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Vol-au-vent of Chicken

A puff pastry case filled with a creamy chicken and mushroom mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Vol-au-vent of Chicken

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 case

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

  2. Prepare a puff pastry case and bake until golden.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine chicken stock and flour; stir until thickened.

  2. Season with salt and nutmeg, then bring to a boil.

  3. Add chopped mushrooms and milk, then stir in minced chicken.

  4. Cook until mushrooms are tender.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill the baked puff pastry case with the chicken mixture.

  2. Garnish with button mushrooms stewed in white sauce.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mushroom + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Nutmeg + mushroomtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,988 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky case that holds the filling.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth white sauce.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body to the sauce.
Chicken stock
Provides the savoury base for the sauce.
Minced cooked chicken
Supplies the main protein of the filling.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour and stock until thickened. Flour must be stirred continuously while heating in liquid so starch granules swell evenly; otherwise lumps form and the sauce stays thin or grainy.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, mushroom, milk. 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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