Recipe #111 - Hunt Pie from The 1940s Experiment (taken from We’ll Eat Again by Marguerite Patten)
The Covid-19 crisis has awakened various WWII rationing websites that I love. The Ration Project have begun podcasting again (after a 4 year hiatus) and The 1940s Experiment is posting with particular attention to our current world situation, which in many ways resembles that of the British homefront during WWII. These days we are able to easily socialise, even if we can’t be physically together, and getting hold of food is much easier too. But with panic buying, and an encouragement to go out as little as possible, I’m keen to get into some experimental cooking AND resurrect Rationblogging!
So last night I made Hunt Pie. On The 1940s Experiment, she puts the filling into a pie dish and bakes the crust - like you’d expect to do with a pie. But the original recipe says to place the pastry over in the saucepan and let it cook in there. So in the name of science that’s what I did, much to my boyfriend’s consternation (he was imagining a pie with lovely light puff pastry).
The result is honestly something that tastes like 100 other wartime dinner recipes. I used cabbage, onion, pumpkin and cauliflower in my pie and the filling tasted kinda like vegetable soup does - tasty and comforting, but nothing exciting. The pastry was rather stodgy and chewy, as I expected it might be.
Verdict? Perfectly edible, but not great. I think it would be greatly improved by baking the pastry instead of steaming it... or maybe using frozen puff pastry, because no way am I making that stuff from scratch.