Name: Lancashire Hotpot
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 2 h 30 min
Total time: 3 h
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: 1.2 kg lamb neck fillet or middle neck chops, in large pieces; 3 large onions, sliced; 3 carrots, thickly sliced; 2 tsp fine sea salt; 1 tsp black pepper; 4 sprigs thyme; 2 bay leaves; 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce; 600 ml lamb or chicken stock; 1 kg waxy potatoes, peeled and sliced 3 mm; 50 g butter, melted; ½ tsp fine sea salt

Lancashire Hotpot

Lamb and onions under a lid of sliced potato that browns while everything beneath it goes to nothing. Two and a half hours and almost no work.

3 hr total Serves 6 servings Easy

Lancashire Hotpot, in preparation
Photograph credit: Our Debbie with the Lancashire Hotpots by worthyfm · CC BY 2.0 · Flickr

How to Cook Lancashire Hotpot

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Season the lamb with the salt and pepper and put half of it in the base of a deep casserole.
Layer over half the onion and carrot, the thyme and the bay, then the rest of the lamb and the rest of the vegetables.
Add the Worcestershire sauce to the stock and pour it in — it should come about two-thirds up.
Overlap the potato slices across the top in tight concentric circles, covering everything.
Brush the potatoes with half the melted butter and sprinkle with the salt.
Cover and bake at 150°C / 300°F fan / 170°C / 340°F / gas 3 for 2 hours.
Take the lid off, brush with the remaining butter and raise the oven to 200°C / 390°F fan / 220°C / 430°F / gas 7.
Bake a further 30 minutes, until the top is deep gold and crisp at the edges.

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Things to Watch For

Lid on for two hours, off for the last thirty. That order, always.
Neck, not leg. Lean lamb dries out over this long.
Slice the potatoes 3 mm and overlap them tightly.

A Little Background

The lid goes on for the first two hours and comes off for the last thirty minutes, which is the only complicated thing about the dish. Covered, the potatoes steam soft and the lamb braises; uncovered at the end with butter brushed over, the top browns and crisps. Do it the other way round and you get a hard brown crust over raw potato. Lamb neck, not leg — this is a two-and-a-half-hour braise and lean meat will be dry and stringy long before the time is up.

On the Table Alongside

Pickled red cabbage · Buttered greens · A pint of bitter

Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Braised Red Cabbage, Dairy-Free Scones, Fried Bread.

Keeping Lancashire Hotpot

Refrigerated for 3 days. Reheat covered at 160°C / 320°F, then uncovered to re-crisp.