Chicken in Tarragon and Wine Sauce Vol Au Vents

Submitted by Ninna

"This was so nice when we had similar at a tennis tournament well over twenty years ago, so I tried re-creating it and have been making it ever since. It was served in round vol au vents but I prefer to make my own in rectangle or square shapes when serving it to guests. I serve this for dinner with steamed rice."

 

• Ready In: 40mins
• Ingredients: 10
• Serves: 6

ingredients

• 750 g chicken breasts, cut into cubes
• 4 -6 puff pastry sheets (or 6 large vol au vents)
• 2 1⁄2 tablespoons butter
• 2 1⁄2 tablespoons flour
• 3⁄4 cup chicken stock
• 3⁄4 cup milk
• 1⁄2 cup white wine
• 1⁄2 teaspoon dried tarragon (not too much)
• 4 -6 shallots (depending on size)
• salt & pepper

directions

1. Partially poach or pan fry chicken in seasoning of choice, cut into bite sized pieces when cool.
2. Heat the milk & stock.
3. Melt butter, whisk in flour and cook, stirring, until flour foams (don’t let brown) for about 1 minute.
4. Remove from heat and stir in the hot milk/stock mixture slowly.
5. Whisk well, return to heat, bring to a boil, whisking constantly until the sauce thickens, season with salt & pepper and let simmer slowly 2 minutes.
6. Add wine, shallots, tarragon, pepper & salt and then partially cooked chicken to sauce - you may need to add more stock or even milk, depending on your preference.
7. I usually make my own pastry cases but you can use the ready made vol-au-vents.
8. If making your own vol-au-vents, you will need two layers of pastry for them, cut two or four from each (doubled) sheet, depending on the size of your sheet of pastry.
9. Then cut through the top layer only, 3/4” in from edge all the way around with the point of a sharp knife – this will make the depression for the saucy chicken to go in when pastry is cooked.
10. Cook in hot oven on baking paper lined oven trays until lightly browned all over; gently push down the middle of the top layer, that you scored before with a knife, to create the space for the chicken.
11. To serve pour chicken into pastry and serve with steamed rice.

Reviews

[Redhead8]

I had the puff pastry made by a local pastry chef for a dinner party. It was wonderful light pastry, so much better than I can make! But then I used the filling recipe here and it was delicious. The only things I'd change are: 1. I made the amount suggested here and it was way too much. The amount on this recipe fills 12 small vol au vents. If you're using large ones as suggested here perhaps that's okay, but then I'd find the filling too runny. 2. The amount of liquid in the recipe makes a slightly runny filling. I prefer it thicker, so next time I would use a little less stock and wine. I reduced it for this time and it turned out nicely, so that's another option.

 

[Michelle Figueroa]

After coming back from Ireland and having chicken vol-au-vents in a pub, we were determined to make this at home. We chose this recipe because it had the ingredients we had already decided needed to make a good sauce. We sauteed the shallots along with some mushrooms to add to the sauace. Our only complaint was the wine we chose which was a sauvignon blanc. There just wasn't time for it to cook down if you make it according to the directions - and so we felt that we tasted the wine too much. However, having said that, we still thought it was delicious! We used puff pastry shells as we could not find the cases. Thanks so much for posting.