Name: Cannelon of Beef
Ingredients: 1 pound chopped beef; 2 ounces butter; ½ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 1 egg yolk; 10 drops onion juice; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley; grated rind of ½ lemon; pie crust

Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake the filling

In a bowl, mix together the chopped beef, butter, salt, pepper, egg yolk, onion juice, parsley, and lemon rind until well combined.
Form the mixture into a roll and place it in the pie crust.
Bake until cooked through and golden brown.

Serve

Serve with brown gravy.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped beef: Provides the main body and savory flavor of the filling.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, keeping the filling moist as it cooks.
Egg yolk: Binds the meat mixture so it holds its roll shape.
Pie crust: Encloses the filling and browns in the oven as the outer casing.

Swap the onion

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

Shallotfits better
Carrotfits better
Chivefits better
Onionthe original

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