Volovan: historical background, composition, recipes

9 servings

1 hour

415 kcal

No rating

Royal vol-au-vent recipe

Ingredients

Cooking vol-au-vents with chicken and mushrooms

Royal vol-au-vent recipe video

Recipe for vol-au-vents with soft cheese and red fish

Ingredients

Cooking vol-au-vents with cheese and red fish

Video recipe for vol-au-vent with cheese and red fish

Useful tips

Every time, thinking over the menu for the holiday table, I want to find recipes that would please friends and family. In my culinary collection there are snack options that do not require much time and are always received with a bang. For example, vol-au-vents. These are puff pastry baskets that are filled with various savory snacks. There are many fillings you can offer for vol-au-vents, but I recommend my family’s favorites – vol-au-vents with red caviar, with chicken and mushrooms, with soft cheese and red fish.

Historical reference

From French, vol-au-vent translates as “flying in the wind.” It is believed that the “author” of puff tartlets is a native of the homeland of the Three Musketeers, cook Marie-Antoine Carême. He served at the court of the British monarch George IV and the Russian autocrat Alexander I, and managed to win wide recognition and popularity thanks to his talents and numerous improvisations.

As the legend goes, one day Karem promised to surprise his cooks. He placed an absolutely flat circle of puff pastry on a baking sheet, which literally turned into a tall barrel before the eyes of stunned spectators. "He's taking off!" - exclaimed the shocked cooks. This is how the name “volovan” appeared.

Good advice

Vol-au-vents can be filled with various fillings, salads and creams.
Vol-au-vents can be served as an appetizer with a variety of drinks.

My family loves salty baked goods, so I tried baking a lot of different pies and pies. Ossetian meat pie can be considered one of the most beloved. You can take it with you to work or a picnic. During mushroom season, I like to make mushroom pie. But it also turns out delicious with oyster mushrooms and champignons.

When I have several types of cheese in the refrigerator, I bake a cheese pie. It turns out very satisfying and aromatic. But I consider achma to be the most original salty pastry. The specificity of its preparation is that part of the dough is boiled for its preparation.

Yeast dough for vol-au-vents - recipe

To prepare yeast puff pastry you will need good butter (100-300 g), yeast (20 g), one glass of milk (can be replaced with water), one egg, 20 g of sugar, 3 g of salt.

Pour the heated milk into a prepared container. In another bowl, dissolve the yeast in a small amount of milk. Pour the diluted yeast into the main container, beat in the egg. Add some salt. Stir until the mixture is completely smooth. Slowly add flour and begin kneading the dough.

At the end of kneading, add pre-melted butter. Knead the dough as thoroughly as possible until the mixture is completely homogeneous. Cover the finished dough with a towel, then leave to rest for three hours.

After the dough has risen properly, roll it out into a rectangular cake, the thickness of which should be from one to one and a half centimeters. Place half of the entire quantity of oil in the center. Fold the cake in half. Place the remaining butter on it, then fold it in half again. Dust the folded dough into four with flour and roll it out again into a crust. Fold into quarters again, sprinkle with flour and roll out. Repeat the procedure at least eight times. The dough is ready.

Yeast-free puff pastry for vol-au-vents - recipe

For those who don’t like to bother with yeast, there is another option for puff pastry - yeast-free. It can be used for croissants, puff pastries and vol-au-vents, and the preparation procedure will be less labor-intensive.

You will need wheat flour (two glasses), half a glass of water, half a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice, and 200 g of butter, which must first be cooled very much.

Pour salt into half a glass of water. Stir until completely dissolved. Pour lemon juice in there.

Sift the flour thoroughly so that it is properly saturated with oxygen - this will help your dough become more airy. Form a mound of flour and make a well in the center.

Start gradually pouring water into the hole, mixing it with flour. This is how you will knead the dough. Pay attention to the texture - the dough should not be too sticky.

Prepare the butter. It should be divided into six equal parts. Roll out the dough into a thin layer. Quickly grate one part of the butter and spread over the crust. Fold the dough into quarters and roll out again. Take the second part of the oil and repeat the procedure. Repeat the manipulations until you have used all the oil.

The finished dough should cool properly. Place it in the refrigerator for an hour and a half, after which you can start baking.

French gourmet pastries

Let's prepare vol-au-vents from puff pastry stuffed with processed cheese and boiled eggs. These baked goods will be an excellent snack dish for a holiday feast.

Compound:

250 g margarine;
2.5 tbsp. flour;
1 tsp. granulated sugar;
1 tsp. salt;
125 ml filtered water;
150 g processed cheese;
4 eggs;
ground pepper;
dill, parsley.

On a note! As a filling, you can use not only processed cheese, but also hard cheese. Only then you need to mix it with mayonnaise.

Preparation:

Cooking vol-au-vents

To prepare vol-au-vents, you will need either special molds or two glasses with different diameters. You can, for example, use a shot glass and a regular glass.

Sprinkle the table with flour. After this, roll out approximately a third of the total dough mass. Using a large glass, cut out circles. Place them on a baking sheet, remembering to first cover it with baking paper.

Roll out the remaining dough a little. Cut out the same large circles, and then, using a glass, cut out a smaller circle from them. As a result, you will get rings. They are the ones who will become the walls of the vol-au-vents. The smallest circles will be the lids.

Place future baked goods on a baking sheet so that there is at least two centimeters between the vol-au-vents - puff pastry grows well, increasing in diameter. When baking vol-au-vents, preheat the oven well - otherwise the dough will not rise.

Separate the egg, separating the white from the yolk. Beat the whites a little. Using a brush, brush the bottom circles and lids with egg white. Poke holes in them with a toothpick to prevent them from puffing up in the oven. Place rings on top of the bottoms. There is no need to lubricate them with protein, otherwise the rings will not rise.

Place the baking sheet with the vol-au-vent preparations in the oven, preheating it to 220 degrees. Leave them in the oven for ten minutes until the sides rise. After the baked goods take the desired shape, brush them with the remaining egg white so that they are covered with a crispy crust. If you want the vol-au-vents to have a bright golden color, brush them with yolk.

Before removing the tartlets from the oven, make sure they are done. Otherwise, the “barrels” will simply fall off.

Now the pastries must cool properly - only after this the baskets can be filled.

Herring on a fur coat

Fish lovers will appreciate this simple but very effective recipe for delicious vol-au-vents. Herring is usually served in salads or as an addition to potatoes, but in airy baskets the fish will have a new sound.

Ingredients:

puff pastry (it’s better to take yeast-free dough) – 280 g;
pickled herring – 2 fillets;
medium beets – 1 pc.;
garlic – 1-2 teeth;
egg – 1 pc.;
mayonnaise – 10 g;
parsley.

Filling for vol-au-vents - general recommendations

As noted above, you can use almost anything to fill vol-au-vents. However, there are a number of general recommendations that should be followed to ensure that baked goods retain their aesthetic appearance and excellent taste.

First of all, you need to put the filling only in the finished baked goods. Raw vol-au-vents are not stuffed. Even if French tartlets are used as a second course, the finished vol-au-vents are cooled, filled, and then baked in the oven again.

For the filling, do not use ingredients that are too liquid, or products that release too much juice. For example, tomatoes in any form are not a suitable filling for vol-au-vents. If you still want to please your guests with something juicy, place empty vol-au-vents on the table and serve the fillings separately so that guests can fill their tartlets themselves.

If the hot filling of the vol-au-vents is still too juicy, a few minutes before the end of baking, sprinkle a little grated hard cheese inside each tartlet. It will melt, and after cooling it will form a crust, which will prevent the dough from becoming soggy.

As noted above, the fillings for vol-au-vents can be varied - you can experiment endlessly. However, the most popular are French tartlets with salty fillings - for example, with red caviar, as well as with chicken and mushrooms.

Vol-au-vents with red caviar

Red caviar in elegant layered towers looks simply wonderful. Vol-au-vents with caviar are not only very tasty, but also incredibly beautiful. They will decorate any holiday table and will be a reason for enthusiastic compliments.

You will need half a kilogram of dough, 20 g of butter and one can of caviar. Grease the finished and well-cooled vol-au-vents with a small amount of butter and place the caviar on the tartlets. This appetizer is best served when it is at room temperature.

Vol-au-vent with chicken and spinach

To prepare such a snack, the diameter of the vol-au-vents should be about ten centimeters. For half a kilogram of puff pastry you will need 250 g of fresh chicken breast, two canned pineapple rings, a handful of spinach, 100 g of cherry tomatoes, two tablespoons of tomato sauce, the same amount of soy sauce, one tablespoon of olive oil, salt and sugar to taste.

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Cut the pineapple into small cubes. Cut the cherry into four parts. Wash the fillet, dry it, cut it into small pieces and fry until tender golden brown. Add some salt. Be careful not to dry out the meat. Add pineapple, cherry tomatoes, tomato and soy sauces and olive oil to the finished chicken. Place spinach on the bottom of the vol-au-vents and place the rest of the ingredients on top.

Vol-au-vent with chicken and cream sauce

For twelve vol-au-vents with a bottom about ten centimeters in diameter, you will need 350 g of chicken fillet, 2 tablespoons of sour cream and the same amount of vegetable oil, half a teaspoon of turmeric. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Wash the fillet and cut into small pieces, which should be fried in a small amount of oil until golden brown. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer for five minutes. After this, when the filling reaches room temperature, fill the vol-au-vents.

Calorie content of foods possible in the dish

Buttermilk – 36 kcal/100g
Cream – 300 kcal/100g
Cream 10% fat – 120 kcal/100g
Cream 20% fat content – 300 kcal/100g
Egg white – 45 kcal/100g
Egg yolk – 352 kcal/100g
Egg powder – 542 kcal/100g
Chicken egg – 157 kcal/100g
Ostrich egg – 118 kcal/100g
Champignons – 24 kcal/100g
Altai cheese – 355 kcal/100g
Gruyère cheese – 396 kcal/100g
Kaunas cheese – 355 kcal/100g
Latvian cheese – 316 kcal/100g
Lithuanian cheese – 250 kcal/100g
Lake cheese – 350 kcal/100g
Aiaideus cheese – 364 kcal/100g
Cheese “Altai” 50% fat – 356 kcal/100g
Appnzeller cheese 50% fat content – 400 kcal/100g
Gouda cheese 45% fat content – 356 kcal/100g
Dutch cheese – 352 kcal/100g
Maison Blanc cheese (semi-hard) – 360 kcal/100g
Kostroma cheese – 345 kcal/100g
Lambert cheese – 377 kcal/100g
Lo spamino cheese – 61 kcal/100g
Poshekhonsky cheese – 350 kcal/100g
“Russian” cheese – 366 kcal/100g
“Soviet” cheese – 400 kcal/100g
Steppe cheese – 362 kcal/100g
Uglich cheese – 347 kcal/100g
Cheese “chester” 50% fat content – 363 kcal/100g
Swiss cheese – 335 kcal/100g
Edamer cheese 40% fat content – 340 kcal/100g
Emmental cheese 45% fat content – 420 kcal/100g
Etorki cheese (sheep, hard) – 401 kcal/100g
Cheese “Yaroslavsky” – 361 kcal/100g
White cheese – 100 kcal/100g
Yellow fat cheese – 260 kcal/100g
Limburger cheese – 327 kcal/100g
Cheese with mushrooms 50% fat content – 395 kcal/100g
Puff pastry – 400 kcal/100g
Puff pastry, unleavened – 337 kcal/100g
Peasant unsalted butter – 661 kcal/100g
Peasant salted butter – 652 kcal/100g
Amateur unsalted butter – 709 kcal/100g
Butter 82% – 734 kcal/100g
Ghee – 869 kcal/100g
Salt – 0 kcal/100g
Onions – 41 kcal/100g
Ground hot pepper – 21 kcal/100g
Greens – 41 kcal/100g
Fresh frozen soup greens in packaging – 41 kcal/100g

Calorie content of foods: Puff pastry, Champignons, Onions, Cream, Hard cheese, Butter, Greens, Eggs, Salt, Ground hot pepper