Shepherd's pie Shepherd's pie Shepherd's pie or cottage pie is a meat pie with a crust or topping of mashed potato. The recipe has many variations, but the defining ingredients are minced red meat (commonly, "cottage pie" refers to beef and "shepherd's pie" to lamb), cooked in a gravy or sauce with onions and sometimes other vegetables, such as peas, celery or carrots, and topped with a layer of mashed potato before it is baked. The pie is sometimes also topped with grated cheese to create a layer of melted cheese on top. The term "cottage pie" was in use by 1791,
Pie pie to identify its contents, leading to its later adaptation in pre-Victorian times as a porcelain ornament to release of steam and identify a good pie. The Pilgrim fathers and early settlers brought their pie recipes with them to America, adapting to the ingredients and techniques available to them in the New World. Their first pies were based on berries and fruits pointed out to them by the Native North Americans. Pies allowed colonial cooks to stretch ingredients and also used round shallow pans to literally "cut corners" and to create a regional variation of shallow pie. Meat pies with