1940s recipe needed

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

I think it might be called Woolton Pie, but it's a pie made with peas, sweetcorn (or swede) and carrot with some kind of white sauce, but since her Great Nanny died about 18 months ago, DD2 (now 10) has missed it very much.

We used to go down to the GGPs' bungalow during the summer, Great Nanny would do DD2's make up, put on perfume & ribbons in her hair, and we'd have little tea parties in the garden by the hollyhocks whilst GGD pootled around in the greenhouse to the strains of Glenn Miller.

So, now a respectful period has elapsed, I'd like to at least introduce some of the meals DD2 enjoyed there, but rather than take the risk of getting it totally wrong, I was hoping for some clues from the experts...

Any other recipes of the time would also be welcome, as I am sure much of the cooking was things she had learned whilst a WAAF.

emilyt

http://cookit.e2bn.org/historycookbook/103-woolton-pie-recipe-1-with-wholemeal-pastry-topping.html

Is this the one.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

It seems similar - I think most of the difference may be in presentation, so I'll have a good read and see if it is the same - Thanks!

emilyt

Sounds like nanny made it to her own taste. I do that all the time.

Didn't she ever write the recipe down in a book anywhere. Just a thought.

I have started writing all my recipe's down as i think it is so important. Hopefully one day my grown up girls just might want to learn to cook.

Maybe trial and error is the way to go. You could add everything you remember and make a basic white sauce with cornflour butter and milk. See how it turns out.

Good luck

Emilyx

thriftlady_2

Here's one version. It is a very flexible recipe (as were all wartime recipes) use whatever veg you have.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

'Fraid she didn't. She was some sort of nutritional consultant for meals at a school for children with disabilities after WWII, so I think she just had it all in her head.

She was exMIL's mother and exMIL is, not to put too fine a point on it, useless in the kitchen (and so vehemently against people above a size 8 - like me - that she refused to learn to cook in case it meant she got fat).

Butterfly_Brain

Woolton Pie

Dice and cook About 1lb of each of the following in salted water:
Potatoes ( You could use Parsnips if topping the pie with Mashed Potato)
Cauliflower
Swedes
Carrots
Strain but keep about ¾ pint of vegetable water
Arrange the veg in a large pie dish or casserole, Add a liitle vegetable extract (veg stock cube, but some people used marmite for a bit of zing ) add about 1 oz of rolled oats to the vegetable water and cook until thickened, pour this over the vegetables and add 3-4 chopped spring onions
Top with Potato Pastry or mashed potatoes with a little grated cheese and heat in the oven 200C Gas 5 until golden Brown.

foreign_correspondent

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

I think it might be called Woolton Pie, but it's a pie made with peas, sweetcorn (or swede) and carrot with some kind of white sauce, but since her Great Nanny died about 18 months ago, DD2 (now 10) has missed it very much.

We used to go down to the GGPs' bungalow during the summer, Great Nanny would do DD2's make up, put on perfume & ribbons in her hair, and we'd have little tea parties in the garden by the hollyhocks whilst GGD pootled around in the greenhouse to the strains of Glenn Miller.

So, now a respectful period has elapsed, I'd like to at least introduce some of the meals DD2 enjoyed there, but rather than take the risk of getting it totally wrong, I was hoping for some clues from the experts...

Any other recipes of the time would also be welcome, as I am sure much of the cooking was things she had learned whilst a WAAF.

what a wonderful, fun great grandma to have - your daughter was very lucky and will carry those lovely memories with her for life... I have just checked a few old cookbooks I have, but sadly no recipe for woolton pie - there is some info here though...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolton_pie

original recipe from The Times:
http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/woolton.html

Beki

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Woolton Pie

Dice and cook About 1lb of each of the following in salted water:
Potatoes ( You could use Parsnips if topping the pie with Mashed Potato)
Cauliflower
Swedes
Carrots
Strain but keep about ¾ pint of vegetable water
Arrange the veg in a large pie dish or casserole, Add a liitle vegetable extract (veg stock cube, but some people used marmite for a bit of zing ) add about 1 oz of rolled oats to the vegetable water and cook until thickened, pour this over the vegetables and add 3-4 chopped spring onions
Top with Potato Pastry or mashed potatoes with a little grated cheese and heat in the oven 200C Gas 5 until golden Brown.

lol i was just going to copy that out of my victory cookbook! :rotfl: fab isn't it! i love making recipes from it! :T

[Deleted User]

It wasn't so nice when you had to have it several times a week as my brothers and I did back in the days of rationing.Woolton pie and snoek(a disgusting fish) were two of the things my late Mum never ever made us eat again after rationing finished in 1954. I suppose with the onset of the credit crunch folk are looking to streetch their meals a bit and meat is the first thing to be rationed again, but by price this time. there are lots of things I remember from over 60 years ago and the food is one of them. We ate as well as Mum and the local butcher let us really .In those days the Butcher was the one person who held sway over the housewives. They would queue for hours just to get almost anything that he had in his shop. I can never eat tripe ever again, even though we did back then. I seem to remember that most of our dinners were always followed by a pudding of some sort ,usually rice,tapioca or semolina.How she got the stuff I'll never know but she did.Steamed puds with a 'tiny' dab of jam was also on the menu.It was a case of 'filling up the kids' so you didn't get too hungry or notice that the meat was very sparse on the plate. I remember my late Dad coming home with a huge tin of golden syrup ,god knows where he got it from but it seemed to last for ages. No one actually starved on rations it was just a bit boring eating the same food with little chance of a change. My late Mum bless her was very inventive though and how she managed to feed us I can't imagine .With only a tiny amount of food she seemed to find all sorts of ways to streeetch it out. Sugar was more precious than gold dust, and she could shave the thinnest slices of corned beef I have ever seen, dipped in a batter made from dried egg and fried with a tiny amount of chopped onion and sauteed potatos it was probably the tastiest meal that we ate .

Beki

JackieO - your mum sounds lovely