Why it works: Egg and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 39% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,895 recipes. The science ↓
Vol Au Vent a LA Bechamel
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the pastry
Cut the puff pastry into the shape of the dish.
Brush the top lightly with beaten egg.
Mark the intended division of the upper and lower crust with a knife.
Bake and fill
Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until done.
Remove the top crust and scoop out the inner paste.
Fill the opening with sauce à la Béchamel and forcemeat balls.
Optionally, add calves’ brains or cocks’ combs.
Let the vol-au-vent drain on a clean sheet of paper for about an hour before adding the filling.
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.
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Egg + saucetop 39% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,895 recipes
Egg and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,895 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
- Puff pastry
- Its many laminated layers puff up in the oven to form the light, flaky shell.
- Egg
- Brushed on top, it promotes browning and a glossy finish on the crust.
- Sauce à la béchamel
- A white sauce that provides creamy moisture to fill the cooked pastry case.
- Forcemeat balls
- Small seasoned meat balls that add body and savoury substance to the filling.
The step that matters
Mark the division of the crusts before baking. Cutting the line with a knife before baking lets the pastry rise evenly into a hollow case, so the top can be lifted off cleanly afterward.
“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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