Vol Au Vent Aux Blancs De Poulet

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About a week ago I read in a “respected” magazine that one should NEVER eat Sauce Hollandaise or one of its derivatives in a restaurant because hollandaise is NEVER made fresh to order, but rather before the service and then kept warm during the whole service.
What a load of crap !!! 😦
Admittedly, some restaurants may do this, but many restaurants who have one or two dishes with hollandaise on the menu will not waste the ingredients if there is no order for a particular service. It takes a professional cook or chef maybe 1 or 2 minutes to produce 2 portions of fresh hollandaise, so to do it “a la minute” (to order) is no problem at all.
When I was an apprentice and later as a young cook, we ALWAYS made hollandaise a la minute during a la carte service.
– The moral of this? always double-check before you take a story/advise for granted. 🙂
– Also, hollandaise is one of the easiest and quickest sauces to prepare.
– Have I mentioned that Sauce Hollandaise is one of the French mother sauces?
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When I prepare a whole roasted whole chicken for Bella and myself, I usually eat both tights and all the scraps from the bones, including the neck, wings, and back, while Madam enjoys the two breasts (one per day). However, yesterday she kept begging for food while the chicken was still a while before being done, so I gave her a full portion of her own food (usually she gets only half that amount because she’ll eat some of my food later).
After I ate my usual part of the chicken, I removed all the skin and bones from the breasts, submerged it in salted water and kept it in the fridge until today, when I used it to prepare this Vol Au Vent Aux Blancs De Poulet.
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P.S.
Please note that both mushrooms and sauce hollandaise are optional in this classic dish.
P.P.S.
Nowadays, in most commercial venues, because of safety issues, hollandaise is made from powder or ready-made from a can, which eliminates the danger of eggs served at unsafe temperatures.
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Bon Appétit ! Life is Good !
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Preparation :
To read instructions, hover over pictures
To enlarge pictures and read instructions, click on pictures
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: bake 6 small frozen puff pastry shells according to package instructions

: meanwhile, reduce 1 cup of heavy cream until thickened

: add 1/3 cup sauce veloute

: cut the breast meat into cubes

: add the chicken, heat through

: melt 1/2 stick butter (clarify the butter if you prefer, otherwise, when you pour the butter into the egg, just leave the milk solids on the bottom of the pot behind)

: while the chicken heats up and the butter melts, (see next step), whisk 1 egg yolk, 1 tblsp water, 1 tsp lemon juice (or vinegar), white pepper (I prefer sriracha, so you could call this a “Sriracha Hollandaise), and kosher salt to taste in a water bath until the egg mixture becomes creamy

: add the warm butter in tiny increments; if the sauce becomes too thick, add more water, if the sauce is too thin, add more butter

: check/adjust seasoning

: remove the top of the pastry shells,, fill the cavities with the chicken salpicon, serve with a small salad (optional) ; makes 6 appetizer or 2 main course