recipes

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Mock Banana – Recipe No. 148

This is the legendary and authentic wartime recipe for ‘Mock Banana’.

Before the war the Brits imported 70% of their food which equated to around 20 million tons per year!

Imports dropped significantly to about 1/3rd and consequently many foods such as bananas were impossible to get hold of. Prior to the bar the Brits went crazy for bananas so it was one of the foods that were truly missed.

Somewhere, some strange culinary mind obviously decided that a substitute was needed. This was when the good old parsnip was brought into play…

My lunch today consisted of 4 mock banana sandwiches and actually, despite the rather bizarre experience, they tasted pretty good! (but then again I do love parsnips)

Mock Banana

1 medium parsnip per round of sandwiches
2-3 teaspoon of caster sugar per parsnip
2-3 squirts of banana essence per parsnip (you can buy on eBay)

Method

Peel and chop up the parsnip and boil until soft
Drain and mix in the caster sugar and banana essence
Mash until fairly smooth
Cool down
Spread on your bread and make your sandwiches!

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Country House Cake – Recipe No. 147

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This is the first recipe I’ve made out of my latest acquisition which is a fabulous wartime recipe book of tried and tested readers recipes printed by the Daily Telegraph during the war. Best thing was it just cost me a penny (plus £2.80 postage and packing)…

This came out amazingly well for an eggless cake and I added a sugar glaze to add a little extra decadence which was really nice and was so simple to do (a couple of dessert spoons of sugar dissolved in about 150 mls of boiling water and simmered for just a minute and drizzled over).

I used dairy free margarine and soy milk so this recipe is also suitable for vegans.

The whole cake cost about 50 pence to make so great value for money!

Country House Cake
12 oz plain flour
3 oz sugar
4 oz margarine
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon of mixed spice
6 oz dried mixed fruit
1/2 pint warmed milk

Method
Cream margarine and sugar together.
Add all dried ingredients making sure the flour is sieved and everything dry has been well mixed.
Stir in warm milk and beat well.
Place in a 7 inch deep tin.
Bake in a moderate 180 C for 1.5 to 2 hours.

Makes 12 slices.

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Mince-in-the-Hole – Recipe No. 146

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Another recipe from ‘Eating for Victory’. I LOVE this book because it literally is a made out of the scans of ACTUAL Ministry of Food leaflets bound together in a hardback book.

This recipe is for ‘Mince-in-the-Hole’ and was a way to use up bits of leftover meats which were minced up and formed into balls, roasted in the baking pan then the batter was added and baked until cooked.

Being a veggie I used Quorn mince but had problems forming it into balls that would stick together even with the addition of some sticky tomato chutney and a little bit of margarine. Nevertheless I was able to mound the mixture up sufficiently in the baking pan to make a fairly good attempt at it. It tasted very nice and I ate two portions with peas, carrots and gravy!

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CLICK HERE to look at this book on Amazon!

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Wartime Mock Crab – Recipe No. 145

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Lets get this straight right away. This doesn’t taste like crab in any shape or form BUT it was very tasty and so very simple to make and used up 1/2 a weekly egg ration per person (serves 4).

When I say it serves 4, it’s enough filling for 4 rounds of sandwiches with some cucumber, grated carrot, tomato or salad leaves…. but only just.

I served mine on a carrot and swede mash with some peas on the side. All my egg ration is used up for the week now as I had half of it.

Costs about 60p to make.

I got this recipe from yes another of Marguerite Patten’s books, “We’ll Eat Again”. More info here…

 

Wartime Mock Crab

1/2 oz of margarine
2 eggs or 2 reconstituted dried eggs
1 oz cheese
1 dessertspoon salad dressing
few drops of vinegar
salt and pepper as you like it

Method
Melt the margarine in saucepan, add the well beaten eggs.
Scramble until half set then add the rest of the ingredients.
Serve as a sandwich filling, on hot toast or over mashed potatoes.

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Bread and Butter Pudding – Recipe No. 144

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In Marguerite Patten’s “Victory Cookbook” there is always one pudding recipe that is an absolute ‘go-to’ when one needs comforting and one has spare eggs.

All becomes good in the world when you take that first spoonful of sugary topped, eggy, bready, sultana sprinkled, nutmeggy deliciousness, especially if served with a little hot custard.

It’s so moreish that one simply finds it’s addictive charm and charisma extremely hard to fathom, due to it’s rather plain and dumpy exterior and the fact the main ingredient is stale bread. But as we all know, in real life, sometimes the less bling the more zing!

The cost to make this, about £1.50 (not including custard) which isn’t bad seeing it will feed 4-6!

Bread and Butter Pudding (from the Victory CookBook)

During VE Day country celebrations in 1945, the farmers wife may have decided to make a REAL Bread and Butter pudding using shell eggs which would have been a bit of an extravagance.

  • 4 large slices of bread
  • 2 oz butter
  • 3 oz sultanas
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 oz sugar
  • 1 pint milk

For the topping:
sprinkling of sugar
a little grated or ground nutmeg

(to veganize use a 1/4 cup of soft tofu, blended, per egg, use a nut or soy milk and dairy free margarine)

  1. Method

    Spread the top of the bread with the softened butter and then cut each slice of bread into 4 neat squares and place buttered side up into a 2 pint (1.2 litre) pie dish.
  2. Sprinkle the sultanas on top. Beat the eggs with the sugar. Warm the milk, pour over the beaten eggs and sugar and pour over the bread and butter. Leave to stand for 20-30 minutes until the bread is swollen.
  3. Preheat the oven to 150C (300F) Gas Mark 2. Sprinkle a dessertspoon of sugar over the top with the nutmeg and then bake for an hour until just firm. If you’d like a crisp top turn the heat up to 180C (350F) Gas Mark 4 for the last 10 minutes.

Serves 4-6

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Victory Cookbook: Nostalgic Food and Facts from 1940 – 1954

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Padded Pudding with Mock Cream – Recipe No. 143

So I did my first ever proper video recipe. Lets just say it was challenging. Much harder than it looks and then you spend hours putting it together and then hiding your face behind pillows as you witness your lumpy bits rhythmically jiggling as you get serious with a wooden spoon…

The recipe was taken from Marguerite Patten’s book ‘Feeding the Nation’ which is a nice thick paperback book jammed with hundreds of authentic wartime recipes. You can buy it off Amazon used for just a few £’s. Click image below for further information..

The recipe I re-created was

Padded Pudding with Mock Cream

Make 1 pint custard sauce using 1 pint milk, 2 tablespoons of custard powder and 1 tablespoon of sugar. Leave in the saucepan. Add 1 mug full of fine stale breadcrumbs, 2 tablespoons of jam and a teaspoon of vanilla essence and continue to simmer for 5 minutes.

Spoon into 4-6 dishes, allow to cool then top with mock cream and grated chocolate.

Mock cream

Mix 1oz of margarine with 1oz of caster sugar. Then beat in 1-2 tablespoons of dried milk powder and a tablespoon of milk until light and fluffy. Cool then use.

 

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Potatoes in Curry Sauce – Recipe No. 142

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Potatoes in Curry Sauce

Here is a good and honest stick to the ribs kinda winter dish.

It serves 4 served with other vegetables or something else or 2 if you just share the whole dish between you.

It’s actually not bad, quite sweet and filling and economical too. I worked it out to cost me about £1.00 to make the whole dish.

I found this recipe in a really great wartime recipe book called ‘Eating for Victory’ which contains over 150 pages of reproductions of official second world war instruction and recipe leaflets and I use this book a lot!

CLICK HERE to look at this book on Amazon!

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Ingredients
2 lbs potatoes
1/2 oz fat
1 onion or 1 leek
1 apple chopped
1 tomato chopped
1 rounded dessertspoon of curry powder
2 rounded dessertspoon of plain flour
1/2 pint of stock (veggie or meat)
1/2 teaspoon mixed herbs
1 or 2 cloves (optional)
Pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg (optional)
1 teaspoon sweet pickle or 1 oz sultanas
1 teaspoon malt vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
Add salt and pepper to your own taste

Method
Boil the potatoes and keep warm. Make the fat hot in a pan, put in the chopped onion and fruit and fry lightly without browning. Add the curry powder and flour, mix well then add the stock gradually and the rest of the ingredients. Simmer for 5-10 minutes stirring frequently and adding a little more water if needed. Pour over the potatoes and serve at once.

eatingforvictory
CLICK HERE to look at this book on Amazon!

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Vegetable Soup – Recipe No. 139

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Here’s a pretty standard quick wartime recipe for vegetable soup.

I’m all for making dinners cheaply but sometimes you have to take a short cut now and again, especially if your life is busy. Not strictly in the spirit of the 1940s but it’s still the same food!

In this case, when I was doing shopping in Aldi’s and saw a large packet of fresh chopped mixed veg for soup. At only 99p I thought why not. The veggies inside the pack were fresh leeks, carrots & turnips.

To this I added a couple of fresh chopped potatoes and a couple of tablespoons of dried lentils and cooked the veg in a seasoned vegetable stock.

It made a thin and pleasant soup, enough for 4 large bowls and all I added in addition was some extra salt and pepper.

All this for about 35p a bowl and less than 200 calories!

Ingredients

1 pack of vegetables for soup from Aldi’s (or a chopped turnip, a few chopped carrots, 1/2 large leek chopped)
2 level tablespoons of dried lentils
2 potatoes chopped
1.5 litres of vegetable stock (or any stock)
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Place chopped vegetables and dried lentils in the stock
Bring to boil and simmer until vegetables/lentils are tender
Add salt and pepper to taste

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Irish Potato Pancakes – Recipe No. 138

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So I got hungry tonight after my stew ran out at lunch time.. ( Two platefuls with mash)

I did have a large lettuce sandwich for dinner later but felt restless and hungry this evening, so decided cooking some ‘Irish Potato Pancakes’ would help so as I type this up I’ve enjoyed some for supper!

Super easy to make!

Irish Potato Pancakes

Ingredients

8 oz mashed potato
1/2 oz melted margarine
1 or 2 oz flour
1 level teaspoon of salt
pinch of pepper

Method

Chop up two washed (not peeled) medium sized potatoes
Place in boiling water and cook until soft enough to mash
Drain and mix the potato, salt, pepper, margarine and enough flour to make a stiff dough.
Roll out to 1/4 inch thick and cut into 8 pieces
Fry in a greased pan browning both sides
Spread with margarine or sandwich fillings (I just enjoyed as they were)

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Trench Stew – Recipe No 137

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This recipe dates back to WW1, from the trenches, where food was often not hot by the time it came from the field kitchen to the front line. Soldiers would often throw together whatever they had to hand to make a hot meal and cook them over a little stove in the trenches.

Trench stew is the order of the day, here on Remembrance Sunday…

Ingredients

  • 1 turnip or large potato
  • 1 parsnip
  • 2 carrots
  • ½ tin corned beef
  • ½ stock cube
  • 1 or 2 biscuits or stale bread
  • 1 pint of water

Method

  1. Chop up the vegetables, carrots into small pieces, other veg larger pieces and add to pint of boiling water with stock cube in.
  2. As the veg becomes tender mix in 1/2 can corned beef (I didn’t as I’m vegetarian) and crumble in the stale bread or biscuits/crackers and simmer for a few more minutes.

Serves 2

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