Vol au vent

Preparation:

Preparation: Roll out the puff pastry to a thickness of 1/2 centimeter and with a stencil or a glass with a floured rim, cut out 18 disks with a diameter of approximately 6 centimetres. Set aside 6 of them and cut out the others in the center with a stencil or a 4 cm glass, thus obtaining rings. If necessary, knead the leftover dough again. Beat the egg, brush the bottom of the large disks and place a ring of dough on top of each one. Brush each ring then coat each with another ring and brush again with the beaten egg. Line up the vol-au-vents on the oven tray covered with greaseproof paper and cook for 30 minutes in the preheated oven at 220 degrees. Remove them when they are puffy and golden. The brushing with beaten egg serves to adhere the various layers of pasta and obtain a golden surface. But be careful not to let the egg run on the edges otherwise the dough will not puff up well and the vol-au-vent will have an irregular shape. If you prepare more vol-au-vents than you need, you can freeze the excess. Proceed as follows: overlap the various layers of dough without brushing them with the egg and wrap the vol-au-vents individually in plastic wrap, thus freezing them. Then put them together in a bag and keep them in the freezer. To cook them, line them still frozen on an oven tray lined with aluminum foil, brush them with beaten egg and cook them for 30 minutes in a preheated oven at 220-240 degrees. You can prepare a single giant vol-au-vent in the same way, cutting out a disk of dough with a diameter of about 22 centimeters and 3 proportionate rings. Fill the vol-au-vents only at the last moment. If you prepare them in advance, keep the dough and the filling separately and 15 minutes before serving, turn on the oven at 190-200 degrees, then fill the vol-au-vents and let them warm up for about 10 minutes. Or fill them and place them in the microwave oven at maximum power for 2-3 minutes, arranging them in a circle on the plate.