Chicken, Pistachio, Blue Cheese Vol au Vents

As we discussed, you knew you were at a very special 80's Perth party when the mini vol au vents came out. If you were lucky, you may have washed them down with now defunct Swan Premium. I've never made them before due to the difficulty of obtaining vole but decided to go with chicken instead.

To be frank, vol au vents are kind of a drag. I was going to just buy the shells but felt guilty so I compromised with bought puff pastry and then went from there. Cutting out the base and then the ring shape to go on top is dull, dull, dull. There's a brief moment of magic when they spring up in the oven, but that's about it. The filling was classic menu wank that I chose for no other reason than the combo of pistachio, chicken, and blue cheese sounded good. Quite tasty but the time taking fiddliness could have been put to better ends and the filling was an uncomfortable compromise between chunky and creamy.

Served at my sister and brother-in-law's decade of being together do. Good on 'em I say. Stopped in, pre-party, at the drive-through bottle shop at Steve's for a bottle of '95 something (bad year for France?). Wandered downstairs to have a look at their vintage-wine filled cellar. Very impressive and on a completely unrelated note, anybody out there with tunneling experience. POWs? Coal miners? Get in touch OK.