You May Crown This Chicken Salad Queen!

Socialslave's take on the Classic Coronation Chicken Salad Recipe served vol au vents!

slave's adaptation of the much loved and famous recipe created by Constance Spry for the Queen's Coronation lunch in 1953. Adjustments made for obvious reasons.

Ingredients:

1 can 12.5oz cooked chicken Well drained
2 Cups any sweet melon, diced very small slave used honeydew

1 celery stalk, trimmed and diced
1 tablespoons home-made mayonnaise

5.3 oz Non fat Greek Style Yogurt Pineapple flavored

½ C chopped pecans
Fresh basil or mint
Dash of paprika

2 sheets of puff pastry or 3 tubes of croissant dough non-perforated

1 egg for wash.

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“Vol au Vents”: Pronounced “Vuuu – ah – Vahn”. The French just have a way of pronouncing their words as if they had just burned the roof of their mouths. No matter how this translates, what it means in cooking is that a food is served in puff pastry bowls. Very pretty!

Most of the larger supermarkets sell puff pastry sheets, however slave finds you can get comparable results using those crescent rolls in the cardboard tubes. Getting the kind that is not perforated is preferred but not necessary.

The chiefs make it sound so easy:

“Roll out the dough. Using a 4 inch biscuit cutter cut out 12 disks. Then using a 2 inch biscuit cutter, cut out the center of 8 of these.”

Hello, slave has never seen a 4 inch biscuit cutter. That large and it is no longer a biscuit, it is a cow patty! So if you learn nothing else from these blogs, learn how to improvise! Slave found a 5 inch funnel and a small can of corn that was about 2 ½ inches across. Well this threw all the planning about how many you could get out of 3 rolls of pastry! Again slave improvised.

Directions:

To make the vol au vents:

Pre heat oven to 375 F degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Lay out sheets of wax paper on the counter and lightly dust with flour.

Unroll a sheet of dough on each. Cut out 9 large disks by pressing straight down (don't twist it) slave got 3 per sheet. Peel away the dough and save to another sheet of paper.

Using a spatula, set 4 of them evenly spaced onto the parchment lined baking sheet.

Now the other 8 disks will be cut into rings by using a cutter that is half the size of the larger. Just cut the centers out. Again push straight down, don't twist. Twisting will not allow the pastry t rise like it should.

 

Now with a pastry brush lightly dampen just the top edges of the 4 disks. Place a ring on each. Then brush just the top of those rings and stack the second layer of rings. If you have enough, slave did not, so it had to improvise! Roll scraps of dough and use that to take the place of rings! With any kind of dough, you have a built in glue. All you have to do is add a touch of water!

 

With a fork prick the just the center of each disk. Then using a slightly beaten egg, brush only the tops of each ring. If you get it on the sides the pastry wont puff like it should.

Bake according to pkg directions and allow to cool completely before filling. Slave found that its oven took a bit longer than it does just doing rolls.

PLEASE NOTE: The big food craze last year was “Cronuts”. That was just a three layer high stack of rings like you just made only instead of baking you deep fried them and washed each with a sugar glaze.

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The Chicken Queen Salad:

Mix the mayonnaise and yogurt with the celery and pecans. Add minced basil or mint and continue to blend.

 

In a medium sized bowl break apart the chicken into small chunks and carefully stir in the diced melon.

Pour yogurt mixture over the chicken to fold in lightly. Chill in refrigerator for at least 20 minutes before serving. Spoon the salad into the vol au vents, slightly overfilling each.

Garnish as you choose, perhaps with a touch of red, like a fresh strawberry sliced almost through and fanned. Or how about a couple of grape tomatoes if you have them.

Slave hopes you and your family enjoys this touch of gourmet brunch dish.

Proud to serve my Master Indy

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!