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Crabmeat Canape

A toasted bread topping of crabmeat, butter, lemon juice, salt, cayenne pepper, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Crabmeat Canape

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Add the flaked crabmeat, lemon juice, and salt, then mix well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Spread the mixture on the toast slices.

  2. Sprinkle with grated cheese.

  3. Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven to brown.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Crabmeat
Provides the main savoury filling and flavour of the canapé.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the filling spread smoothly over the toast.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich crab and butter.
Grated cheese
Melts and browns in the oven, adding savoury flavour and a golden top.
Toast
Provides a crisp base that holds the topping.

The step that matters

Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven to brown. The topping needs enough heat to brown the cheese and warm the crab without drying it out. Watch closely, since the thin layer of toast and topping can scorch quickly once the cheese colours.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, cheese):

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Mangofits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, 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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