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Puff for a Journey

A puff pastry filled with forcemeat, veal, ham, and boned fowl, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Venison and ham work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Puff for a Journey

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

  1. Roll out a length of puff pastry.

  2. Spread a layer of forcemeat on the pastry.

  3. Add slices of veal, ham, and pieces of boned fowl, well seasoned.

  4. Fold the pastry over the filling and seal it.

  5. Brush the top with egg yolk.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until done.

  2. Make a small opening in the top and pour in some cullis.

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. Venison + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Venison + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together159 recipes

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

  3. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  4. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  5. Venison + vealtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together105 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
Forms a flaky, layered casing that puffs and browns in the oven.
Forcemeat
Adds a moist, tender layer that holds the filling together.
Slices of veal
Provides the meaty body and savoury flavour of the filling.
Slices of ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the filling.
Boned fowl
Contributes meat texture and richness to the filling.
Egg yolk
Brushed on top to promote golden browning of the pastry.

The step that matters

Seal the pastry edges. If the edges are not sealed firmly, juices and steam can escape during baking and the filling may leak out, leaving the pastry soggy and under-risen.

“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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