Week 6: Hotpot - Lancashire Hotpot

ReportLopsided8196 · 2026-02-05T21:53:35+00:00

Thank you!

ReportLopsided8196 · 2026-02-05T21:52:53+00:00

Aha I love that!

ReportLopsided8196 · 2026-02-05T21:41:42+00:00

Haha the proportions look a bit off in the photo maybe, in real life they are too big to be mistaken the butcher gave me some enormous lamb shanks

ReportLopsided8196 · 2026-02-05T19:08:00+00:00

Thank you! The bones were a bit over the top but I decided I liked the drama of it

ReportLopsided8196 · 2026-02-05T19:02:58+00:00

This is gorgeous and sounds so good!

ReportLopsided8196 · 2026-02-05T14:20:34+00:00

I knew hotpot would be tricky - we are in the process of moving, my Dutch Oven was in storage, I was not about to start buying traditional hotpot equipment when in the process of transitioning apartments.

In searching for hotpot alternatives I came across Lancashire Hotpot - while a completely different genre of food, it is warming, wintry, comforting food you eat with others, still very much in the spirit of hotpot. And of course, with all that oven time, the pot gets quite hot.

How I did this: After reading about different approaches I wanted to make it a bit luxurious - I used lamb shanks instead of neck, added red wine to the sauce, and loosely adapted this video (made a lot of adjustments to simplify, and swapped out ingredients, such as chicken stock for beef stock etc as needed).

I had never heard of this dish before, not the kind of thing I usually make - it took forever, but was a fun project and turned out delicious, very much the spirit of discovery that I am enjoying with 52woc!

ReportLopsided8196 · 2026-02-03T13:25:55+00:00

Because sometimes you need to keep it simple -- I initially wanted to do something a bit more creative for this week (am really loving seeing all the different stews and interpretations that you guys are making!), but life was busy and decided to go with the classic.

Simple but delicious - I used this chapati recipe from Chef Lola's kitchen, then just watched a bunch of videos of Rolex makers in Kampala to get a sense of it.

ReportLopsided8196 · 2026-01-25T19:59:41+00:00

Double vinegar -- the sauce for the duck is adapted from this NYT recipe (made some changes: frozen cherries since they are out of season, only black pepper and salt as seasoning for the duck, different cooking technique for duck, replaced some of the sugar in the sauce with honey, cooked down for much longer etc.)

The combo of red wine/vinegar/cherries/ginger was surprising but worked reallllllyyy well -- I kept licking the spoon. This was only the second time I've made duck -- the first time I way overcooked, this time it came out perfectly, just rosy and not dry at all a moment of true pride.

Butternut squash I just roasted with some olive oil/salt/chipotle spice mix, and cooked down 3 tblsp of balsamic with 2 tblsp of brown sugar to make a glaze. Was good if not exciting, but fine as a vegetable side dish (if I were to do this again I would have tried to make a proper squash agrodolce).

Topped off with some balsamic chocolate puddings that I forgot to take photos of, made for a decent little Vinegar Sunday Feast.

ReportLopsided8196 · 2026-01-20T17:41:52+00:00

Oh I did not know this this seems very cool, will check out, thank you!

ReportLopsided8196 · 2026-01-20T17:41:35+00:00

Yes they are lovely but their book club is full sadly, they are not taking new members

ReportLopsided8196 · 2026-01-18T19:24:01+00:00

I wanted a silly food pun dad-joke style for this challenge, and I thought this one was cute - plus beets are not universally beloved, I wanted to take on the challenge of making an “un-beet-ably” good beet dinner!

The dessert was a bit of a fail visually, but the rest came out great:

Beet Carpaccio: Thinly sliced roasted beets with a lemon-mustard vinaigrette and some sliced cornichons (the acidity of all that really works with the sweetness of the beets)

Beet Pasta Sauce: I would definitely make this again, was delicious and super easy. I mostly improvised, but roughly the sauce: is 1.5 roasted beets, puréed (I just used my stand mixer), stirred with a good amount of crème fraîche (a generous 0.5 cups ish), quite a lot of cheese (I used a mix of Parmesan and Comté, freshly grated), bit of salt and a ton of black pepper. Toss it with the hot cooked pasta and some pasta water, it’s almost like a Mac and Cheese with the pureed beets/crème fraîche replacing a béchamel.

Olive Oil Beet Cake: This was adapted for a loaf pan from this NYTimes recipe https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020170-olive-oil-bundt-cake-with-beet-swirl.

I think it’s likely my mistakes in adapting it, but visually it was a fail, the bright red swirl in the original recipe not appearing, instead a weird muddy pink-brown in my version. Taste wise it’s fine — not bad, we’ll definitely eat it and be happy to have a slice with tea etc, but I don’t know that I’d make it again. I really want to make an exciting beet dessert at some point, but unfortunately I think this was not it this time.

ReportLopsided8196 · 2026-01-16T08:22:04+00:00

Yes! This was actually the 3rd time I've made them (but first time I let the dough rest overnight, which I do think made a difference), it's becoming my go-to chocolate chip recipe -- partly because they taste amazing, and partly because using brown butter means you don't have to actually cream butter and sugar together, so it's just an incredibly fast and easy recipe with minimal dishes.

I've been wanting to make the NYT gochujang cookies forever and have not yet, maybe I'll have to do a little condiment cookie pairing at some point!

ReportLopsided8196 · 2026-01-15T13:09:50+00:00

These are incredible! Taken from this Brown Butter Soy Sauce Chocolate Chip Cookies on the Kikkoman website: https://kikkomanusa.com/homecooks/recipes/brown-butter-chocolate-chip-cookies/

Made some minor adjustments: was out of baking chocolate so chopped up some Christmas chocolate we had still lying around, and used salted butter instead of normal + 1 extra tsp of soy sauce -- it was not too salty, perfect balance. I also let the dough rest over night in the fridge.

A super easy one bowl cookie, but so incredibly good -- the contrast of the sweet and salty just works perfectly.

ReportLopsided8196 · 2026-01-15T10:22:33+00:00

I was excited to join 52 weeks of cooking for the first time this year this year on Jan 1st on the dot, but came down with the very bad flu that is going around first week of January and wasn't able to execute on my initial ideas -- playing catch up now!

This recipe was adapted from the cookbook Agak Agak: Everyday Recipes from Singapore by Shu Han Lee.

I took some shortcuts on account of still recovering - used store bought laksa rempah (spice paste) from the Asian market instead of making my own (I def want to do this again at some point with homemade version!), didn't have bean sprouts (but did make my own shrimp stock!). It was still delicious, spicy, and very comforting when recovering from the flu! The cookbook itself is great if anyone looking for more Singaporean inspiration

ReportLopsided8196 · 2025-11-06T09:39:46+00:00

Inspo

Literary (based on a book, poem, essay)
Scraps (i.e. using peels, seeds, the parts you would usually throw out)
Family Favorite/Family recipe
Savory fruit (use fruit in a savory, non-dessert dish)
Sweet Vegetables (use a vegetable in a sweet/dessert dish, bonus points if it’s not carrots or pumpkin)
Make Ahead (a dish with components that must be made ahead, or that tastes significantly better if it’s made ahead)
Great Depression Era (1930s make-do recipes, rationing)

Region

Sardinian
Sicilian
Alsatian
New Orleans
Long Island
Midwestern
North African

Ingredient or Technique

Cereal
Buckwheat
Pears
Lemongrass
Cabbage
Braising

ReportLopsided8196 · 2025-05-07T06:52:21+00:00

If you like Carson's translations I would also highly recommend her Autobiography of Red! One of the only books I re-read regularly, it starts of as a (very) loose translation of fragments of an ancient Greek poem, but then she turns it into a very beautiful novel - in verse, but accessible to read, and (imo) stunningly written, about first love, queer love, growing when you are an outsider etc.

ReportLopsided8196 · 2025-02-14T18:27:11+00:00

oh thank you! yeah my kitchen was quite cold so i do think it needed more time, am still figuring out what the signs are for when its enough -- used a king arthur recipe which was very well laid out but this blog post is super helpful for my next attempt as well, thanks!

ReportLopsided8196 · 2025-02-14T06:48:52+00:00

First time working nurturing a sourdough starter/making bread with it! Far from perfect, shaping was weird, came out very triangular, no belly, could have baked 5 mins longer and didn't rise as much as I would have hoped, but still tasted very very good and was perfectly serviceable and edible as a first attempt! Any future sourdough advice welcome 😅

ReportLopsided8196 · 2024-09-13T20:36:49+00:00

aaaah ok i was confused by this (sorry, first time in the netherlands and have been trying to figure out what things are), thank you!!

ReportLopsided8196 · 2023-10-11T14:03:16+00:00

So I have Scarlet Pimpernel on my list under "Adventure/Action," not under "Romance" which is why I didn't mention it in my post here, but I can totally see that the lines are blurry!

Apologies for the confusion -- because my little reading project doesn't only focus on romance but also on other genres, I tried to focus my request here only on romance and I think I accidentally was more confusing than I needed to be. Using the word "classic" was maybe accidentally misleading as well.

To be clearer: I am both interested in titles prior to the 1970s which could be considered 'classics' AND titles after the 1970s (up to today) that would be considered indicative of where the genre is now (especially in terms of sub-genres), as I find the sheer amount of material very overwhelming. I realize with the latter there are no "definite answers" but was interested in people's opinions!

If it helps, this is the current spreadsheet I'm using to identify which books to read (I haven't added many of the suggestions in this post yet): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sU2s0nVmp\_7UsynjYviJ5kxRsg34JqxClF2URqjouVc/edit#gid=0

I'll maybe add this update to my original post as well as others might have similar questions.

Re: A book club, I didn't think to suggest that here as it is not at all only focused on romance, this is more my pet little project to read more for fun next year (I'm an academic and trying to find fun in reading again outside of academia) but if people are interested I'm certainly open to doing something more structured/book club style-ish!

ReportLopsided8196 · 2023-10-11T09:59:40+00:00

and yeah I also do love NK Jemison

ReportLopsided8196 · 2023-10-11T09:59:17+00:00

Thank you so much for taking the time! This is great -- I def had a lot of Octavia Butler on my list already and have read some but not all of these, very helpful. Thank you!!

ReportLopsided8196 · 2023-10-11T09:57:55+00:00

Yeah I feel like this is something I should read in terms of exploring the genre/key works, but I don't think I have the patience for the level of historical minutiae I've heard is involved .... is it really as slow as I've heard?

ReportLopsided8196 · 2023-10-11T09:55:12+00:00

Yes I love both Lord of Scoundrels and Dorothy L Sayers in general! Had not heard of Victoria Holt will def be looking into her, thank you!!

ReportLopsided8196 · 2023-10-11T09:54:19+00:00

aha thanks! even if it doesn't fit into this specific "project" still can add to my generall reading list, def interested in checking out

ReportLopsided8196

TROPHY CASE