Foodish History: Woolton Pie

Traditional Woolton Pie

Swedes, potatoes, carrots, turnips and other root vegetables are usually recommended for Woolton Pie. Cauliflower is also a common ingredient. Sometimes the recipe calls for a mashed potato topping. Other times it calls for a wholemeal pastry or potato pastry crust. 

The recipe is often written in the most basic way. This isn’t unusual for wartime recipes. After all, paper and ink were both heavily rationed during the war. Cooking knowledge is assumed, so not as much about the process is spelt out. For instance, most traditional recipes say little more than to dice the vegetables, cover them in water with some stock powder and oatmeal then bring to the boil. The idea is that the water cooks the vegetables, the stock adds the flavour and the oatmeal thickens the liquor. In theory, the mixture converts from a soupy consistency to a thick and creamy pie filling.

Savoy Flair?

Part of me thinks the head chef at the Savoy was trolling the British public with such a sparsely described recipe. Why didn’t he suggest the vegetables be sautéed gently first? Such a thing would use very little of a person’s weekly ration of butter, but increase the flavour of the final product immensely. Why didn’t he specify to use less water rather than more? Using too much water will dilute the flavour and prevent the mixture from thickening, resulting in an unsatisfactory slop.

Recipes are always interpreted by the cook who brings their own food literacy to their cooking. Just as is these days, home cooks with high levels of cooking skills and food literacy would be able to look at the recipe, read between the lines and adapt their rations to bring out the most flavour.

But the fact that this pie was the object of derision and mockery during the war, make me think the copy needed to be finessed and filled out so that the majority of housewives (yes, it was usually housewives) could cook it well. Of course, there are other reasons people may have disparaged it. A meatless recipe may have been generally unsatisfying to palates and bellies used to meat? Once meat was no longer rationed, did people simply look down on a recipe like this a relic of a time they wanted to forget? 

Woolton Pie a la Mode

I cooked the traditional recipe a couple of times before I came up with this Modern Woolton recipe. Here’s how it is different to the wartime one:

• I suggest you saute the diced vegetables in a little olive oil before adding water.
• I add a little meat. With modern trends towards plant-based diets, this step goes against the grain. The point of a Woolton Pie is that it is vegetarian! But my ten year old gave me the idea. His review the first time I cooked it was “It’s good, but it would be better with just a little meat. Not to much, just a little” So this pie is still mostly vegetable, but the chicken breast (which would most definitely NOT be available during WWII) adds a textural element that makes the dish much more satisfying. It is entirely optional.
• I make a scone topping instead of a pastry one. Anytime I have to get a rolling pin out the whole recipe feels harder. But with a scone topping, you simply have to use your fingers! It also sucks up some of the excess moisture in the mix. The texture is also hearty and satisfying. (Note: the picture here is of a wholemeal pastry crust.)
• I used modern convenience items like frozen vegetables and soup “starter” kits. Once again, these are not items WWII cooks would have had access to, but they represent what is cheap and accessible in modern supermarkets.

The Modern Woolton Pie

NB: I use Standard Australian Measurements so 1 Cup=250ml and 1 Tablespoon=20ml

Ingredients

For the pie filling:

• 1 x 1kg soup starter kit (Mine contained one swede, one onion, two sticks of celery, two carrots and two potatoes) or equivalent seasonal vegetables
• 1 x 500g bag of frozen cauliflower or fresh equivalent
• Approximately 500 g of vegetable or chicken stock
• 1 or 2 small chicken breast filets (optional)
• 1 x 20 ml Tablespoon oatmeal
• A splash of olive oil 
• Approximately 1 tbsp of roughly chopped parsley

For the scone topping:

• 2 x 250ml cups self raising flour
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 x 20ml tablespoons cold butter
• 1 teaspoon fress rosemary, finely chopped
• 250ml whole milk

Instructions

1. Dice or vegetables to the same size. Make sure each piece is no bigger than a playing dice. If you’re using frozen cauliflower you can chop it up in the pan once it’s soft.
2. Dice chicken to about the same size. Add a splash of oil to a small frying pan and add chicken to the pan. Saute gently until cooked then remove from pan and set aside
3. Add diced onions to the saucepan with another splash of olive oil and cook over a medium low heat until softened. Add the rest of the chopped vegetables and sweat for 3 to 4 minutes. Add chicken back into the pan along with stock and oatmeal. Simmer gently for ten minutes.
4. While the vegetables are cooking, add flour and salt to a bowl with cold butter. Rub butter into flour with fingertips until the mix resembles breadcrumbs or there are no large chunks of butter remaining. Add rosemary and mix well. Add milk to flour but instead of using a spoon to combine, use a knife to ‘cut’ the milk into the flour using slicing motions rather than beating ones (Tip: pretend you are carving a Noughts and Crosses/Tic-tac-toe board into the flour with the knife). Do not over mix.
5. Once the vegetables are cooked, transfer to an oven proof casserole dish (or if you saucepan can go in the oven, you can put the scone mixture right on top). And dollops of scone mixture to the top of the vegetables to act as a pie crust.
6. Cook in an oven preheated to 180C degrees (sorry – you are on your own to figure out the Fahrenheit equivalent!) for 15 to 20 minutes or until the topping is cooked.