Home › The Principles of Cookery › Lancashire Hot-Pot

Lancashire Hot-Pot

Take three pounds of the best end of a neck of mutton, four mutton kidneys, a score of oysters, four onions, and three pounds of potatoes. Divide the mutton into chops, cut off about two inches and a half from the end, and trim away all superfluous fat. Place a layer at the bottom of a brown earthenware stewpot (called in Lancashire a "hot-pot dish"), and put over the mutton a layer of sliced kidneys, an onion cut into thin slices, four or five oysters, and half a pound of sliced potatoes. Sprinkle a salt-spoonful of salt, a salt-spoonful of pepper, and a tea-spoonful of curry-powder over them; then repeat the previous performance until the dish is full. Place whole potatoes at the top, and pour in the oyster liquor and half a pint of water. Put the dish into a moderate oven, and bake until the potatoes at the top are brown and crisp, but are cooked through. When ready to serve, pour half a pint of boiling gravy over the meat, and send it to table in the dish in which it was baked. Pin a napkin neatly round the dish for the sake of appearance. The oven must not be very hot, or the gravy will be dried up. If there is any danger of this, add a little more. Time, three hours and a half to bake. Probable cost, 5s. Sufficient for six or eight persons.