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Beef Canapees

Cold slices of roast beef served on buttered bread with pepper, sea salt, meat glaze, horseradish, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef Canapees

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut rounds of bread.

  2. Butter the rounds.

  3. Sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Cover with thin slices of cold roast beef.

  5. Pour a thin coating of good meat glaze over them.

Chill and serve

  1. Chill until cold.

  2. Garnish with scraped horseradish and parsley, then serve.

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

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

  2. Horseradish + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + horseradishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 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

Bread
Provides a firm base that holds the toppings.
Butter
Adds richness and a fat layer that keeps the bread from soaking up the topping.
Cold roast beef
Supplies the main savory meat flavor and chewy texture.
Meat glaze
Adds concentrated savory flavor and a glossy, gelatinous coating that sets as it chills.

The step that matters

Pour a thin coating of meat glaze. Meat glaze is concentrated and gels as it cools. A thick layer can overpower the beef and set too firmly to bite through, so a thin, even coat gives flavor and a clean finish.

Swap the horseradish

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, pepper, beef, meat, 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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