This is a quick and easy vegetable only dish and would be great if you’re looking for a meat free night or something to serve vegetarian friends. Of course, you could also serve it alongside a juicy steak or lamb chops………..
As this says it’s not a traditional moussaka. Traditional Greek moussaka is made with eggplant and this recipe uses potato in it’s place. I think that using both eggplant and potato would work really well too, but making a traditional mince and tomato base sauce would probably be a lot better than a can of braised steak and onions.
The only part of this recipe that I’m unsure of is the packet of hearty beef soup. It does say you can substitute a can of condensed hearty beef soup, but I’m not sure that beef stock and extra vegetables, carrots or celery, mightn’t be a better way to go.
Vegetarian recipes weren’t something Mum would have been looking for on the pages of the Herald Sun. Growing up I can’t remember anyone among our family or friends who didn’t eat meat, so cooking vegetable only dishes just wasn’t necessary. This recipe is on a page Mum kept from the paper that had pork, lamb, sausage and fish casseroles on it, so the recipes were around, they just weren’t something Mum made.
This recipe reminds me of the Sunday night teas that Mum used to make. They were always something quick and easy to make that could be eaten with a fork while watching TV, that new fangled miracle that came into our lives after the 1956 Melbourne Olympic games.
I often make a large tub of potato bake to serve at barbecues, mine has brown onions, bacon and corn in it. This version with leeks looks good though and I might give it a go over the summer months.
These no real need to put the ingredients in an Oven Bag to cook this dish, you can easily put it all in a casserole dish. Although an Oven Bag does save on the washing up…………
Ingredients: ½ oz flour = 15g, 1oz butter = 30g, 4-6oz sultanas = 125-185g, ½ pint = 300ml wine/stock & marsala/sweet sherry
Back in the 60s, which is around the time this recipe was published, the choice of pork cuts was a lot more limited than it is now. You could buy roast pork and pork chops and not much else. So although this recipe calls for shoulder pork shops you could really use any pork cut you wanted. As it’s pre-metrics you need to convert the 10oz can of soup to 300ml and bake the casserole at 180o.
Most meatloaves I know of are baked in a tin or hand molded into a loaf shape. This is the first time I’ve seen a recipe that steams the loaf in a basin, but trust Mum to have cut out and kept something different. The combination of potato, carrot and onions together with sausage meat and some spices in this recipe should make for a tasty loaf.
As it says this is similar to a pastie, but instead of chopping the meat and vegetables up you layer them and then put a pastry lid on top. Although it doesn’t say to, I’d make sure you put a few slits in the pastry lid to let the steam out.
Beb's Recipe Drawer 