Yet another puzzle is now in the books. This one was a picture of the busy streets and double decker buses of London. One of the benefits of this lockdown is that we are becoming quite the puzzle masters. For my next edition of the puzzle and dinner series, I had to come up with a traditional British meal to go with our London puzzle. I could have easily gone with the standards like fish & chips, bangers & mash or shepherd’s pie. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of those, and yes, we actually do eat them on a fairly regular basis too, but where’s the fun in that?! I wanted to do something different and less familiar to everyone. I did my research and came up with a good dish AND got to use some leftovers as well. I was in 7th Heaven. 🙂
My British meal that coincided with out London puzzle was a variation of a Lancashire Hotpot. Instead of using lamb, I used my leftovers from my Dijon beef. Slow Cooked Dijon Beef with Mushrooms I had just enough beef, but added more mushrooms and onions. As for the kidneys, NEVER! I am NOT a kidney or offal fan. But if you like them, feel free to add them. For all my British friends, don’t be to mad at me for making this dish “Jeanne style”. That’s just what I do. You all should know that by now. 🙂
Lancashire Hotpot
1 1/2-2 lbs or 900g beef or lamb, cubed
3-4 lamb kidneys, fat removed – optional
2-3 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 1/2 cups mushrooms, sliced thick
1 onion, diced medium
2 cups or 500ml beef broth
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/3 or 25g cup flour
1-2 cups potatoes or 900g, sliced very thin
salt & pepper to taste
olive oil
butter
Preheat the oven to 350* F or 160*C
Cook the meat in a combination of butter and olive oil until browned. Once the meat is cooked, remove it from the pan and set it aside. My meat was already cooked, so I omitted this part.
Cook the mushrooms, carrots and onions in the same pan, for about 5 minutes.
Add the flour, beef broth and seasonings and mix together well. Bring to a boil, then turn it off. This will cook the flour so you do not get a big clump of flour when you eat it as well as thicken the sauce.
Then add the meat and combine well. Pour the mixture into a casserole dish that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Reserve some of the sauce to top the potatoes.
Arrange the sliced potatoes evenly over the top of the dish. Add a few dollops of butter on top of the potatoes, then add the reserved sauce on top of the potatoes as well.
Cover the dish and bake for about 1 1/2 hours. Then uncover the dish and continue to bake for about 10 minutes or until the potatoes brown and crisp up. make sure you have a pan underneath because this is a messy one. It does spill out over the baking dish, but it oh so tasty. It’s worth the mess.
Stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.
How fun!
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We found a puzzle box with 10 different city scapes, so there will be 10 different puzzled themed dinners too. It is fun and something different too. 🙂
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That’s really cool. I wonder if my husband would like something like that.. hmm.. 🙂
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I am always trying to come up with cool ideas and fun things. 🙂 I like being different.
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I’ll admit, I’m not very creative. But I think it would be fun to give it a go. 🙂
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I’ll bet you are a lot more creative than you give yourself credit for. 🙂
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❤️
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Very acceptable recipe bending!
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Thank yo, or should I say “ta”? 🙂
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I don’t know, I’ve never said « ta »
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We Aussies say it all the time. 🙂
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😎
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Interesting recipe, and I would definitely add kidneys, if I could ever get them
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Thank you. Ask your local butcher. They should be able to get them for you.
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Kosher butchers are very different from regular ones as they have to make do with whatever they get from large centers. We don’t have our own kosher butchery in Florida.
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Could they put in a special order from you? I would think that would be a win/win for everyone.
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Perhaps – I’ll ask. Right now they are more concerned with getting regular staples, rather than fanciful order. With the lockdown, everything down here is a huge mess. We’ll survive, I am sure!
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So true. It is a huge mess everywhere. But as you said, we will survive this. 🙂
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😻
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I would NEVER put in the kidneys BUT I also think I’d probably use pork chops instead of beef because I am not a huge fan of the texture of red meat. You should have made toad in the whole. Also, will any of your puzzle recipes be breakfasts?? 🙂
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Pork would be good too. I thought about making a toad in the hole. There could be breakfast puzzles in the future. Who knows? 🙂
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check out my latest London blog post 🙂
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Cool Shots. It makes me want to go and spend more time there. 🙂
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