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Canape Lorenzo

A baked canapé of crab meat, cream, and cheese on toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Canape Lorenzo

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the crab filling

  1. Chop a medium-sized shallot and fry lightly in 2 ounces of butter without coloring.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of flour and wet with 1 pint of cream.

  3. Stir in 1 pound of crab meat, salt, and pepper, and heat until it just begins to bubble.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cut bread into desired shapes, toast one side only.

  2. Spread the crab mixture on the toasted side of the bread.

  3. Mix ½ pound of butter with ½ pound of grated Parmesan cheese and season with red and white pepper.

  4. Cover the crab mixture with the cheese butter and place on a buttered dish.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Crab + meattop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cream + crabtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries flavor in the filling and the cheese topping.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a binding sauce that holds the crab together.
Cream
Provides moisture and a smooth, rich body to the crab filling.
Crab meat
Supplies the main flavor and the substance of the filling.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the topping brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Heat the crab mixture only until it just begins to bubble. Boiling a cream and flour sauce can make it thicken unevenly, break, or turn grainy, and it can toughen delicate crab meat.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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