Lancashire Hotpot (quick post)
Note: the post was quick, the recipe takes three hours. 🤷
This time yesterday, I’d never made a Lancashire Hotpot, so it does feel a bit brassy to just dash off a recipe.
In my defence: a) I was writing it down anyway, and b) it was bloody marvellous.
I spent a while researching, and felt that lamb neck fillet was the way to go, but that the long cook this needs might well turn the potatoes to mush.
So this has an extra first step that does detract a bit from fire-and-forget simplicity of most hotpot recipes. Although I did see one that caramelised the onions, and spiralised the potatoes into sheets, then cut them out into perfect identical discs, so it’s safe to say I could be going further off pisté with the Cheffy Bollocks.
Honestly, I suspect the brush of butter for the uncovered phase re-crisps the spuds enough that you could try this as an all-in-one for the full three hours. I’ll report back. Maybe. Or forget. Probably the second one.
Ingredients:
Lamb neck fillet, 600g
Potatoes, 600g (Ish. Maris Piper or any all-rounder)
Carrots, about 200g
Onions, 3 medium
Veg stock, about 600ml
Flour, about 3tbsp
Thyme, 1/4tsp (dried)
White pepper, 1/4tsp (more to taste)
Bay leaves, 4
Serves 4 generously, 6 with generous sides.
This is extremely easy if you have a mandoline, and borderline for being worth the effort if you don’t.
Instructions:
The omission of a plated shot is quite, quite deliberate - this tastes a lot better than it looks.
What we’re going to do here is pre-cook the lamb for an hour or so, and then layer it up for the final bake.
Heat the oven to 160°c
Slice the lamb fillet into roughly 2cm discs, or small-ish chunks, and toss it in the flour and pepper with a pinch of salt.
Mandoline or otherwise brutalise the potatoes into 1/2cm slices.
Slice the onions and carrots a little finer.
In a lidded casserole or whatever oven-safe final serving dish dish you mean to use, mix the lamb with about a quarter of the onions and carrots, the bay leaves, pepper and thyme. Add stock until just covered, topping up with water if needed.
Put it in the oven, covered, for about an hour.
Remove the lamb from the oven, and carefully decant it into a bowl. Pick out the bay leaves.
Layer the base of the cooking dish with potatoes in that cute but fiddly overlapping rings style, and scatter over a little onion. Again, carefully - it will be hot. You could also use two separate oven dishes here, and just layer it up in the second, rather than tipping out the lamb. Regardless, spoon the lamb on top of the potatoes. We’ll top up with the cooking liquid in a sec - don’t want to overflow.
Scatter the onions and carrot over the lamb, and then a final layer of potatoes. Possibly two layers - I’m using a generous quantity here.
Pour enough of the stock over so that the lamb is about covered and base of the potatoes is wet but they’re sitting on the liquid, not submerged. Again, top up if needed.
Cover, and put it back in the oven for an hour.
Take a look round the 45 min mark and if the potatoes haven’t crisped up, crank it to around 180°c for the final stretch.
After the hour, remove the lid, brush the potatoes in melted butter, and return to the oven uncovered for a final hour.
Remove, allow to cool, serve with brassicas.
I feel like the big hit of bay and white pepper really makes this.