In honour of VE Day, I recreated an authentic wartime meal: potato-wrapped sardines. The ingredients list is strikingly simple – just a tin of sardines, roughly 450g of potatoes, a dash of lemon juice (or vinegar), a pinch of cayenne and black pepper, some flour and a glug of cooking oil. The historical backstory gives this humble meal extra meaning.

I followed a recipe highlighted by the Imperial War Museum’s WW2-era cookery video series (drawn from their Victory in the Kitchen cookbook). In wartime Britain, staples like meat, eggs and butter were scarce, so home cooks made do with what they had. As historian Mark Riddaway notes, “rations of tinned products were generally more liberal than those of fresh meat and fish”, – meaning canned sardines were far easier to come by than a steak or fillet of cod.

At the same time, potato-growing was heavily promoted on the home front (even cartoon mascots like “Dr Carrot” and “Potato Pete” urged people to eat more veggies).

These fried sardine parcels felt like a frugal cousin to the classic fish-and-chips: after all, fish-and-chips was one of the few comfort foods not rationed during WWII.

In a much humbler way, this simple dish delivered a similar warmth and satisfaction with far fewer resources. Serving it up in honour of VE Day feels like a fitting tribute – proof that even limited rations, combined with ingenuity, could nourish Britons.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 450g potatoes
• Flour
• One tin of sardines
• Two teaspoons of vinegar or lemon juice
• Cayenne and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Method

I weighed the potatoes to ensure recipe success. 450g equates to 2 large white potatoes or three smaller ones (I used white potatoes from a 2kg bag, not those labelled for baking).

The next step was to peel and chop the potatoes, then boil them until fork-tender. The smaller you chop them, the quicker they will cook.

I then drained the spuds in a colander and mashed them with salt and “just enough flour to make a firm dough” (exactly as the IWM recipe suggests). This turned out to be around four tablespoons.

The sardines were drained and mashed with two teaspoons of lemon juice and generous shakes of cayenne and pepper for a spicy kick. This step is essential if you want the finished faux fish fillets to have authentic flavour.

I began assembling the parcels with our potato dough and fish filling ready. Word of warning: Dust a chopping board generously with plain flour, and do the same to your hands. I quickly learned that Dan Lepard's original recipe glazes over this step, maybe too much.

With very floury hands and slightly sticky dough, I grabbed a dough ball and flattened it to 1cm thick on the floured surface. I topped it with seasoned sardines and carefully folded the edges after lightly dampening them with a dab of water on my fingertips.

It was fiddly – the dough kept sticking, so flouring was essential – but soon I had shaped about seven parcels.

I then shallow-fried them in hot oil until golden on both sides. The results were hot and crispy, with a satisfying bite.

Inside, the sardines were surprisingly meaty and flavourful; the pinch of cayenne gave a gentle heat (spices like chilli powder were still scarce in wartime Britain, so that hit of heat felt almost luxurious).

The experience reminded me of fish and chips—“like the best fish and chips without the grease,” as Dan Lepard observed.

The parcels proved hearty and surprisingly flavoursome, though admittedly a little stodgy from all that potato.