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Vol Au Vents

A French dish of quails baked in layers of bacon, parsley, mirepoix, and mushrooms, topped with sweetbread and served with a bright sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,132 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Vol Au Vents

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the quails

  1. Line a fricandeau pan with layers of fat bacon.

  2. Place a garnished faggot of parsley in the center.

  3. Cover with more layers of fat bacon and moisten with mirepoix.

  4. Cover with buttered paper, set the lid on, and braise gently for 45 minutes.

  5. Drain the quails, let them cool, and trim neatly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill the inside of the pie with force-meat, leaving an inch from the top.

  2. Arrange the quails in a circular order with breasts up, adding a thin layer of force-meat between each.

  3. Cover with thin layers of fat bacon and a well-buttered double round of paper on top.

  4. Bake in the oven for about 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the bacon, drain excess grease, and place a small fillet of fowl between each quail.

  2. Top each quail with a large white button-mushroom, a border of large white cocks' combs, and a larded heart sweetbread in the center.

  3. Sauce sparingly with bright Financière mixed with reduced extract of quails.

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. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  2. Meat + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,423 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Quail + meattop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Quail + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together99 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Quail + saucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together130 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Quails
Provide the main meat, which is braised until tender and then baked inside the pie.
Force-meat
Fills the pie between the quails, keeping the birds moist and binding the structure together.
Fat bacon
Lines and covers the pan, basting the quails with fat and protecting them during braising and baking.
Bright financière sauce
Adds rich, glossy moisture and savoury depth to the finished dish.
Large white button-mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a tender texture as a topping on each quail.

The step that matters

Drain the quails and fill the pie with force-meat before baking. Excess grease and moisture left in the braised birds can make the pie soggy and greasy, while well-drained, cooled quails keep their shape and texture during baking.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, meat, mushroom, sauce):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, meat, mushroom, sauce. 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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