Lancashire hotpot

I hadn't had a hot pot since primary school and I was a little worried that ours would be as horrible as I remember the school version being. Luckily ours tasted very nice.

We used diced mutton from Alternative Meats.

Ingredients (serves 2-3)

500g diced mutton

1 large white onion, finely sliced into half moons

2-3 large potatoes, peeled and cut into slices

2 carrots, finely chopped (optional)

2 celery sticks, finely chopped (optional)

handful of mushrooms, sliced (optional)

300g lamb stock

1 bay leaf

butter and olive oil

salt and pepper

• Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees.
• Brown the mutton in a little olive oil in batches, then set aside.
• Fry the sliced onions in the same pan as you browned the mutton. Once the onions have started to soften, add the carrot, celery and mushrooms and continue to cook for 5 minutes.
• Add the mutton back into the pan with the veg and add the bay leaf. Season with salt and pepper.
• Place a layer of potato slices on the bottom of a deep casserole dish, spoon the mutton and veg on top of the potatoes.
• Add a final layer of sliced potatoes on the top.
• Pour over the stock so that it comes at least half way up the sides of the casserole dish.
• Dot the top layer of potatoes with a little butter and season the top layer with salt and pepper.
• Cover the dish with a lid or a layer of tin foil and place in the oven for 2-2.5 hours.
• Then remove the lid/foil and continue to cook for another 20 minutes to brown the potatoes.
• You could serve this with extra veg or go for carb overload and serve it with big chunks of crusty bread to mop up all the juices.