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Vol-au-Vent a LA Prince George

A puff pastry shell filled with ragout, topped with whipped egg whites, ham or tongue, and pistachios.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,526 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Vol-au-Vent a LA Prince George

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. Prepare ¾ pound of puff pastry and roll it out to ½ inch thick.

  2. Cut out four pieces using a vol-au-vent cutter dipped in boiling water.

  3. Wet a baking tin with cold water and place the whole pieces on it.

  4. Remove the centers from the other two pieces and place them on the baking tin.

  5. Brush the pastry with beaten egg and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15-20 minutes.

Assemble and decorate

  1. Stack the two whole pieces and secure them with luting paste.

  2. Place the two center pieces on top and secure them with paste.

  3. Whip 3-4 egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff and pipe it onto the vol-au-vent.

  4. Decorate with chopped ham or tongue and pistachios.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes to dry the egg white.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill the center with ragout, place one of the center pieces on top, and serve hot or cold.

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. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  2. Ham + pistachiotop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together47 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Egg + pistachiotop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Rises into flaky, layered walls that form the case of the vol-au-vent.
Egg whites
Whipped stiff and baked to a dry, crisp topping that sets on the pastry.
Whole egg
Beaten and brushed on the pastry to give it a glossy, golden browning.
Ham or tongue
Adds savoury meat flavour as a decorative topping.

The step that matters

Baking the pastry cases. Puff pastry needs a hot oven to rise fully before the layers set; if it is underbaked it stays dense and may collapse once filled.

Swap the pistachio

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

  1. Peasfits better
  2. Lima beansfits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Pistachiothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, ham. 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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