Root Vegetable pie
A few days ago I caught an episode of Ration Book Britain which is a culinary documentary series demonstrating some of the strange recipes that were invented to combat wartime hardships. One of the less bizarre recipes was the Woolton pie, made with vegetables and served with gravy. A bit like a Sunday roast without the meat. Inspired by this recipe but without the full compliment of ingredients (and too lazy to go shopping) I embarked on my own ration book adventure. War-style.
Ingredients:
- 1 baking potato
- 1 parsnip
- 1 carrot
- A few spring onions
- A few handfuls of adzuki beans – these need to be soaked for 8 hours and boiled for 40 minutes before using in the pie filling. Or you could throw in a tin of kidney beans!
- Garlic salt
- Pepper – lots!
- 1-2 teaspoons of herbes de provence
- Oil or butter for frying
- 1 sheet of ready-rolled shortcrust pastry
- Gravy to serve (I used a popular granulated variety – it was a very lazy day)
Method:
- Peel the potato, carrot and parsnip and slice them finely. Chop the spring onions.
- Fry them in oil or butter for a few minutes and add the seasoning and herbs.
- Pour the vegetables into a pie dish and add the cooked adzuki beans.
- Cover with the pie crust and brush with a little milk or egg if you’d like it to go shiny as well as golden.
- Bake for 20 minutes at 200C.
Serve drizzled with gravy and devour. I should point out that if you’re especially hungry you may want to serve this with some bread and butter or mushy peas on the side. I planned to add some lentils to bulk out the pie filling but I forgot. Feel free to give it a go and let me know how it turns out.
To see the original Woolton Pie recipe click here!
