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Cannelon of Beef

A rolled pastry filled with seasoned beef, ham, and gravy, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Cannelon of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mix chopped beef with minced ham, pepper, salt, grated lemon peel, and onion.

  2. Moisten the mixture with gravy and stir in flour to thicken.

  3. Bind the mixture with beaten eggs.

Wrap and bake

  1. Roll out the pie paste into an oblong sheet.

  2. Place the beef mixture in the center and roll the pastry around it, sealing the edges.

  3. Close the ends with caps of pastry, pinching the edges together.

  4. Place the roll in a dripping pan with the seam side down and bake until golden brown.

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

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Beef + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped beef
Forms the main bulk and savory flavor of the filling.
Eggs
Bind the filling so it holds together when sliced.
Flour
Thickens the moistened filling so it does not run out of the pastry.
Gravy
Moistens the filling and adds meaty flavor and moisture.
Pie paste or dumpling dough
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven to form the outer shell.

The step that matters

Sealing the pastry roll. If the edges and ends are not sealed well, the filling can leak out during baking. Pinching the seams firmly keeps the moist filling enclosed while the pastry sets and browns.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ham, pepper, onion, flour, egg):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, pepper, onion, flour, egg. 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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