This really simple tasty comfort dish is the perfect winter supper solution. It’s almost store cupboard in terms of ingredients and takes care of itself. It gets the name from a scottish dish that uses potatoes and meat cooked slowly together on the stove-top, usually with dripping or butter. Basically a stew! Whatever the term, it is just the thing for a sharp cold day like today. The quantities I have given are somewhat approximate as you will need to base them around the casserole dish you use – I use a lasagne dish. what you will need is enough potatoes to cover the dish neatly in two layers.
1kg potatoes peeled and sliced thickly
2 onions diced
1 generous tblsp fresh rosemary finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
butter and oil
8 chicken thighs, skinless (I used boneless but you can use bone-in, which will take longer to cook)
130g pancetta
500ml hot stock
Preheat oven to 150c. Grease a casserole dish well with butter. Place one layer of sliced spuds in the bottom of the casserole dish. Sprinkle half the garlic, rosemary and diced onions on top and season well.
Now heat the frying pan with oil and a spoon of butter and brown the chicken and bacon well over a medium high heat. You are looking for flavour and colour here. Now place these in a single layer over the potatoes. Keep the butter/oil in the pan – you will need this later.
Sprinkle the remaining onion/rosemary/garlic over the chicken thighs. Now layer the remaining potato slices on top and pour the hot stock over the potatoes and brush the butter/oil/bacon fat over them. Season and cover tightly with foil. Bake for 90 minutes to 2 hours – bone in thighs will require a longer cooking time. You will need to check that the spuds are cooked through.
Enjoy!
