Lancashire hotpot

Lancashire hotpot is a stew originating in Lancashire in the North West of England. It consists of lamb or mutton and onion, topped with sliced potatoes and slowly baked in a pot at a low heat. In the 17th century, the word "hotpot" referred not to a stew but to a hot drink—a mixture of ale and spirits, or sweetened spiced ale. An early use of the term to mean a meat stew was in The Liverpool Telegraph in 1836: "hashes, and fricassees, and second-hand Irish hot-pots" and the Oxford English Dictionary cites the dish as being served in Liverpool in 1842. The Oxford Companion to Food (OCF) cites Elizabeth Gaskell's 1854 novel North and South, depicting hot-pot as the most prized dish among cotton workers in a northern town.

Source: Wikipedia