Minced Beef Hotpot

Recipe for minced beef hotpot

If you have ever been to the North of England you may have been lucky enough to try a Lancashire hotpot, which is a delicious lamb stew covered in sliced potatoes. This easy minced beef hotpot recipe is my version of a hotpot using minced beef instead of lamb.

It is really more like a hotpot version of my cottage pie recipe, without the mashed potato topping. Good old British comfort food – great for a cold winter night.

Stew and Pie Recipes and Hotpots

There are so many different types of stew and pie recipes you will come across in the UK. A pie can be sweet, like an apple and cherry pie, but most commonly in the UK a pie will be a savoury dish with either a pastry or potato topping. So, for example, a cottage pie or a Shepherd’s Pie or a fish pie will tend to have a mashed potato topping.

A steak and ale pie, a traditional pub favourite, will have a pastry topping, which could be puff pastry or shortcrust, depending on the chef.  But you may even get the same filling served up as a stew.

A hotpot, on the other hand, is normally a stew with a topping made of sliced potatoes, a bit like in a potato gratin. It normally would be made of succulent lamb from the wonderful fells of Lancashire, but in this case, I have made one with ground beef.

Although it is not technically a beef stew I think the sliced potato topping is definitive for the description, hence the minced beef hotpot, or ground beef hotpot name!

Beef hotpot Recipes

You can of course experiment with other recipes to make a good beef hotpot. You could try making a delicious beef stew and topping that off with some sliced potatoes instead. There are a few stew recipes on this blog site you could try. Maybe the beef in beer stew recipe is the one to try – although it will take a bit longer though to make, as the original recipe is a slow cook recipe.

But perhaps my beef soup recipe is better, as it is made in the Instant Pot and is ready a bit sooner. But you may still have to tweak the recipe to get the sauce thickness right. This ground mince hotpot recipe is gluten-free, but that may change if you want to thicken up the sauce at all.

The possibilities are endless!

But for now, why not try this one first and let me know how you get on in the comments section below!

How to make minced beef hotpot

Minced Beef Hotpot

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This recipe for minced beef hotpot gives you some classic British comfort food. Just like a cottage pie but without the mashed potato topping.

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 2 hours

Total Time 2 hours 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 kg Ground beef
• 2 large garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 knob of butter
• 1 large Onion, finely chopped
• 4 large button mushrooms, sliced
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme, stalks removed and chopped finely
• 1 cup of frozen peas (petit pois)
• 4 Carrots chopped into rounds, then quartered into roughly 1cm pieces
• 600ml Beef stock
• 2 tbsp Worcester Sauce
• 2 tsp Marmite
• 1 tbsp HP sauce
• 1 tbsp Tomato puree
• Salt and pepper
• 1 tsp mixed herbs

For the potato topping:

• 1kg Potatoes, peeled and sliced 8-10 mm thick
• 10 g beef dripping

Instructions

1. Prepare, clean and chop all your ingredients beforehand.
2. Fry the minced beef in a frying pan, stirring until all browned, about 10 minutes ( I use a wok to do this). When all browned, pour away and discard any excess fat from the meat (I use a suitably fitting pan lid to do this).
3. Then place the meat in your oven dish while you cook the rest.
4. Fry the garlic and onions in the same wok in the remaining juices from the meat for about 5 minutes. Then add the sliced mushrooms and the knob of butter and cook for another 5 minutes.
5. Add the meat back into the pan, the peas, carrots and the beef stock and heat on medium until the peas have thawed.
6. Then add the Worcestershire sauce, Marmite, HP sauce, mixed herbs, thyme leaves and tomato puree - stir well and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes. Then season to suit, and remove from the heat.
7. Pour the meat sauce into your oven dish.
8. Then cover the meat sauce with the potato slices, making sure they overlap, until all the meat is covered. Then add a few bits of beef dripping to the top of the potato, and sprinkle some salt on the top.
9. When ready to cook, place in a pre-heated oven at 170C for 90 minutes or until the sauce is bubbling nicely and the potato slices have cooked properly.

Notes

Serve up in a bowl with a nice glass of red.

Make sure your casserole dish is big enough to take all the ingredients.

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