Recipe no. 307 from Jean-Baptiste Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale (1909), page 151.
Ingredients
- puff pastry
- rolling pin
- metal tray
- egg
- knife
- oven
- poultry breast
- brain
- Toulouse garnish
Preparation
- Rolling out the pastryRoll out 500 g of 6-turn puff pastry to 2 cm thickness
- CuttingCut into a circular shape about 15-18 cm in diameter
- Preparing for bakingPlace on a tray moistened with a brush, glaze with beaten egg
- MarkingMark inside with the point of a knife 4 cm from the edge, pressing halfway in
- BakingBake in a hot oven 15-20 minutes
- Removing from the ovenWhen well risen, golden and firm, remove from the oven, lift off the lid and empty the inside
- Preparing the garnishMake the Toulouse garnish, add poultry breast and brain cut into escalopes
- Filling and servingSauce the garnish well, fill the vol-au-vent case just before serving
Reboul's text
Roll out with a rolling pin, to a thickness of about 2 centimetres, 500 grams of puff pastry given 6 turns (see this pastry), cut into a circular shape about 15 to 18 centimetres in diameter, place it on a metal tray moistened with a brush, glaze the top with beaten egg, mark it inside with the point of a knife, 4 centimetres from the edge, pressing halfway into the sheet; push into a hot oven and let cook 15 to 20 minutes.
Experience and practice are the best guides for regulating the oven. A well-prepared pastry will only give a mediocre result when cooking is poorly conducted. One can never be too attentive.
When the pastry is well risen, golden and firm, that is, when it is no longer at risk of collapsing, which you can tell by touching it, you may take it out of the oven; remove the lid, which should come away by itself, and empty out the inside.
Prepare a garnish as indicated for fattened hen Toulouse-style, add a few pieces of leftover breast of poultry cut into small escalopes and a brain cut the same way.
This garnish must be generously sauced; fill your vol-au-vent case with it just as you are about to serve.
Small Provençal glossary for this recipe
Reboul writes in French: no Provençal word appears in this recipe, apart from the dish's name itself. The table below gives the Provençal equivalents of the words used, in mistralian spelling, translated by Lingua Nostra. Each form is attested in our Provençal-English dictionary; click to open the entry.
| Provençal | English |
|---|---|
| abaisso | sheet of pastry |
| past | puff pastry |
| tourre | turns |
| tolo | metal tray |
| iòu | beaten egg |
| four | oven |
| saussa | sauce |
Source: Jean-Baptiste Reboul, La Cuisinière provençale, Marseille, 1909, recipe no. 307, page 151. Public domain. Transcription, formatting and Provençal glossary by Lingua Nostra.