Mutton HotPot

The Hot Pot has that reputation of "let's just throw everything in" but there's so much more than that, always use great quality ingredients, or at least the best you can, I'm using mutton,

A, because I love mutton

and B, because I believe it will give you the best tasting hot pot,

I'd much rather use Winter lamb or great mutton for my hot pot, I'm also going to put Kidneys into my hot pot, they'll be perfectionists out there who'll be screaming out loud at reading this, but I love kidneys and I think they add a great flavour too

SHOPPING LIST

This will serve 4 people

1. About 1kg of middle neck mutton

2. 4 kidneys cut into quarters and remove the White core

3. 50g of butter

4. 1 large onion roughly chopped

5. 1kg of potatoes

6. A couple of bay leaves

7. 50g of well seasoned flour

8. 4 carrots, peeled and cut in half

9. 4 anchovies (optional, but really worth adding)

10. Good splash of Worcestershire sauce

11. 500ml of lamb stock

METHOD

1. Melt the butter in a pan and cook the onion till soft, but don't colour

2. Peel the potatoes and slice thinly

3. Mix the onions with half the sliced potatoes

4. Layer the potato and onions evenly in a large casserole dish

5. Place in the bay leaves

6. Season well with salt and pepper

7. Now dust your mutton with the seasoned flour

8. Gently brown in a pan and transfer to the casserole ( you may have to do this in batches)

9. Now flour the kidneys and brown these

10. Add the kidneys to the casserole evenly

11. You can now place in the carrots

12. Chop the anchovies ( if using) and scatter over

13. Season with salt and pepper and add a good splash of Worcestershire sauce

14. Bring the lamb stock to the simmer

15. Neatly arrange the remaining potatoes over the casserole

16. Season well

17. Pour in carefully the lamb stock

18. Cover with a lid, if no lid use 2 layers of foil

19. Place in a 200c heated oven for 25 minutes

20. After 25 minutes turn the oven down to 140c and cook for 90 minutes

21. After 90 minutes, remove the lid, now it can be eaten like this, but I like to put mine under a very hot grill so that the potatoes go nice and crisp

This doesn't really need anything else, but if you want to serve something, I'd go with some nicely braised red cabbage

Just put the casserole in the centre of the table and enjoy