Makes 6 generous servings (serving a crowd?)
- 1 Tablespoon dried peas
- 1 Tablespoon lentils
- 1 Tablespoon pearl barley
- 1 lb lamb
- 1 lb beef cubes
- salt and pepper to taste
- 2 Tablespoons flour
- 1 large onion, peeled and coursely chopped
- about ½ lb black pudding
- about 1½ lb potatoes
- 10½ oz beef broth (one can)
Special equipment
- A sieve for the pulses
a pudding bowl
foil to cover
Method
- Rinse and put the pulses to soak in water as you begin to work.
Debone and trim the lamb as necessary (we use steaks sliced from whole legs of lamb to minimize onsite trimming), and cut into cubes approximately an ich thick. Season the flour with salt and pepper, turn the beef and lamb cubes therein, and arrange tightly on the bottom of your pudding bowl.
Scatter the chopped onion on top. Cut the black pudding into chunks of 1 cm thickness and tuck them into the onion layer. Drain the pulses in a sieve, rinse them, and spoon over the whole thing.
Peel, then cut the potatoes down their lengths into sixths (or quarters if they’re especially small). Put them over the top (round side up, pointed side down), covering the entire dish in a single layer (you may need more or fewer potatoes depending on the exact surface area of your pan). Pout in the beef broth to come halfway up the potatoes.
Bake covered for 2 hours at 300°, then remove the foil and crank up the heat to 450° for the last hour to brown the potatoes. Add broth if level falls below halfway up the potatoes
Notes
- Based on the recipe of Mrs Burrows, a neighbor of Jane Grigson's, this local variation of the traditional Lancashire Hotpot needs very little twiddling. We’ve only lowered the cooking temperature to soften the meats and covered to prevent all those delicious juices from baking away. Nonetheless, your kitchen will be scented for days (Really. Just by transporting a single, covered pot of the dish on the 15 minute drive to work made our car reek wonderfully for two days!). Astoundingly, it requires no spices.
Grigson says that tatie pots are “very much a dish of communal eating, at village get-togethers, or at society beanos, rather as baked beans are a standard item on similar occasions in America” and in the certain rivalry to see whose version is best, “Mrs. Burrows gained the distinct impression as a child that this version, made by her mother and grandmother, was usually supreme.” We agree. The potatoes cook to a crisp perfection in the fats that rise to the surface and taste — numm — like French fries.
Suggestions
- In the place of traditional English pudding basins, we use heavy, glazed porcelain mixing bowls (9" wide, 2½ quart capacity, manufactured by Robinson Ransbottom of Roseville, OH).
The squeamish need not fear the black pudding. Any dry sausage can be substituted, but the dish will suffer from the lack of sweetness the black pudding seems to impart.
A triple recipe fills an 8 quart full-length steam pan and serves 18.↩
