Why it works: Egg and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,991 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓
Vol Au Vent of Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the pastry
Make rich puff pastry and chill it overnight.
Roll out the pastry to ⅓ inch thick.
Cut out circles with a circular cutter for the base.
Use a smaller cutter to press into the tops, sinking it halfway.
Brush the tops with beaten egg.
Chill until very cold, then bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.
Fill and serve
Remove the inner pieces with a sharp knife.
Scrape out the center and fill with seasoned cooked chicken.
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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Egg + chickentop 30% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,991 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rich puff pastry
- Its layers of fat and dough puff in the oven to form the hollow case.
- Beaten egg
- Brushed on the tops, it sets and browns the pastry for a glossy golden finish.
- Cooked chicken
- Forms the filling, providing the savoury, substantial body of the dish.
The step that matters
Chill until very cold before baking. Puff pastry relies on cold fat melting in the hot oven to create steam and separate the layers. If the pastry is warm, the fat leaks out and the vol-au-vent rises poorly and loses its shape.
“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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