Skip to main content
Main

Chickens for Vol-au-vent

A creamy chicken filling for vol-au-vent made with white meat, flour, butter, white wine, mace, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chickens for Vol-au-vent

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Place the white meat of chicken or turkey in a saucepan.

  2. Dredge in a little flour and add the butter.

  3. Pour in the white wine and add the mace.

  4. Stir in the cream and heat through.

Serve

  1. Fill the vol-au-vent with the mixture.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. White wine + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,329 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. White wine + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,760 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

White meat of chicken or turkey
Provides the main protein and body of the filling.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by absorbing liquid as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, carrying flavour.
White wine
Adds acidity and depth, helping to balance the rich cream.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Heat through without boiling. Once cream is added, gentle heat keeps it smooth; boiling hard can cause it to separate and turn grainy, and overcooking toughens the chicken.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, flour, butter, white wine, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, flour, butter, white wine, cream. 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.

You might also like

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipesMeat CakesMeat Cakes35 recipes