Skip to main content
Main

Patties Vol-au-vent

A puff pastry patty filled with seasoned minced meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Patties Vol-au-vent

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pastry

  1. Roll out puff pastry to ½ inch thick and cut out circles with a 2-inch cutter.

  2. Dip a 1-inch cutter in hot water and press it into the center of each circle, about halfway through.

  3. Brush the circles with egg yolk and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

Make the fillings

  1. Remove the inner circle and fill with minced beef mixed with pepper, salt, shallot, gravy, Madeira, and bread crumbs.

  2. For veal, mix minced veal with parsley, lemon peel, nutmeg, salt, cream, and gravy; fill the patties without warming the mixture first.

  3. For turkey, mince the white meat and mix with grated lemon, nutmeg, salt, and cream.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Rises and flakes into a crisp, layered case that holds the filling.
Egg yolk
Brushed on the pastry to give it a golden, glossy browning.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the minced meat fillings.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help bind the beef filling so it holds together.
Madeira
Adds sweetness and aroma to the beef filling.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth to the fillings.

The step that matters

Remove the inner circle and fill the patties without warming the veal mixture first. The pastry must be fully baked and crisp before filling, since a soft case steams and turns soggy. Keeping the cold veal mixture cold until filling helps keep the raw meat food-safe and the pastry from softening early.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, beef, pepper, bread, veal, parsley, lemon):

  1. Carrotfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, beef, pepper, bread, veal, parsley, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More vol-au-vent recipes

Fruit 13Chicken 7Oyster 6Strawberry 5Lobster 4Oysters in 4 See all 53 →

You might also like

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipes