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Hot Pot
Take two pounds of chops from the best end of the neck, and one sheep's kidney. Trim the chops neatly, cut off all superfluous fat, and lay half of them in a deep dish well buttered, and with them the kidney cut in slices. Sprinkle over them a little pepper and salt and a tea-spoonful of finely-minced onions, and place upon them a quarter of a pound of potatoes cut in slices. Put two or three small lumps of dripping here and there, and repeat until the meat is used and the dish nearly full. Cover the top with whole potatoes, pour half a pint of water or stock over, and bake in a moderate oven. A few oysters are by many considered an improvement. Lay them upon the meat, pour a little of the liquor over them, and proceed as above. Time, three hours or more to bake. Sufficient for six or seven persons. Probable cost, 2s. 10d.
A Lancashire hotpot in its plainest form: layered neck chops, kidney and potato, baked slow in a deep pot. Nothing here is difficult, but a few of the instructions assume knowledge the book took for granted.
- Moderate ovenRead that as 325-350F (160-175C). At three hours the lower end is safer, since neck chops want long gentle cooking to break down their connective tissue rather than tighten and dry.
- Cover itThe recipe never says to put a lid on, though a deep dish of this kind would usually have been covered. Bake covered for most of the time or the half pint of liquid will reduce away well before the three hours are up, then uncover for the last 30-40 minutes so the top potatoes brown.
- Best end of the neckThis is the rib end of the lamb neck, sold today as neck cutlets or best end chops. Ordinary middle neck or scrag will work and is cheaper, but it carries more bone, so buy nearer 2.5 lb for the same amount of meat.
- The kidneyOne sheep's kidney means lamb's kidney. Halve it, cut out the white core and membrane with scissors before slicing. Skipping this leaves a bitter, rubbery streak through the dish.
- A quarter pound of potatoesThat figure reads as per layer rather than for the whole pot. Between the layers and the whole potatoes on top you will want perhaps 1.5-2 lb in total; slice the ones between the meat thinly so they soften into the gravy.
- DrippingBeef or lamb dripping, saved from roasting. Butter or a spoonful of lard does the same job of enriching the layers, though dripping gives the flavour the recipe was written around.
- The oystersBetter added towards the end of cooking than at the start, since long baking will shrink them; the recipe treats them as a flavouring, and their liquor is worth as much to the gravy as their texture.
- YieldSix or seven is generous by modern portions. Two pounds of bone-in neck realistically feeds four with bread, or six if you add a second vegetable.
Hotpot belongs to Lancashire, where it is generally traced to the mill and mining districts: a tall glazed earthenware pot of layered mutton and potato could be assembled in the morning, left in the falling heat of a bread oven or a communal bakehouse, and eaten whenever the shift ended. The unfashionable neck end is the point of the dish, since long slow baking is what makes those cuts worth eating. The suggestion of oysters is a genuine period touch rather than a luxury: through much of the nineteenth century oysters were cheap coastal protein, sold by the barrel and used to stretch meat in pies, puddings and stews, and their retreat from such recipes is usually linked to the decline of the British oyster beds later in the century. The costing in shillings and pence, given as a matter of course here, marks this as a book written for households where the weekly meat bill was reckoned to the penny.