FoodNetArchive

Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

1898

Page 314 · 1 recipe record on this page

Presented as published in 1898. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
The case for a vol-au-vmt must be as light as possible. To make it, half a pound of Puff Paste rolled three-quarters of an inch thick will be required. Cut out of this as nearly as possible an oval, nine and a half inches long, made by laying a pie-dish of that size on the paste and drawing the knife round it. Put the oval on a buttered baking-dish, and mark out a second oval inside it, leaving an inch margin all round and making the cut a quarter of an inch deep. Brush the surface and side with a beaten egg, and put the case in the oven. When it is baked the oval wall will have risen considerably. Take off the smaller oval, which will form the cover, and scoop out the uncooked paste inside the case, being careful not to break the wall. The baking will take from thirty to forty minutes in a hot oven. Brush over the whole case again with egg, and bake it again for five minutes. Take the case hot from the oven, fill it as may be liked, pour in enough hot sauce to moisten the contents well without overfilling the vol-au-vent, lay the hot cover on the top, and serve at once in a hot entree dish. Nothing is better than a well-made vol-au-vent, with a case as light as its name implies, and filled with a carefully-made ragout, either white or brown. Yeal or Sweetbread is often liked for the ragout. About three-quarters of a pound of cold cooked veal will be wanted, cut with a round cutter into three dozen pieces a quarter of an inch thick and one inch in diameter. For the sauce, make a good broth with vegetables, a pound of veal stock-meat, and half a pound of veal bones, and turn it into a sauce with the usual roux. Simmer the sauce with half a pound of mushrooms, and reduce it to a pint and a quarter from the original pint and a half. Add, off the fire, the yolks of two eggs which have been carefully stirred into a coffeecupful of the brothVol-au-Vent. Heat up the meat to half-boiling, add the sauce through a strainer, and keep all hot in the bain-marie till ready to serve in the vol-au-vmt. Be careful not to scoop out too much of the uncooked inner paste, or the bottom of the vol-au-vent case will not be strong enough to hold the ragout and sauce. Oysters are popular in a vol-au-vmt. Three dozen will be wanted, and the sauce must be made of 456 ON PASTRY MAKING their liquor ancl beards. For more than a quarter of a pint of sauce additional sauce oysters must be used. Simmer the oysters for the vol-au-vmt for six minutes. A vol-au-vent an mai/jre can be made with quenelles of fish, pieces of boiled fish, and mushrooms warmed up in a simple white sauce, like the Dutch beurre fonclu, to which the stewed mushrooms have been added.