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Vol-au-Vent

A puff pastry shell filled with a savory mixture of sweetbreads, mushrooms, chicken, lobster, oysters, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and chicken 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

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 cases

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

  2. Bake the puff pastry leaves until golden.

  3. Remove the center of three pieces and stack them on a plain piece, leaving one for the top.

Make the filling

  1. In a pan, combine sweetbreads, mushrooms, chicken, lobster, or oysters.

  2. Season with shallot, mace, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  3. Add a little gravy and thicken with flour and butter.

  4. Once boiled, stir in a little cream until the mixture is thick.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the vol-au-vent on a napkin in the serving dish.

  2. Fill it with the prepared mixture and cover with the lid.

  3. Serve hot, 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. Mushroom + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry leaves
Bakes into a crisp, flaky, golden shell that holds the filling.
Sweetbreads
Provide a tender, rich meat base for the filling.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy savour to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the gravy into a smooth, cohesive sauce with the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and, with the flour, forms the thickening roux.
Cream
Enriches the sauce and helps it set thick and velvety.

The step that matters

Thickening the mixture with cream. Once the sauce has boiled, cream should be stirred in gently and only until thick. Boiling cream hard can cause it to separate and turn the sauce grainy, while too little cooking leaves the filling runny and likely to soak the pastry.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, chicken, lobster, oyster, shallot, pepper, flour):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, chicken, lobster, oyster, shallot, pepper, flour. 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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