?  I'm finding that sometimes the lid has quite a lot of fluid/steam/splatter on it and at the moment I seem to either put it down on the worksurface and end up with fluid/steam/splatter everywhere, or try to turn the lid upside down to avoid this and then have the MC drop out and distribute it's contents all over the place!!! 

3) Are there any recommended Thermomix recipes for just one person?

Many thanks

Helen x