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Canapes

Canapes are small bread pieces topped with anchovy, olive, egg yolk, pepper, and optional ham or shrimp powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 307 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Canapes

one piece for each guest

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Cut thin slices of stale bread and butter them with fancy butter.

  2. Cut the buttered bread into oblong pieces, 2 inches long and 1.5 inches wide, one for each guest.

Top and garnish

  1. Place a strip of anchovy on each piece and add a slice of olive to fill gaps.

  2. Smooth pounded hard-boiled egg yolk over the top and dust with yellow pepper.

  3. Garnish each canape with a turned olive, a tiny lettuce leaf, or a sprig of watercress.

  4. Optionally, sprinkle with grated ham, granulated egg yolk, or shrimp powder.

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. Lettuce + watercresstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  4. Olive + watercresstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together684 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Forms the firm base that holds the toppings without going soggy.
Fancy butter
Adds richness and a fatty coating that helps toppings stick to the bread.
Fillet of anchovy
Contributes a salty, savoury flavour that stands out against the mild egg yolk.
Hard-boiled egg yolk
Provides a smooth, creamy layer with a rich, mellow flavour.

The step that matters

Smooth pounded hard-boiled egg yolk over the top. Yolk pounded too coarsely leaves lumps and uneven coverage, while overworking it can make it pasty. A smooth, even layer gives the canapé a clean finish and a consistent bite.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, anchovy, olive, egg, pepper, watercress):

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, anchovy, olive, egg, pepper, watercress. 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.

More canapes recipes

Lobster 5Apricot 4Ham 4Sardine 4Cheese 3Crab 3 See all 3 →

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