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Canape a LA Prince

A small appetizer of anchovy, celery, truffle, egg yolks, chives, capers, mustard, salad oil, vinegar on lettuce leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 624 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Canape a LA Prince

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the anchovy fillets, celery, and truffles into small pieces the size of a pea.

  2. In a bowl, mix the anchovy, celery, and truffles with the following sauce.

Make the sauce

  1. Pass the hard boiled egg yolks through a fine sieve into the bowl.

  2. Add the chopped chives, capers, mustard, raw egg yolk, salad oil, and vinegar.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve until smooth.

Serve

  1. Place the mixture on small white lettuce leaves and serve as an appetizer.

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. Capers + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Chive + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Chive + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Celery + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovy fillets
Provides a salty, savoury flavour that gives the canapé its character.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Passed through a sieve, they form a fine, smooth base for the sauce.
Raw egg yolk
Emulsifies with the oil and vinegar to thicken the sauce.
Salad oil
Adds fat and richness, helping the emulsified sauce become smooth and creamy.
Truffles
Contribute an earthy, aromatic flavour to the filling.
White celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a sieve until smooth. Raw egg yolk and oil form an emulsion that can split or stay grainy if not worked fully smooth. Pushing the mixture through a sieve breaks up lumps and gives an even, spreadable texture.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (anchovy, truffle, egg, chive, capers, mustard, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against anchovy, truffle, egg, chive, capers, mustard, vinegar. 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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