Celebrate "VE Day" with Potato Pete and an Authentic WWII Recipe: "Whit Salad" (2024)

Celebrate “VE Day” with Potato Pete and an Authentic WWII Recipe: “Whit Salad”. You might be surprised to know that this ration book salad recipe is egg-free but doesn’t skimp on flavour!

*Paid collaboration with The Potato Council*

The 8th May is VE Day – Victory in Europe Day, and 2015 when this recipe was originally published, marked the 70th anniversary of the end of war in Europe.

8th May 2020 sees the 75th anniversary commemorated and the republication of this post.

The occasion will be commemorated with events across the UK, including the lighting of over 100 beacons and WWII style street parties. As regular readers will know, in 2013, I lived off WWII rations for a week, and you can see my week of ration book cookery (and recipes) at the bottom of my post today.

Of all the ingredients I relied on the most when I lived off rations for a week were potatoes……so, when the Potato Girls(from the Potato Council) asked me to come up with a WWII potato recipe, either aa twist on an original WWII recipe or another original recipe of my choice from the 1940’s, I was delighted to accept the challenge in the spirit of the 70th anniversary celebrations and commemoration.

One of the characters that encouraged people to eat potatoes during the war, was Potato Pete; and, he (and his recipes) appear in many of my WWII cookbooks and recipes leaflets.

Potatoes weren’t just healthy, with research showing children get more Vitamin C, B1, B6, Folate, Iron, Magnesium and Potassium from potatoes than from the 5 super-foods; beetroot, bananas, nuts, broccoli and avocado combined, but they weren’t rationed and being home-grown, they saved the fleet, insofar as there was no need to ship them from overseas to Great Britain.

As part of the Potato Council’s VE Day 70th anniversary commemoration,five 1940’s recipes were brought up to date for the modern family to enjoy whilst celebrating their heritage; these comprise:Sole Otero,Scotch Hotpot,Potato Piglets,Oxford Potato Soup and the infamousWoolton Pie.

Now, I have already made Woolton Pie, and several other 1940’s potato recipes, so it was time to do some research for less well-known potato dishes that were on the healthy side too.

I finally discovered the recipe I wanted to replicate in the Victory Cookbook by Marguerite Patten; this fabulous publication is a compilation of three of her wartime recipe books, “We’ll Eat Again”, “The Victory Cookbook” and the“Post-War Kitchen”.

It’s a nostalgic cookbook covering war-time rationing, food and recipes and is a wonderful resource of period recipes, as well as facsimiles, cartoons and photos from the era.

My recipe was featured in the “snacks and supper dishes” chapter and it intrigued me so much I had to make it. As eggs were heavily rationed during the war, so the recipe sets out to replicate them as mock eggs, in a rather brilliant way, as you can see from the photos, and at the same time make good use of the humble spud.

The salad is very impressive to look at and is VERY filling, as we found to our cost, with no bread needed to accompany it.

It was fun to make and very tasty, with a selection of cooked potatoes and raw vegetables on the platter.

A simple “salad cream” style dressing is made for the salad, and I worked out that each portion was about 300 calories per person, which is remarkably low for such a tasty and filling salad.

The original recipe says it feeds 4 people, but I’d say that it would feed 5 to 6 people with ease.

I URGE you all to try this recipe, it makes a wonderful family supper dish and will fox the children when they see the mock eggs! I have shared the recipe AT THE END OF THIS POST, as well as some step-by-step photos how to assemble the salad. Karen

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More Wartime Ration Book Recipes:

Living of Rations with Ration Book Cooking – Day One

Lord Woolton Pie

Eggs and Egg in a Nest: WW2 Mock Fried Egg Recipe

Black Pudding Hot-Pot

Ration Book Fish on Friday: Devilled Fish

You’ll find the full and printable recipe at the end of this post.

• To make the potato eggs, mix the grated carrots and cheese together to form balls, like egg yolks; add a little of the mashed potato to bind them if necessary.
• Wrap the balls with a layer of mashed potato, and then cut in half, so they resemble hard boiled eggs.

• Arrange the salad ingredients on a large serving platter – lettuce first and then the carrots, cabbage (or celeriac), diced potatoes with snipped chives.

• Arrange the tomatoes and mock egg halves around the outside of the salad.
• Make the dressing by whisking all the ingredients together and drizzle over the salad.

Even More Wartime Ration Book Recipes:

Remembrance Sunday and The Wartime Kitchen Recipes

Wartime Recipes from The Great War

Janice from Farmersgirl Kitchen also made a VE Day recipe and also shares a Pinterest Board with me, which is all about Ration Book Cookery, so make sure you check her and the board out too!

And, if you fancy some deliciouspotato vareniki, then pop over to see Galina’s recipe, who also cooked for this VE challenge and has a wonderful family story to share