Lamb hotpot help

vanoonoo

I am with sKiTz-0, I made Lancashire hotpot yesterday from a slimming world recipe which was lamb, onion, carrot, celery, flour, worcs sauce, tomato puree, stock, bay leaves then sliced spuds on top - it was a lovely thick sauce and very tasty and tangy but not spicey (I actually left out the celery) and the worcs sauce was defo the difference from other attempts
hth
Vx

meames_2

vanoonoo wrote: »

I am with sKiTz-0, I made Lancashire hotpot yesterday from a slimming world recipe which was lamb, onion, carrot, celery, flour, worcs sauce, tomato puree, stock, bay leaves then sliced spuds on top - it was a lovely thick sauce and very tasty and tangy but not spicey (I actually left out the celery) and the worcs sauce was defo the difference from other attempts
hth
Vx

Argh, that isn't Lancashire Hotpot!!!! Hotpot has a Suet crust. To me that recipe sounds more like Lobbies or Scouse but stewed instead of done in the pan.

Valli

meames wrote: »

Argh, that isn't Lancashire Hotpot!!!! Hotpot has a Suet crust. To me that recipe sounds more like Lobbies or Scouse but stewed instead of done in the pan.

No it doesn't!

It has a sliced potato top!

http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/514104

The suet crusted topped stuff my Mum (Blackburn) and Grandma made was always called meat and potato pie.

sKiTz-0

This thread is making me hungry.

I must try the bayleaf and tom puree next time I make a hotpot, see what difference it makes.

meames_2

Valli wrote: »

No it doesn't!

It has a sliced potato top!

http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/514104

The suet crusted topped stuff my Mum (Blackburn) and Grandma made was always called meat and potato pie.

No, as a Lancashire lass, I can tell you from my neck of the woods (st helens, before anyone tells me it is merseyside, it wasn't when i was born!!!!!) everyone used a suet crust, pie is different, the pastry is different. Somehow, this myth of a potato top has abounded on recipe sites! You can't stir it every 30 mins with a potato top. Bahhh!!!!

Valli

No; sorry. All my life (and I am half a century old) I have been eating hotpot and it never had a suet crust. And obviously this is pre-internet.

How could you stir it with a suet crust anyway?

Sliced potatoes top a Hot Pot.

Those of you in Merseyside must have had a different version.

Redlady.....

meames wrote: »

Argh, that isn't Lancashire Hotpot!!!! Hotpot has a Suet crust. To me that recipe sounds more like Lobbies or Scouse but stewed instead of done in the pan.

Sounds nothing like Scouse, and in my part of Merseyside hotpot has always had a potato topping. Even when I was at school (long time ago) Lancashire hotpot had a potato topping.

dibblersan

Where I was growed up (just south of Manchester) a hotpot was a dish with a pastry top but no pastry bottom.

Someimes it has scones on top, but we normally called that cobber.

A pie has a pastry top and bottom. Shortcrust or puff.

A pasty is a small pie made out of one piece of pastry.

Scouse was mince meat or meat chunks cooked with veg and potato/turnip/swede on the hob in gravy

Exceptions to this:
Cottage pie, shepherds pie, and lanc hot pot.

A lancashire hotpot was topped with sliced potato.

floss2

meames wrote: »

Argh, that isn't Lancashire Hotpot!!!! Hotpot has a Suet crust. To me that recipe sounds more like Lobbies or Scouse but stewed instead of done in the pan.

meames wrote: »

No, as a Lancashire lass, I can tell you from my neck of the woods (st helens, before anyone tells me it is merseyside, it wasn't when i was born!!!!!) everyone used a suet crust, pie is different, the pastry is different. Somehow, this myth of a potato top has abounded on recipe sites! You can't stir it every 30 mins with a potato top. Bahhh!!!!

Sorry, but as everyone else says, Lancy hot pot has potato on top, is cooked in the oven - and you don't stir it!

The "myth" of a potato topping goes back to the 19th century, when mill workers would come home to a long, slow-cooked meal of lamb or mutton with onions & sliced potatoes cooked in an earthernware pot in the oven.

Arthien

Good grief, what have I started! :rotfl:

Thank you all for your recommendations. I think trial and error (and a dash of Lea and Perrins, a bit of celery and some onion powder) sounds like the way forward. And if my experimenting leaves me with multiple hotpots to eat, who am I to complain! I'm definitely feeling hungry after reading this thread...