Ingredients

• A pot with water and salt
• 1 kg potatoes
• 100 g butter
• 100 ml milk
• 100 g Parmesan
• Salt
• Pepper
• 800 g ground beef
• 2 carrots
• 1 onion
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 tablespoon of tomato paste
• A glass of red wine or dark beer (usually Guinness)

Directions

1. Peel your potatoes, cut them into cubes, and put them to boil. (You can be sure they’re ready with the toothpick test. If it goes in without resistance, they’re ready.)
2. In a pan, on medium heat, put some oil/fat/ghee/whatever and then the ground beef. Stir it because it’s easy to burn it. After it gets a nice colour that shows you that it’s cooked, make a hole in the middle and add the tomato paste directly on the bottom of the pan. With circular moves, slowly incorporate it into the ground beef. Now add the grated/finely chopped vegetables (carrots, onion, garlic), salt and pepper to taste, and stir to incorporate for a few minutes.
3. Add the wine/beer and let it simmer for 15 - 20 minutes, on low heat, and stir once in a while until most of the liquid has evaporated. When it’s ready, put the meat in a wider pot (cast iron in my picture, but you can use anything that’s fine in the oven), and spread it uniformly.
4. When the potatoes are ready, put them in a sieve for a bit, and then move them to a bowl and add the butter, milk, and grated Parmesan. Mash them well, and add a bit more milk and butter if the potatoes are too dry. Parmesan, you can put more if it’s to your taste, and you can use any similar dry cheese (Comte, Pecorino, etc.).
5. Now add the mashed potatoes on top of the meat, level up, add more grated Parmesan on top, and put it in the preheated oven at 180°C for 20 minutes. That’s it!
6. If later you want to improve your recipe, here are a few small suggestions. In the oil/ghee used for ragu, you can add while heating it up a small branch of thyme, which you’ll remove before adding the meat; in ragu, you can add green peas; in the mashed potatoes you can finely grate a quarter of nutmeg. Next time I’ll make the French version, Hachis Parmentier, and I’ll take more than one picture for more details. Until then, bon appétit!