Lancashire Hot Pot (sort of)
Originally uploaded by Manne.
Was home with a cold for two days this week, and saw a food show where some well known chef made a speed version of Lancashire hot pot. She basically just chucked a few pieces of neck of lamb with sliced onions in a frying pan, seasoned it and sprinkled it with flour and then put it in a big pot that she whacked in the oven with a covering lid of sliced potatoes. Total preparation time: 3 minutes. That included slicing the onions and potatoes... So I figured I had to try.
Since I had carrots and mushrooms at home that I needed to use, I decided to throw them into the mix. Also turned out that all my yellow onions were bad, so it had to be red ones. And with my brain being a bit mushy I ended up buying lamb chops instead of neck of lamb... So all in all, not really Lancashire hot pot, is it? But it turned out really tasty! Something for a freezing winter night. Like now!
Ingredients (serves 4)
5 large potatoes, sliced
5 carrots, cut in chunks
5 small red onions, sliced
250 gr of mushrooms
4-6 lamb chops (or neck of lamb)
0.75 l to 1 l stock
1 dl of red wine
thyme, rosemary finely chopped
salt and pepper
butter
You need a pot you can put in the oven. Or a big and deep baking dish.
Method
Pre heat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius.
Melt a knob of butter in a big frying pan, brown the lamb and season with salt and pepper. Transfer to the large pot. If you want the sauce in the pot to get thicker, sprinkle the lamb with some potato flour.
Fry the onion in the juices in the frying pan along with the herbs, as they start to go translucent add the mushrooms and fry for a few minutes. Pour in the wine and let simmer until it is reduced to a syrupy sauce. Transfer to the pot.
Chuck the carrots in the pot and mix the contents up a bit.
Pour the stock in the pot so it covers the contents. Layer the potatoes as a lid and brush the top layer with some melted butter (to make sure they crisp up nicely in the oven). Season with crushed black pepper on top of the potatoes.
Cover pot with a lid and put in oven for an hour. When the hour is up, remove the lid to make sure the top layer of potatoes brown up nicely and give it another half hour or so.
Serve with a full bodied red wine. Enjoy the lovely sensation of being indoors with an immensely tasty and hearty meal while the cold winds ravage through the empty streets.
