Recipes · British · Main Courses

Woolton Pie (Wartime Root Vegetable Pie with Wholemeal Potato Pastry)

One serving has 543 kcal and 17 g protein, and at least a fifth of a woman's daily need of vitamin K (165%), manganese (154%), vitamin C (127%), vitamin A (122%), thiamin (116%) and riboflavin (78%). Ready in 80 minutes.

• Preparation: 35 min
• Cooking: 45 min
• Makes: 1 serving (685 g)
• Difficulty: Medium
• Diets: Vegetarian
• Contains: dairy, gluten

Ingredients

• 110 g Potatoes, diced
• 80 g Cauliflower
• 80 g Swede
• 80 g Carrots
• 20 g Spring onions
• 8 g Rolled oats (oatmeal)
• 3 g Yeast extract (vegetable extract)
• 200 g Water
• 4 g Parsley, fresh
• 45 g Wholemeal flour
• 1 g Baking powder
• 15 g Margarine
• 25 g Potato, boiled and mashed (for the pastry)
• 10 g Cheddar cheese, grated
• 3 g Plain flour (for the gravy)
• 0.5 g Salt
• 0.2 g Black pepper

Method

1. Dice the potatoes, swede and carrots into 2 cm pieces, break the cauliflower into small florets and slice the spring onions. Put them in a pan with the oats, yeast extract and just enough water to cover, about 200 ml. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring now and then so nothing sticks: the vegetables should be just tender and the oats will thicken the liquid.
2. Strain off and keep about 80 ml of the cooking liquor for the gravy. Spoon the vegetables into a small pie dish (about 500 ml), sprinkle with chopped parsley and leave to cool a little.
3. For the pastry, rub the margarine into the wholemeal flour, baking powder and salt until it looks like breadcrumbs, then work in the cold mashed potato and, if needed, a few teaspoons of cold water to make a soft dough. Roll it out about 5 mm thick, a little larger than the dish.
4. Heat the oven to 190 °C. Lay the pastry over the vegetables, press it onto the rim, cut a small steam hole and sprinkle over the cheese.
5. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown.
6. Meanwhile whisk the plain flour into the reserved liquor in a small pan and simmer for 2-3 minutes, stirring, into a thin brown gravy, and season with pepper. Serve the pie hot with the gravy. It was created at the Savoy in 1941 and named after Lord Woolton, the Minister of Food, to use what Britain's gardens grew under rationing.

Nutrition per serving

Shares of a day's need are for a woman of 30, 165 cm, 60 kg, lightly active, by the US and Canadian Dietary Reference Intakes. SustainBite works out each person's own needs, by the standard where they live: the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations in Norway, the UK's, EFSA's in the EU.

Climate footprint

0.4 kg CO2e a serving: lower than most main dishes on SustainBite. Source: ADEME, Agribalyse 3.2.

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