Why it works: Chicken and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,513 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Vol- Au- Vent
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a good hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the pastry
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Roll out the puff pastry to ½ inch thick and cut into desired shapes with a fluted cutter.
Make a slight incision around the top edge of each pastry to form a lid.
Place the pastry in the oven and keep the door shut for a few minutes.
Bake and hollow
Bake until golden brown, then remove from the oven.
Carefully detach the lid and remove the soft crumb from the center.
If edges are thin, reinforce with small pieces of pastry using egg white.
Fill and serve
Fill with fricassee or warmed flaked fish in thick white sauce, avoiding excess liquid.
Replace the lid and serve.
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.
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Chicken + saucetop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,513 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Puff pastry
- Its layers puff and crisp in the oven to form the hollow, flaky case.
- Thick white sauce
- Binds the filling together and keeps it moist without making the pastry soggy.
- Fricasseed chicken, rabbit, or flaked cold fish
- Provides the savoury main filling that the sauce coats.
The step that matters
Avoiding excess liquid in the filling. Watery filling soaks into the thin pastry walls and makes them soft instead of crisp. Keeping the sauce thick and the filling drained helps the case stay crisp when served.
“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.
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