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Cannelon of Beef with Macaroni a LA Italienne

A slow‑cooked casserole of beef, salt pork, vegetables, and stock, finished with a flour‑paste seal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Cannelon of Beef with Macaroni a LA Italienne

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Brown the beef on all sides in a hot frying pan using fat from salt pork.

Assemble the casserole

  1. Sprinkle the salt pork, carrot, onion, and celery into a large casserole.

  2. Place the browned meat on top of the vegetables.

  3. Add stock or water, bay leaf, red pepper or peppercorns, and cloves tied in parsley.

  4. Spread more vegetable cubes on top of the meat and add salt if using water.

  5. Cover the casserole and seal with a cloth spread with flour paste.

Bake

  1. Cook in a very slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about six hours.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  5. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow cooking.
Salt pork
Renders fat for browning the beef and adds savory richness to the casserole.
Stock or water
Provides moisture so the meat and vegetables cook gently in the sealed casserole.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens during the long cooking.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the cooking liquid.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavor to the vegetables and the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Sealing the casserole. The flour paste seal keeps steam inside during the long bake, so the meat braises in its own moisture rather than drying out. A loose lid lets liquid escape and can leave the beef tough.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, carrot, onion, celery, pepper, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, carrot, onion, celery, pepper, parsley. 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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