The British dish of minced beef topped with mashed potato is traditionally called cottage pie.
Cottage pie is made with minced or ground beef cooked in a savoury sauce, usually with onions and vegetables, then covered with mashed potato and baked until the top is browned. The potato layer helps form a crisp crust while keeping the filling moist.
The name is recorded in British culinary history from the late eighteenth century, when potatoes were an inexpensive staple associated with cottage households. The dish was also a practical way to use leftover cooked meat, although modern recipes commonly begin with raw minced beef.
Cottage pie is frequently confused with shepherd’s pie. The standard distinction is that cottage pie uses beef, while shepherd’s pie uses lamb or mutton. Both are baked meat-and-potato dishes, so menus sometimes use the names inconsistently, but the meat distinction is the conventional one.