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Cheese Canapees

Cheese canapees are fried bread sandwiches filled with a cheese and ham mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Canapees

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated cheese, pounded ham, mixed mustard, Cayenne pepper, salt, and egg yolk into a paste.

  2. Spread the mixture thickly between the two slices of bread.

  3. Cut the sandwiches into shapes.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a pan until boiling.

  2. Fry the canapés for one minute 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. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated cheese
Melts and binds with the egg yolk to give the filling its rich, savoury body.
Egg yolk
Acts as a binder, helping the cheese and ham hold together as a paste.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that cuts through the richness of the cheese.
Pounded ham
Contributes meaty, salty flavour and texture to the filling.
Bread
Provides a crisp, golden structure that holds the filling during frying.

The step that matters

Frying the canapés in lard. The lard must be hot enough to brown the bread quickly. If it is too cool, the bread absorbs more fat and turns greasy before the cheese filling warms through.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, ham, pepper, egg, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, ham, pepper, egg, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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