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Vol-au-Vent

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Vol-au-Vent

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.

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

  2. Roll out the puff pastry and cut into circles.

  3. Place the circles on a baking sheet and bake until golden brown.

  4. In a pan, melt butter and add diced chicken and shrimp.

  5. Stir in mushroom ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, lemon peel, and curry powder.

  6. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  7. Add cream to the mixture and heat through.

  8. Fill the baked pastry shells with the mixture and serve.

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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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

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

  5. Chicken + shrimptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together988 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, shrimp, mushroom, ketchup, sauce, pepper, butter):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, shrimp, mushroom, ketchup, sauce, pepper, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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