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Lancashire Hotpot
Lamb neck under a roof of butter-glazed potato coins — northern austerity turned luxury, with sharp pickled cabbage as tradition demands
- Prep
- 30 min
- Cook
- 150 min
- Serves
- 4
Ingredients
- Lamb neck fillet — 800 g, in 3 cm slices
- Lamb kidneys (optional, traditional) — 100 g, trimmed, quartered
- Plain seasoned cornflour — 25 g
- Onions — 350 g, thinly sliced
- Carrots — 150 g, thick coins
- Thyme — 4 sprigs; bay — 1
- Worcestershire-style sauce — 10 ml
- Lamb or chicken stock — 500 ml, hot
- Waxy potatoes — 800 g, sliced 3 mm
- Unsalted butter — 60 g, melted
- Red cabbage — 300 g, finely shredded
- Red wine vinegar — 150 ml; caster sugar — 40 g; juniper berries — 4
- Fine sea salt — 8 g; black pepper — 2 g
Method
- Pickle: boil vinegar, sugar, juniper and 3 g salt; pour over the cabbage. Cool, pressing occasionally — ready in 2 hours, better in 2 days.
- Heat oven to 160°C. Toss lamb (and kidneys) in seasoned cornflour.
- Layer a deep casserole: lamb, onions, carrots, thyme, bay, seasoning between layers. Pour in stock and Worcestershire sauce.
- Shingle potato slices over the top in overlapping circles; brush generously with melted butter and season.
- Cover; bake 1 hour 45 minutes. Uncover, raise to 200°C, bake 30–35 minutes until the roof is burnished and crisp at the edges.
- Rest 10 minutes — the liquor settles back into the meat.