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Cannelon of Beef

A rolled beef filling baked in buttered paper, served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cannelon of Beef

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 the filling

  1. Chop the beef, parsley, and lemon rind very finely.

  2. Add salt, pepper, nutmeg, melted butter, raw egg, onion juice, and lemon juice; mix thoroughly.

  3. Shape the mixture into rolls about 3 inches in diameter and 6 inches long.

Bake and serve

  1. Wrap the rolls in buttered paper and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes, basting with butter and water.

  2. Serve on a hot plate with tomato sauce.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 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

Round beef
Forms the bulk of the filling, giving it a meaty, sliceable body once cooked.
Raw egg
Binds the chopped meat so the rolls hold their shape during baking.
Melted butter
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the filling tender and helping the outside brown.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat and balances its flavor.

The step that matters

Basting the rolls while they bake. Raw beef dries out and firms up in the oven's heat. Regular basting with butter and water adds moisture to the surface and helps it brown rather than toughen.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, lemon, parsley, pepper, nutmeg, butter, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, lemon, parsley, pepper, nutmeg, butter, 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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