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Canape Lorenzo

A crab canapé with toasted bread, crab meat, cheese sauce, and cheese balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Canape Lorenzo

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the toast

  1. Cut the bread into 6 slices.

  2. Remove the crust from the slices.

  3. Fry the slices in ½ ounce of butter until light brown.

Make the crab forcemeat

  1. Boil the crabs in salted water for 12 minutes.

  2. Cool the crabs.

  3. Remove the upper shell from the crabs.

  4. Pick out all the meat from the crabs.

  5. Season the crab meat with 1 tablespoon of salt and ¼ teaspoon of red pepper.

  6. Melt 1 ounce of butter in a saucepan.

  7. Sauté the chopped onion on moderate heat for 2 minutes without browning.

  8. Add 2 tablespoons of flour and stir constantly for 2 minutes.

  9. Add ½ cup of broth and cook for 5 minutes while stirring.

  10. Stir in the crab meat.

  11. Cook for an additional 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  12. Transfer the mixture to a vessel.

  13. Let the mixture cool for 15 minutes.

Make the cheese mixture

  1. In a separate pan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter.

  2. Mix in 1 tablespoon of flour and cook slowly for 3 minutes.

  3. Add 2 ounces of grated Parmesan and 2 ounces of grated Swiss cheese, and stir until well combined.

  4. Let the cheese mixture cool.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread a layer of crab forcemeat on each toast, about ¼ inch thick.

  2. Divide the cheese mixture into 6 equal parts and shape into balls about 2 inches in diameter.

  3. Place the cheese balls on top of the crab forcemeat.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + crabtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  5. Crab + saucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together238 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Crabs
Supply the main meat and sea flavour of the forcemeat.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid into a smooth, spoonable sauce.
Broth
Provides the liquid that turns the flour mixture into a sauce.
Parmesan cheese
Melts and firms the cheese balls while adding savoury, salty flavour.
Swiss cheese
Melts smoothly and adds mild, nutty flavour and good stretch.
Onion
Softens and sweetens gently when sautéed, adding aroma without browning.

The step that matters

Stir constantly when adding the flour. Flour added to hot butter clumps unless it is stirred constantly, and it can scorch on the bottom of the pan. Cooking it briefly with the fat lets the starch thicken the later liquid evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, crab, pepper, sauce, flour, parmesan cheese):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, crab, pepper, sauce, flour, parmesan cheese. 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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