The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook - Dinah Bucholz [64]
Add the meat and accumulated juices to the pot, along with the potatoes and broth. Add salt and pepper to taste and the thyme, if using. Bring the stew to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 2 to 2½ hours.
Serves 4 to 6
We use the word “hodgepodge” to mean a mix of odds and ends, so it kind of makes sense to call a stew a hodgepodge, as they did in the Middle Ages. That term survives today as “hotpot,” a stew covered by a lid of thinly sliced potatoes. Lancashire, where the townsfolk often join for community suppers featuring the hotpot, is most famous for this dish.
Lancashire Hotpot
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 pounds neck of lamb chops, trimmed, rinsed, and patted dry
2 onions, thinly sliced and separated into rings
6 red-skinned potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
¼ teaspoon ground thyme
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup chicken stock
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Heat the oil in a Dutch oven or wide pot. Sear the lamb chops on each side over high heat in batches until well browned, about 3 minutes per side. Remove from the pot and set aside.
Add the onions and stir constantly over high heat, until they are limp and pale brown. Set aside.
Spread half the onions over the bottom of the Dutch oven or a very deep casserole dish. Layer half the meat over the onions. Layer half the potato slices over the meat. Sprinkle the potatoes with the thyme, salt, and pepper.
Repeat the layering process. Sprinkle the last layer of potatoes with more salt and pepper. Pour in the chicken stock. Cover the pot or casserole dish. Bake the hotpot for 1½ hours. Remove the lid and bake for another 30 to 45 minutes, until the potatoes turn golden brown.
Serves 6
If you're not partial to lamb, you can use beef instead. Cut 3 pounds of chuck steak into six pieces and proceed with the recipe as directed.
Brown Windsor Soup has a bad reputation, which it deserves. The traditional method calls for puréeing the soup, meat and vegetables and all, and then adding a bunch of herbs, including too much thyme, and a ridiculous amount of wine. It's hardly fit for human consumption, and it's hard to imagine why this soup was popular with Queen Victoria. However, three simple but important changes result in a satisfying, delicious soup you can serve as a complete supper, since it has everything in one pot. First, add the meat back to the soup after puréeing the rest of the soup. Second, omit the thyme; it gives the soup a very unpleasant flavor. And finally, reduce the wine to a very small amount, which is all that is needed to give a bit of complexity. In fact, the soup is fine without it as well.
Brown Windsor Soup
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 pounds chuck steak, trimmed and cut into ¼-inch dice
1 large onion, finely chopped
¼ cup all-purpose flour
4 14-ounce cans chicken broth
Salt to taste
½ teaspoon dried marjoram
½ teaspoon ground sage
½ teaspoon dried tarragon
2 russet potatoes, peeled and diced into ¼-inch pieces
4 carrots, peeled and diced into
¼-inch pieces
3 celery ribs, cut into ¼-inch dice
Freshly ground black pepper
Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a Dutch oven or wide pot and add the meat in batches, searing on both sides over high heat 4 to 5 minutes until crusty brown and transferring each batch to a large plate. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons oil to the skillet. Add the chopped onion and cook over medium-low heat until softened, scraping up the fond (the browned bits) from the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon.
Add the flour to the pot and stir until combined. Pour in 2 cans of the chicken broth and stir until well combined. Add the rest of the chicken broth, the salt, and the meat, along with its accumulated juices. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until thickened and bubbling. Reduce the heat and simmer the meat for 1½ hours.
Remove the meat from the pot with a slotted spoon and cover to keep it from drying out. Skim the fat off the top of the soup. Add the herbs, potatoes, carrots, celery, and black pepper. Simmer for 1 hour until the vegetables