Vol-au-vent
This recipe takes a while to make. However, you can cook the chicken one day in advance, and leave it in the fridge overnight. The biscuits can be made a few days before, just make sure to keep them dry and airtight.
This recipe feeds 4.
The videe biscuits are small containers built up from puff pastry rings.
- 2 store-bought sheets of puff pastry
- 1 egg yolk
- a splash of milk
- using a ~6cm ring, cut out 16 circles
- in 4 of these, which will make up the bottoms, poke some holes with a fork
- cut out a smaller circle out of the 12 remaining ones (these will be the walls)
- mix the yolk with a tiny splash of milk
- coat the top of all 16 rings with a bit of the mixture
- build up towers (3 rings on top of each bottom)
- select 4 tiny rings and coat them as well (these will be the lids)
- 1 chicken
- 400g large meatballs (pork/veal or pork/beef)
- 4 celery stalks
- 2 carrots
- 2 onions
- 2 leeks
- thyme
- rosemary
- bay leaves
- peppercorn (a tablespoon)
- 2 cloves
- 2 cloves of garlic
- water (1.5 to 2 litres)
- cut the celery, leek and carrots in rough pieces
- add them to a pot of water, make sure everything is covered
- bring to a boil
- add the rest of the ingredients
- add the chicken, make sure it is covered
- boil for 1 hour
- once done, remove the chicken
- put in the meatballs, boil until they float
- debone the chicken in large chunks, dispose of the bones
Tip: you can preserve the meatballs and chicken in the stock for 2 to 3 days
- 250g mushrooms
- 60g butter
- 80g flour
- 1.5 litre of the chicken/vegetable stock
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1.5dl heavy cream
- 1/2 lemon
- nutmeg
Mushrooms
- cut the mushrooms in quarters
- add some butter to a pan
- throw in the mushrooms
- squash the garlic and add it in
- add pepper, salt
- cook until browned
Sauce
- pour the stock through a sieve
- melt the butter in a pot
- add in the flour
- stir until dry-ish, do not let it burn
- when there is a slight cookie-like smell, add in some of the stock
- keep stirring to avoid lumps
- add and stir until you have a smooth and creamy sauce
- add the cream
- add the mushrooms, chicken and meatballs
- finish with pepper, salt and nutmeg