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Chicken, Vol Au Vent, How to Prepare

A baked pastry case filled with shredded chicken, mushrooms, peas, carrots, and a thickened broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Chicken, Vol Au Vent, How to Prepare

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Boil the chicken in chicken broth until cooked, then remove and shred the meat.

  3. In a pan, melt butter and sauté mushrooms, peas, and carrots until tender.

  4. Stir in flour, then add the chicken and broth to create a thick filling.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll out puff pastry and cut into circles, placing some filling in the center.

  2. Fold the pastry over and seal the edges, then bake until golden brown.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Peas + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Mushroom + peastop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together890 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry sheets
Forms the flaky, golden shell that encloses the filling.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a stable, spoonable filling.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor when sautéing the vegetables.
Chicken broth
Cooks the chicken and forms the liquid base of the filling.
Chicken
Provides the main protein that gives the filling its substance.

The step that matters

Stir in flour, then add the chicken and broth to create a thick filling.. Flour must be cooked into the fat and liquid while stirring so it thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps. Stirring also prevents scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, mushroom, carrot, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mushroom, carrot, butter, flour, pepper. 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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