Mince and Tatties

We are in really old fashioned ground with today's dinner recipe, especially as I make this exactly the same way my Gran does and apparently it's very similar to how Brian's Gran made it too!  I'm proud of this, I am an old soul at heart and I like being able to do things the way they have been done for years previous... except I don't imagine that our Grans would have blogged about cooking...

Again, like with my Chicken Parcels I am a little shamed to share this recipe... it's just too easy!  I have gone a bit carrot mad in this meal for a couple of reasons.  We love carrots, there were some in the fridge and this is perfect winter carrot season.  Delicious!  Despite this carrot fetish you really can do this with any veg to have to hand, but this is my classic mince and tatties foursome.  

Take two sticks of celery, two onions, a carrot and chop them all up into small relatively uniform bits.  Add this to a hot oiled pan and let them sweat away.  Meanwhile peel more carrots and chop them as you desire, put them in the top layer of a steamer pan and prepare the new potatoes as you require.  As I am using local new potatoes so I am merely trimming off any offensive looking bits and cutting the larger ones in half.  These then went in the bottom layer of the steamer in cold salted water.  By now I imagine your veggies are softened, so they can be tipped out of the pan and into a bowl for a short rest.  Now into the pan add your mince and brown it, don't cook it for long or it will go chew-ish.  Blergh.  Add the veggies back to the mince and then add enough boiling water to cover the meat and veg and then add some gravy powder but only when it's really hot or it won't thicken correctly. Stir stir stir! Let this to simmer and put on the steamer pan. Now you have about 20 to 25 minutes to please yourself either to make pudding, or go and watch Star Trek.  

And there we are, once the potatoes and carrots are cooked strain, butter and season them, then serve up with the mince.  Easy!  My Mum would insist on serving this with brown sauce or Lea and Perrins sauce, some would choose tomato ketchup...but I am a purist.  Gravy or GTFO.