Creamed Sardine Pie

Another frugal WW2 recipe, this time stretching one tin of sardines into a main course for four. It was better than I expected but could easily have been improved within the limitations of rationing. The pie filling is basically a thick white sauce (flour, milk-and-water and the oil from the sardine tin) with the flaked sardines added, and this makes for a heavy dish; I think it could be lightened and made more interesting by cutting the quantity of sauce in half and making up the difference with diced cooked vegetables (potato and broccoli or celery would be good), using the vegetable cooking water in the sauce. I'd also omit the nutmeg and add plenty of parsley.

Not easy to serve from a deep pie dish as the hot filling is quite runny; again, the addition of veg would help, as would using a shallow pie plate. Alternatively it should be possible to make individual Creamed Sardine Turnovers.

This book would be greatly improved by the addition of a) an index and b) page numbers beyond 11 (without which the index would be of limited use).