Vol-au-Vents with Chicken and Mushroom

To poach the chicken: Place the chicken breasts, ½ onion, carrot, celery stick and several black peppercorns in a medium saucepan and cover the ingredients with water. Bring the water to a soft boil, then reduce heat to a simmer and cook for about 15 minutes until the chicken is cooked through; the chicken meat should no longer be pink inside and the flesh should be tender, not hard. Remove chicken from liquid and let cool; dice into small cubes. Pass the cooking liquid through a strainer, then skim off some fat from the surface of the broth; set aside.

To make the mushroom filling, dice the mushroom into small cubes, add them to a small saucepan along with the water, lemon juice and several slices of butter. Cook for several minutes until tender and set aside.

To make the roux, melt the butter in a separate saucepan over medium heat; add the flour and whisk to make a paste. Let cool for several minutes, then whisk in the 1 cup of reserved poaching liquid. Whisk until the sauce thickens. Add the mushroom mixture, including a little liquid from cooking juice. Add ½ of the diced chicken pieces and add salt and pepper to taste (the remaining chicken will be added directly to the vol-au-vents later). When all flavors have blended together, add 2 tbsps. thickened cream to the sauce; set aside.

To assemble the puff pastry:

Pre-heat the oven to 400 F (200 C). Place one puff pastry sheet on a lightly floured cutting board or work bench and cut out 6 round discs using a 3-inch wide round ‘crinkle’ cutter (3 of the discs will form the base of your vol-au-vents and the remaining 3 will provide the rings to go on top of the bases).

Transfer three of the discs to a baking tray lined with parchment paper and brush them lightly with egg wash (1 egg whisked with a little water). Inside the remaining three discs, cut out each center using a smaller 2 inch crinkle cutter, leaving an outer ring. Place a ring on top of each base and brush the top of the rings with the egg wash, being careful not to brush the sides of the pastries (this may prevent the pastries from rising properly). Prick the centers of each vol-au-vent with a fork, to prevent the centers from rising. Place the remaining ‘inner circles’ from the cut-out pastries on the baking tray, along with the vol-au-vents and place in the fridge for at least 20 minutes (this will help to prevent shrinkage of the pastries when they bake). Remove from fridge and bake for about 15-20 minutes until the pastries rise and turn golden brown. Lower the oven temperature if the pastries appear to be burning.

Final assembly: add a few diced chicken pieces into the bottom of each vol-au-vent, top with some of the mushroom/chicken sauce and sprinkle some chopped parsley on top. Best served warm.