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Cannelon Be Boeuf

A rolled beef and ham mixture baked with stock, egg, and herbs, served with brown gravy and garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 214 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cannelon Be Boeuf

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped beef, chopped ham, stock, beaten egg, salt, pepper, thyme, summer savory, and lemon rind. Mix well and form the mixture into a long roll.

Bake and serve

  1. Wrap the roll in buttered paper and place it in the oven. Bake for 45 minutes.

  2. Prepare a brown gravy seasoned with catsup to pour over the roll.

  3. Garnish with small force‑meat balls and the yolks of hard‑boiled eggs.

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. Thyme + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together214 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Summer savory + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together115 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Roast beef
Forms the main body of the roll and gives it its meaty texture.
Boiled ham
Adds savoury flavour and firmness to the chopped meat mixture.
Beaten egg
Binds the chopped meats together so the roll holds its shape.
Stock
Adds moisture so the mixture stays tender rather than dry while baking.

The step that matters

Forming and wrapping the roll. The mixture must be packed firmly into an even, tight roll and wrapped snugly in buttered paper. A loose or uneven roll can crack or dry out unevenly in the oven, and the egg binder only holds the meat together if it is well mixed and compacted.

“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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