Recipe: Lancashire hotpot

Nine months ago, after a decade spent in London, I moved to Lancashire. Although I’m a northerner born and bred, I’m from the northeast, between Newcastle and Sunderland, so this was new territory for me. Keen to assimilate, I was ready to get stuck into some of the dishes the area is famous for: Eccles cakes, Manchester tart and Lancashire hotpot.

I was nervous. Regional dishes are integral to the character of a place, and often fiercely protected by those local to it. There are right ways and wrong ways to make them. As a newcomer, I didn’t want to get it wrong.

Lancashire hotpot is a one-pot dish of lamb and potatoes, greater than the sum of its parts, and one of which its people are justifiably proud. I fell down several rabbit holes in the pursuit of the ‘correct’ way of making it. Some use two layers of potatoes, one on the top and one on the bottom, others add turnips but omit carrots.