Mutton hotpot and a breakfast of leftovers

Hot (pot) to trot

Like Lancashire hotpot, but without the kidneys. I'm pretty good with offal nowadays but kidneys...well, I've had some unpleasant experiences with kidneys. Maybe one day...

Mutton hotpot


Loosely based on a recipe for Lancashire hotpot by James Martin, available here: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/9099/lancashire-hotpot


Serves 3 (The Bear and I had this for dinner one night, then he took the leftovers to work for his lunch the next day.)


500g diced mutton
olive oil
a small knob of butter
1/2 an onion
2 small carrots
1 tsp dried thyme
s + p
1 tsp marmite
2 tbsp plain flour
1 mug of chicken stock
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
about 500g potatoes


Preheat the oven to 140 degrees C.


Brown the mutton in a large casserole pan (one which can go in the oven and has a lid) with the olive oil, seasoning and butter. Finely chop the onion and carrot and add these to the pan with the dried thyme. Fry for about 10 mins, then add the flour. Finally add the chicken stock, Worcestershire sauce and marmite. 


Slice the potatoes into roughly 2cm slices and arrange on top of your stew. In between layers of potato add seasoning and a few blobs of butter.


Put the lid on your casserole dish and bung in the oven for one and a half hours. Remove the lid (don't forget to use oven gloves!) for the last 1/2 hour or so of cooking to crisp up the potates. We ate ours with some leeky greens made by sauting some leeks in butter and adding to some boiled savoy cabbage. T'was yum.

Dinner is served...

On another note, we had a lot of leftovers hanging around our fridge, so I turned them into a rather lavish breakfast: leftover savoy cabbage,  roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips became bubble and squeak - perfect with a squirt of brown sauce and topped with a poached egg - and leftover sharon fruit compote got whizzed up into a sharon fruit and banana smoothie. A pretty good start to the day if I do say so myself.

"How do you like your eggs in the morning?" With bubble and squeak. And brown sauce.  And smoothie. And NOW.

Lamb shank ragú with tagliatelle



Lamby goodness



So, the photo I took of this really doesn’t do it justice. Honestly, this could be a contender for my favourite comfort food meal. Ok, so it’s not the healthiest bowl of pasta in the world, but it does include some vegetation, and if you skim off some of the lamb fat, I don’t think it’s that bad. This is a good one to make if, like me, you loooove Bolognese, but fancy switching it up a bit.

Lamb shank ragú with tagliatelle

Serves 8 (this freezes really well too, so I would encourage you to make this amount, even if you’re only making dinner for yourself.)

4 lamb shanks

1 large onion

2 sticks of celery

1 large carrot

2/3 pack of chestnut mushrooms

About half a bulb of garlic

1 tbsp dried rosemary

½ bottle red wine

Chicken/lamb/vegetable stock (I used chicken)

2 tins of chopped tomatoes

Olive oil

S+P

Tagliatelle, to serve.

Add some olive oil to a large pan and brown the lamb shanks. Once they are seared on all sides remove from the pan. Dice the onion, celery, carrot and garlic very fine and add to the pan with the dried rosemary and some seasoning.  Sweat the mixture on a low heat for 15 minutes.

Add the lamb shanks, red wine, tinned tomatoes and stock and simmer for a couple of hours, until the lamb is falling off the bone.

Remove the shanks from the sauce and shred the meat off the bones. Chop up your mushrooms. Add the shredded meat back into the sauce along with the sliced mushrooms. Cook for a further 20 minutes.

Skim as much fat as you can from the top of the sauce. Serve with tagliatelle and  lots of parmesan cheese.