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Vol-au-Vents of Fish Forcemeat

A puff pastry shell filled with fish forcemeat, served garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,341 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Vol-au-Vents of Fish Forcemeat

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 cases

  1. Roll out the puff pastry to ½ inch thick and cut into 3‑inch rounds.

  2. Use a smaller cutter to cut halfway through the middle of the rounds.

  3. Place the rounds on a greased baking sheet and bake at 400 °F (200 °C) until lightly colored.

Fill and serve

  1. Brush the baked rounds with beaten egg and carefully lift out the small center rounds.

  2. Fill the cavities with fish forcemeat.

  3. Serve the vol‑au‑vents on a folded napkin, garnished with parsley.

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. Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,341 recipes

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

  2. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

  3. Egg + fishtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff paste
Puffs up in the oven into light, flaky layers that form the hollow case.
Fish forcemeat
Fills the cases as a soft, savory filling that contrasts with the crisp pastry.
Beaten egg
Brushed on the baked rounds, it gives the pastry a glossy, golden finish.

The step that matters

Cutting halfway through the middle of the rounds. If the cut goes through the base or is uneven, the case will not hold its shape or leave a sound rim for the filling. Cutting only partway leaves a firm wall while the centre lifts out cleanly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, fish):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, fish. 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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