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Vol-au-vent of Chicken

A pastry shell filled with chicken and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. 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 chicken

  1. Cut the chicken into joints.

  2. Blanch the joints in boiling water for 2–3 minutes.

  3. Transfer the joints to cold water to keep them white.

Make the gravy

  1. Combine the trimmings, neck, legs, and blanching water with seasoning in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer the mixture for over 1 hour.

Cook the chicken in the gravy

  1. Melt 2 oz of butter in another saucepan.

  2. Add the chicken pieces dredged in flour to the saucepan.

  3. Add the gravy thickened with flour to the saucepan.

  4. Simmer for 30 minutes.

  5. Lift the tender chicken into another saucepan.

  6. Skim and strain the gravy.

  7. Add seasoning to the gravy.

  8. Thicken the gravy with cream.

  9. Pour the gravy over the chicken.

Make the pastry and bake

  1. Mix flour, beaten egg, ½ cup water, and strained lemon juice into a light paste for the pastry.

  2. Place the paste on a slab.

  3. Add butter to the paste.

  4. Leave the paste in a cool place for 1 hour.

  5. Roll out the paste 4 times.

  6. Leave the paste 1.5 inches thick the last time.

  7. Cut the pastry to size with a vol-au-vent cutter.

  8. Mark a second round ¾ inch from the edge.

  9. Bake the pastry in a tin at 400 °F (200 °C) for about 45 minutes.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the pastry paste and thickens the gravy so the chicken is coated and the sauce holds.
Butter
Stays in layers within the pastry, helping it puff and turn flaky when baked.
Egg
Binds the pastry paste so it holds together when rolled and cut.
Cream
Enriches the gravy and adds body and a smooth texture.
Fowl
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long simmering.

The step that matters

Keeping the pastry paste cool between rolls. Chilling the paste lets the butter stay in solid pieces. When the cold butter layers hit the oven, their steam lifts the dough into flaky layers instead of letting the butter melt into it.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream, egg, flour, lemon, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, egg, flour, lemon, pepper, nutmeg. 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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