Vols-au-vent ‘Arnold Bennett ’
I’m an absolute sucker for a vol-au-vent. The earliest were popular in restaurants in the 1900s, usually a large puff pastry case with a sumptuous filling involving meat or fish, cream, cheese and probably truffles. Later, they reduced in size to become canapés at fashionable cocktail parties. This recipe takes you through the process of making the cases and suggests a filling based on the omelette Arnold Bennett (first created in 1929) but enlivened with the curry flavours of Coronation Chicken (1953). Since the early days of the British East India Company, proprietary pre-mixed ‘curry powder’ had been an incredibly popular seasoning. It’s difficult to re-capture the historic taste but, in a very weird twist, it turns out that the Japanese developed a taste for English curry powder at the turn of the 20th century and, as a result, the Japanese curry ‘block’ we can now pick up in our better supermarkets has preserved the flavour.
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 320g pack pre-rolled butter puff pastry
- 1 egg yolk
- 150g smoked haddock fillet
- 150g whole milk
- 1 bay leaf
- 8 peppercorns
- 25g butter
- 25g plain flour
- 10g curry powder or Japanese curry sauce roux block
- 30g Parmesan
Method
- You’ll need two cutters to shape the cases. Mine are 65mm and 35mm in diameter. Round, plain or scalloped shapes are traditional but I use a set of hexagonal cutters for less dough waste. Cut out as many of the large shapes as you can from the pastry, then use the smaller cutter to punch another hole in the centre of half of them. Leave the small piece intact in the centre but remove any waste around the edges.
- The pieces without the central cut are your bottoms and should be painted carefully with wash made of the egg yolk, beaten up with a little water. Use a palette knife to carefully position a ‘top’ on each bottom. Line the cases up on a silicone mat on a baking tray. Paint the top surface with the egg wash, being careful not to spill any on the edges. Place the whole tray in the fridge to rest while you preheat the oven to 200ºC fan.
- Put the cases into the oven. Place the haddock in a shallow pan with the milk, along with the bay leaf and peppercorns. Bring the milk to a simmer, then flip the haddock over. Put the lid on the pan and put it to one side to think about its behaviour.
- Check the cases after 15 minutes. They should be risen, glossy and, if they’re not pleasantly browned, give them a few more minutes. When they’re done, transfer to a cooling rack.
- In a small saucepan, melt the butter, then add the flour. Keep stirring it with a whisk until it starts to bubble and smell of biscuits. Add the curry powder or roux block and whisk until combined.
- Take it off the heat and pour in the milk in which you poached the haddock. Do this through a small sieve. Continue to whisk the milk until any lumps have gone, then put back on a low heat and keep stirring until you have a thick sauce.
- Take the sauce off the heat. Grate in the Parmesan and rub two-thirds of the fish between your fingers so it shreds into the sauce. Keep the best remaining third in larger chunks to garnish.
- Use a teaspoon to hockle out the central ‘lid’ of each pastry case and some of the soft pastry inside, then fill with the sauce and garnish with a flake of fish.
A taste of history wines
Shop the wines
Clay Creek Vineyards California Pinot Noir 2022, Bag-in-Box (2 litre)
The Society's Beaujolais-Villages 2022
The Society's Austrian Riesling 2023
Saumur Rouge ‘Les Plantagenêts' Cabernet Franc 2022
Coq in Hock
In the 50s and 60s writers like Elizabeth David and Julia Child inspired young cooks with exotic European recipes. A ‘sauté’ dish like this, was gratifyingly sophisticated while remaining simple to do. It could be started, slow cooked and served in one pot. In the years following both wars, servants pretty much evaporated from British homes so easy but impressive dishes became popular and everyone became ridiculously excited by carrying the food from the kitchen in one of the fashionable new Le Creusets and the thrilling informality of diving into a ‘kitchen supper’.
I love using tinned mushrooms in honour of one of my favourite cooks of the 1960s, Len Deighton. In the film of his book The Ipcress File, secret agent Harry Palmer, played by Michael Caine, is a gourmet cook who buys tinned ‘Parisian’ mushrooms in one of the groovy new ‘supermarkets’. If you’re not such a stickler for authenticity, buy tiny fresh button mushrooms and brown them along with the small onions in the bacon fat.
Ingredients
- 150g smoked bacon
- 15g butter
- 8 chicken thighs
- 20 small onions
- 50ml brandy
- 6 sprigs of fresh tarragon
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1 bottle of riesling
- 100g strong chicken stock
- 1 bay leaf
- 150g double cream
- 1 tin of button mushrooms or 300g raw mushrooms
Method
- Cut bacon into rough cubes and cook them in a sauté pan until they give up their fat. Spoon the bacon bits out of the fat and into a bowl.
- Add butter to the pan and brown the chicken pieces in it. Lift the chicken out of the fat and place on a plate.
- Peel the small onions and brown them in the bacon fat. When lightly browned, lift out and add to the bacon in the bowl.
- Pour in the brandy and use a whisk or a silicon spatula to make sure all the brown bits on the base of the pan are scraped up and dissolved. Add the tarragon and grated or crushed garlic. Pour in the wine and chicken stock and reduce to a simmer. Add chicken, bacon, baby onions and the bay leaf and simmer until a probe thermometer reads 70º at the thickest part of the thigh.
- Lift the chicken and onions out of the winey liquid, turn up the heat and start reducing. Once the sauce has thickened a little, stir in the cream and bring back to a simmer. Once the sauce is beginning to look inviting, add the tinned mushrooms, and reintroduce the chicken and onions. Bring back to a simmer until everything is fully heated through. Adjust seasoning.
- Lift chicken pieces and onions into a shallow bowl and pour over the sauce to serve. French bread is compulsory, a crisp salad optional.
A taste of history wines
Shop the wines Clay Creek Vineyards California Pinot Noir 2022, Bag-in-Box (2 litre)
The Society's Beaujolais-Villages 2022
The Society's Austrian Riesling 2023
Saumur Rouge ‘Les Plantagenêts' Cabernet Franc 2022
Black Forest Gateau
Italian brothers Frank and Aldo Berni opened their first steakhouse in 1956 in Bristol. By 1970 when they sold the business to a huge corporation, they owned 170 restaurants all over the country. The formula was simple. It was all the trappings of posh fine dining; the low lighting, the napery, waiters, wine and steak and chips… all at a price that a regular family could afford. Berni’s broke many class taboos around eating out for British families stepping nervously out of post-war austerity. For a whole generation, ‘A Berni’ was their first introduction to restaurant dining. There was, of course, a prawn cocktail before the groaning plate of chips and secretly quite modest steak. There would be ‘Cognac’ in a giant balloon glass or ‘an Irish coffee for the lady’ to round off the meal, but first there was the dessert. A vast, vulgar and utterly delicious pile of cake, cream, booze and cherries. The Mighty Black Forest Gateau.
Ingredients
- 255g plain flour
- 260g caster sugar
- 100g light brown soft sugar
- 50g cocoa powder
- 1½ tsp baking powder
- ¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- 150g sunflower oil
- 90g warm water
- 90g buttermilk
- 3 medium eggs
- 1½ tsp vanilla extract
Decoration
- 750g double cream
- 800g 'Luxardo' maraschino cocktail cherries (2x jars)
- 200g dark chocolate
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180ºC fan. Grease and line the bases of two deep, 18cm cake tins.
- Mix the flour, sugars, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb and salt in a bowl.
- Mix oil, water, buttermilk, eggs and vanilla extract in a separate container then combine with the dry ingredients.
- Split the mixture reasonably evenly between the two tins and then bake for 25-30 mins until a skewer comes out clean, or better still, do it like we’re no longer in the 19th century and use a probe thermometer, 98ºC for perfection. Allow the cakes to cool completely before turning out.
- Cut each cake in two horizontally (and remove any ‘doming’ if you have secret ambitions to go on Bake Off)
- Whip the cream to soft peaks.
- This is a four-layer cake, so place your first layer down on the plate you eventually want to serve from. Pour over 1/4 of the syrup from the cherries. Pipe or dollop on 1/4 of the whipped cream then place 1/4 of the cherries. Make sure some will be ‘visible from the outside’.
- Repeat until you get to the top layer. It’s worth being a bit more careful about placement here. Pour over the last of the syrup then create a good, thick, all-over layer of cream. Place the cherries around the edge, then grate the chocolate and pile it into the middle.
A taste of history wines
Shop the wines Clay Creek Vineyards California Pinot Noir 2022, Bag-in-Box (2 litre)
The Society's Beaujolais-Villages 2022
The Society's Austrian Riesling 2023
