No. 2398

Vol-au-Vent, Ancient Style—Large

Gros Vol-au-vent a l'Ancienne

Reduce some veloute sauce (No. 415) with sweetbread stock, and thicken it with egg-yolks; run it through a tammy, and mix in with this sauce some godiveau quenelles (No. 155, Fig. 81), medium-sized mushroom heads, cocks'-combs, slices of liver, and minced truffles. Fill the crust, as explained in a la financiere (No. 2396), with this very hot garnishing, and replace the cover by small, pretty kernels of sweetbreads and trussed crawfish.

← No. 2397 Vol-au-Vent a la Nesle Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2399 Chicken Vol-au-Vent with Mushrooms-Large →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a cross-referenced entry from Ranhofer's The Epicurean, written for a brigade that already had velouté, godiveau and sweetbread stock standing by. Read it as an assembly instruction rather than a standalone recipe.

The hinge: the egg liaisonVelouté thickened with yolks must not boil, or it will break into curds and grease. Temper the yolks with hot sauce, return the pan to low heat and take it to about 180F, stirring, until it coats a spoon.
TammyA tammy (tamis) was a fine woolen cloth through which sauce was wrung by two cooks twisting opposite ends. A fine chinois and a ladle, or a brief blitz with an immersion blender followed by straining, gives the same glossy result.
Sweetbread stockThe liquid left from blanching and braising veal sweetbreads. If you are not cooking sweetbreads, a light veal or chicken stock reduced by half is the closest substitute, though the sauce will be less gelatinous.
GodiveauClassically a veal-and-suet forcemeat worked with ice or cream; Ranhofer sends the reader to his No. 155 and Fig. 81 for his own version. The quenelles are shaped with two teaspoons and poached in barely trembling salted water, never boiling, until they float and firm -- roughly 6 to 8 minutes for small ones.
Cocks'-combsStandard nineteenth-century garnish, blanched, peeled of their outer skin and braised white. They are essentially unobtainable at retail now; some cooks substitute additional mushroom caps or blanched sweetbread nuggets, which is a change in texture rather than a true replacement.
"Slices of liver"Garnishes of this kind used cooked liver sliced, not raw liver stirred into the sauce; calf's, chicken or fat goose liver are all plausible here, as Ranhofer does not specify. Add it at the last moment so it does not toughen.
Trussed crawfishWhole crawfish cooked and bent so the tail tucks under, then set upright around the cover for looks. Purely decorative; skip them and the dish is unharmed.
The crustNo. 2396 is the financiere vol-au-vent, from which Ranhofer takes the filling method: a large puff-pastry case with its lid, the soft interior removed. Fill it only at the moment of service; a vol-au-vent left standing with wet filling inside softens and gives way.
YieldA "large" vol-au-vent in this book is a centerpiece to be carved at table rather than a plated portion. Ranhofer gives no dimensions and no serving count here.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working reference, some 3,500 numbered entries cross-linked to one another the way a professional kitchen actually operates. Vol-au-vent — "flight in the wind" — describes puff pastry so light the case seems ready to lift off; the name is generally traced to Antonin Carême's Paris workshops in the early nineteenth century, and the form was already an heirloom by Ranhofer's day, which is what à l'ancienne signals here. The garnish is the giveaway of period and price: cocks' combs, truffles, sweetbread kernels and crawfish were the standard vocabulary of grand-service ragoûts. Combs in particular are rarely seen on menus today, and their absence is why this dish reads as more remote than its sauce technique, which any modern kitchen still uses.