Colm O'Gorman: How to make my comforting Lancashire Hot Pot

I lived in a Coronation Street-free zone when I was child. We could only get a television signal for RTÉ where I then lived in rural County Wexford. 

When I was 11 years old we moved to Wexford town and were finally able to receive the UK stations, just BBC and ITV at that time. This was long before the launch of Channel 4 and decades before cable and satellite TV.

The first time then that I heard even a mention of a ‘Hot Pot’ was when we tuned into the goings on in Weatherfield where Betty Turpin’s Hot Pot was the stuff of legend. 

I loved the idea of Betty’s Hot Pot. It sounded so satisfying and delicious and comforting. To my disappointment my mother never made it, sticking instead to more traditional Irish casseroles and stews. 

The closest we ever got to a Hot Pot was a cottage pie, which while delicious, did not have the same allure of Betty’s Hot Pot, which seemed much more exotic to me.

I finally got to try my first Lancashire Hot Pot many years later when I moved to the UK, and friends, it did not disappoint. It was everything I expected and more; warm, rich, delicious and deeply satisfying.

Given the freezing cold weather of late, I thought you might enjoy my take on this classic English dish, cooked in a slow cooker. It is comfort food at its finest.

Lancashire Hot Pot traditionally features lamb or mutton baked in stock or gravy with onions, covered in a layer of sliced potato. 

Many recipes use lamb kidneys as well as diced lamb, but I have skipped those as they are hard to source these days. 

Instead, I have added some chopped black pudding, an idea I picked up from the Hairy Bikers who feature it in their recipe for Lancashire Hot Pot. 

The black pudding adds a lovely depth of flavour and richness to the dish. Use a good quality black pudding for the best result.

I also add leeks, diced carrots and parsnips to my Hot Pot. Use only the white sections of the leeks, you can save the green bits to make a quick leek and potato soup.

If you do not have a slow cooker, you can cook this recipe in your oven. 

Just follow the method, using a casserole dish instead of a slow cooker. Assemble the hot pot as per the recipe below, using a casserole dish instead of a slow cooker, and bake it with the lid on in an oven preheated to 160 Celsius for three hours. 

After three hours, add the potato, increase the oven temperature to 180 Celsius and bake for one more hour, before brushing the potato layer with the garlic butter and toasting the potatoes under a hot grill until golden.

Lancashire Hot Pot

recipe by:Colm O'Gorman

This takes half an hour on the hob, and six hours in a slow cooker.

Servings

6

Preparation Time

 15 mins

Cooking Time

 6 hours 30 mins

Total Time

 6 hours 45 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 650g diced lamb

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• 3 onions

• 2 leeks

• 4 cloves of garlic

• 2 tbsp plain flour

• 750ml lamb or chicken stock

• 1 sprig fresh thyme

• 2 bay leaves

• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

• 300g black pudding

• 300g carrots

• 300g parsnips

• 1kg rooster potatoes

• 20g butter

• Salt and pepper to season

Method

1. Peel and slice the onions. Wash and thinly slice just the white part of the leeks, setting aside the green parts to use another day. Peel and mince three cloves of garlic. Peel the carrots and parsnips and cut them into one-centimetre sized dice. Season the lamb with some salt and ground black pepper. Warm the olive oil in a large nonstick pan over a high heat. When the oil starts to shimmer, add the lamb and brown it all over. When the lamb is seared all over, remove it from the pan and set it aside.

2. Next, add the sliced onions to the pan and sauté them in the meat juices until they are soft, about five to six minutes should do it. Add the minced garlic and cook for a further minute, before then adding two tablespoons of plain flour. Stir in the flour, then add the stock, the bay leaves and the thyme. Stir and then simmer the gravy for about ten minutes, just until it has thickened a little.

3. Cut the black pudding into two-centimetre chunks and pop it into to the dish of your slow cooker along with the seared lamb. Add the chopped carrots and parsnips and the onion gravy. Stir to combine everything well, pop on the lid and slow cook on low for four hours.

4. After four hours, taste the gravy, adding more seasoning if required. Peel and thinly slice the potatoes. Arrange the slices on top of the lamb, starting around the edges of the dish and working in to create a nice, scalloped pattern of potato slices. Lay each slice of potato over the bottom half of the preceding slice to create a double layer of potato. Replace the lid on the slow cooker, increase the heat to high and cook for another two hours.

5. After two hours has passed, the potatoes should be cooked through and soft with the gravy just bubbling up beneath them.

6. Melt the butter. Peel and mince the remaining clove of garlic and add that to the butter. Brush the top of the potatoes with the melted butter. Remove the dish from the slow cooker and put it under a hot grill for ten to fifteen minutes until the layer of potatoes are crisp and golden.

7. Serve this lovely Lancashire Hot Pot with some steamed tender stem broccoli or another green vegetable on the side.