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• n  puff paste shell filled with a savory meat mixture usually with a sauce

• She pronounced the vol-au-vent "awfully good, awfully good"; the salad dressing "perfectly seasoned"; the white-wine sauce "a poem"; the service "impeccable.
• The menu: vol-au-vent of sea food, noisettes of lamb with artichokes and asparagus, and strawberry mousse.
• He retired from public life, embittered, when defeated for the Presidency by "that vol-au-vent" (windbag) Paul Deschanel.