Vol-au-vent is a puffy tartlet from flaky dought. Dough raises up during baking and takes shape of a small cup or basket. Variety of fillings go into baked dough baskets and they are served cold or hot.
Vol-au-vents are of French origin, first time made by French chef Marie-Antoine Carême. Name of this pastry points to the type of dough used in it. The initial idea behind volauvents was to make them very lite as opposed to the ones made of shortcrust dough. There is another name for vol-au-vents – bouchées. Authorship of first bouchées is attributed to wife of King Louis XV, Maria Leschinsky. She loved small single bite type of foods and hence the name – “bouchées à la reine”, queen’s bites.
Despite of vol-au-vents French origin, they are very popular in Russian cuisine, you can find variety of their recipes in old cook books of Soviet time.
Russian Monday: “Volovan s Gribamy” - Vol-au-vents with Creamy Mushroom & Shrimp Filling
Russian Monday: "Blinis" - Savory Buckwheat Pancakes
Shrovetide (or “maslenitsa” in Russian) is celebrated in the last week before Christian Orthodox Great Fast, seven weeks before Easter. Shrovetide is the holiday preserved by Slavic peoples from pagan (pre-Christian) times. Those days it was called differently when just like many other nations, ancient Slavs had traditional feast associated with winter wires and meeting of spring. At the time this feast was associated with the name of Veles - god of fertility and livestock in ancient Slavs pantheon. This holiday represented awakening of nature from winter sleep and marked beginning of the work in the fields. Also, feast table must have been plentiful and very hearty as it was meant to manifest the hope for the harvest year. Time of this holiday has always been cheerful and it was believed those who refuse to be merry would end up living “in bitter trouble” for the rest of the year.
