Vol-au-vent of Love

I am of the opinion that one does not have to wait for February the fourteenth to express one's love, because for me love can (and should!) be expressed every day of the year.  In fact love can be expressed in many forms.  

So, today just to prove myself right, I have decided to express my feelings of love by making this very French pastry (with a very Malaysian filling!)  Incidentally, vol-au-vent was created by a French named Antonin Careme in rue de la Paix in 1803-04.

Making the pastry is very straight forward (store bought of course!), where the only difference from the traditional vol-au-vent is that mine used two heart-shaped cookie cutters; one large and one smaller than the other.  For the filling, I used a typical (sort of) currypuff-filling.

• 500g potatoes, diced
• 150g ground chicken meat
• 2 Bombay onions, diced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 celery stalk, diced
• 2 garlic, chopped
• 1 level tsp meat curry powder
• 1/2 a chicken stock cube
• 1/4 petit pois
• 500ml water
• 2tbs vegetable oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil then saute the garlic and onions.  Mix in the curry powder followed by the chicken meat.  Stir for a minute, then add in the potatoes, carrots and water.  Simmer until the potatoes are tender then, add in the chicken stock cube, salt, pepper and petit pois.  Adjust seasoning and turn off the heat.  Set aside to cool.

Proceed with filling the vol-au-vent  :-)