Sea Flavoured Vol au vent

17/11/2023

Here is a delicious recipe for sea-flavoured vol-au-vent with an Italian touch, ideal for a refined starter or an elegant aperitif.

Ingredients

10 ready-made puff pastry vol-au-vent (or to be prepared following a basic puff pastry recipe)
200 g of mixed seafood (such as mussels, shrimps, clams, small cuttlefish)
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 clove of garlic
Chopped fresh parsley to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
150 ml of cooking cream
1 glass of dry white wine
A handful of cherry tomatoes

Preparation

If you are using ready-made vol-au-vent, preheat the oven and bake the empty vol-au-vent according to the instructions on the packaging. If you want to make them yourself, roll out the puff pastry, cut out circles and build the vol-au-vent by forming a small wall of pastry around the cut circle. Bake and cook according to the appropriate timings until golden brown.
While the vol-au-vent are cooking, prepare the filling. Wash the seafood making sure it is free of impurities. In a large frying pan, lightly sauté the garlic clove in extra virgin olive oil.
Add the seafood to the pan and cook over medium-high heat for a few minutes. Deglaze with the white wine until the alcohol has evaporated.
Add the halved cherry tomatoes, adjust with salt and pepper and continue cooking for about 5 minutes.
Lower the heat, add the cooking cream and let it thicken slightly for a few minutes.
Remove from the heat and add the chopped fresh parsley, mixing carefully.
Take the vol-au-vent out of the oven and let them cool down a bit. Then, fill each vol-au-vent with the seafood filling and serve immediately.

Curiosity

Vol-au-vent is a classic of French cuisine, whose name literally means “flight in the wind”, referring to the lightness of the puff pastry that composes them. The sea-flavoured version is a variant that marries the delicacy of the pastry with the intensity of the sea, and it is a dish that lends itself particularly well to variations. By adding an Italian touch like the use of fresh parsley and cherry tomatoes, a balance of flavors is achieved that recalls the Italian Mediterranean coasts.