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Vol-au-vent of Pigeons

A puff pastry shell filled with pigeon joints and sweetbread fricassee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Vol-au-vent of Pigeons

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the pastry case

  1. Roll out the puff pastry to fit the dish, about 1 inch thick.

  2. Use a hot knife to mark a border 1 inch from the edge.

  3. Decorate the pastry as desired.

  4. Brush the pastry with egg yolk.

  5. Bake the pastry in a 400°F (200°C) oven until risen and golden.

  6. Carefully remove the top.

  7. Scoop out the soft paste inside without damaging the shell.

  8. Return the shell to the oven for a few minutes to dry.

Prepare the filling

  1. Blanch the sweetbreads in boiling water.

  2. Plunge the sweetbreads into cold water.

  3. Cut the sweetbreads into uniform pieces.

  4. Bind the sweetbreads with twine.

  5. Place the sweetbreads in a stewpan with the pigeon joints.

  6. Add 1 cup of water, onion, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, bacon, butter, salt, and pepper.

  7. Simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  8. Remove the twine.

  9. Strain the mixture.

  10. Thicken the gravy if needed.

  11. Fill the vol-au-vent with the thick fricassee.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the main meat and rich flavour for the fricassee.
Veal sweetbreads
Add a tender, creamy texture to the filling.
Puff pastry
Rises and crisps in the oven to form the golden shell.
Butter
Adds richness and, rolled in flour, helps thicken the gravy.

The step that matters

Scoop out the soft paste inside without damaging the shell. Puff pastry is fragile when hot and only partly set; gouging through the walls leaves a weak case that may leak or collapse under the filling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, parsley, thyme, butter, flour, pepper, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, thyme, butter, flour, pepper, egg. 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.

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