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Vol-au-Vent De Poisson

A puff pastry shell filled with a creamy fish mixture and simmered in a spiced sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Vol-au-Vent De Poisson

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the pastry

  1. Roll out two circles of puff pastry and cut them out.

  2. Mark one circle with a smaller cutter, leaving a 1-inch margin.

  3. Wet the edges of the uncut circle and place the marked circle on top, pressing lightly.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until cooked, then remove the inner circle to create a lid.

Make the fish balls

  1. Mince and pound the fish or lobster, then mix with cream, salt, cayenne, and egg yolks until smooth.

  2. Shape the mixture into small balls with floured hands.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Melt butter in a pan, add flour, and stir without coloring.

  2. Gradually pour in milk or fish stock, stirring continuously until it boils.

  3. Add mace, bouquet garni, onion, salt, and pepper, and simmer for 15 minutes.

  4. Add the fish in flakes and 1 oz of butter, cover with buttered paper and the pan lid, and cook gently for 20 minutes.

  5. Remove the bouquet, mace, and onion before serving.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Butter and flour 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 fish or lobster
Forms the main body of the filling, giving it its flaked, delicate texture.
Egg yolks
Bind the fish mixture and set during cooking to give it a smooth, firm texture.
Thick cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the fish mixture soft and smooth.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the sauce and enriches the finished dish.
Flour
Thickens the milk or stock into a smooth sauce with butter.

The step that matters

Stir the roux without coloring. Flour cooked in butter must be stirred gently and kept pale so it thickens smoothly and without a toasted taste. Adding liquid gradually while stirring prevents lumps.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, fish, egg, butter, flour, milk, onion):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, fish, egg, butter, flour, milk, onion. 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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