British · Main
Lancashire Hotpot
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 3 of 4 for cost
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, acid holding everything up to the light.
Ingredients
- 1.2 kg lamb middle neck chops, on the bone
- 200 g lamb kidneys, cored and halved
- 20 g plain flour
- 8 g fine salt
- 3 g black pepper
- 600 g onions, sliced
- 2 g thyme leaves
- 1 bay leaf
- 900 g floury potatoes, in 3 mm slices
- 400 ml lamb or beef stock
- 40 g butter, melted
- pickled red cabbage, to serve
The skills inside
The wobble & the skewer: testing a bake
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Season the flour with the salt and pepper and turn the chops and kidneys in it, then layer them into a deep dish with the onions, thyme and bay, seasoning as you build.
- Overlap the potato slices across the top in tight rows so no gaps show, pour the stock down the inside of the dish until it comes about halfway up the potato layer, and brush the top with the butter.
- Cover and bake at 160C (325F) for 2 hours, until a skewer slides through meat and onion without resistance. 120 min
- Take the lid off, raise the oven to 200C (400F), and give it 30 minutes more, until the potato edges are brown and brittle. Rest 10 minutes before serving with the pickled cabbage. 30 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
The wobble & the skewer: testing a bake 135 recipes
- Tested at the true centre and the thickest point, not at the convenient edge: the edge is done long before the answer is.
- The skewer comes out as the recipe describes, clean and dry or carrying the stated moist crumb, and it does the same on a second test in a different spot.
- The wobble is read in motion: nudged, the centre moves as one set mass with a faint tremble, rather than a liquid ripple travelling across the surface.
- The other signs agree with the test: risen and just shrinking from the sides, the top set and dry to a light touch with no wet gloss on it.
- Pressed lightly at the middle it springs back and leaves no lasting dent.
Where it goes wrong It was judged on the clock and on how the edges looked, so a centre still liquid went to the rack and sank as it cooled, a dense wet seam under a perfectly browned top.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Cabernet or Rioja Reserva
- Also Right
- Malbec
- From the Taps
- Porter
- Zero-Proof
- Pomegranate spritz
Lamb’s sweet grass-fat wants structure: tannin from Cabernet, smoke-echo from Rioja’s oak, or Syrah’s pepper for the spiced routes.
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