Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓
Cannelon of Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mixture
Chop the cold roast beef finely and season it well.
Beat in the yolks of three eggs and the white of one egg.
Add cold mashed potatoes equal to one-third the amount of meat and wet with gravy.
Form the mixture into a long roll, three times as long as it is wide.
Dredge the roll thickly with flour.
Bake and brown
Place the roll in a greased baking pan and cover with another pan.
Bake until hissing hot on top and sides.
Uncover and brown quickly.
Brush the outside with egg white and dredge again with flour.
Close the oven door to brown.
Glaze again with egg.
Shut the oven for one minute.
Serve
Carefully slip the cannelon onto a hot dish.
Serve.
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.
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Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,052 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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Beef + meattop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,533 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Potato + meattop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together786 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cold roast beef
- Forms the bulk of the filling, giving the roll its meaty body.
- Egg yolks
- Bind the chopped meat and potato together so the roll holds its shape.
- Egg white
- Adds binding and, brushed on the outside, helps the flour coating set and brown.
- Cold mashed potatoes
- Add body and softness to the filling, keeping it moist and less dense.
- Gravy
- Moistens the mixture so it holds together and stays juicy when baked.
- Flour
- Forms a dry coating on the outside that helps the surface brown.
The step that matters
Browning the outside after baking. Egg white and flour brushed on and dredged again set and brown the surface, but the oven must stay hot enough to brown quickly without drying the interior. Uncovering and browning too slowly leaves a pale, soggy crust.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, egg, meat, flour, butter):
- Shallotfits about as well
- Leekfits about as well
- Chivefits about as well
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, meat, flour, butter. 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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