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Cheese Canapes

A toasted bread round topped with anchovy, grated cheese, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Canapes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the butter and bread

  1. Cut bread into rounds, 1½ inches in diameter.

  2. Melt butter in a pan.

  3. Pour the melted butter into another pan, leaving sediment behind.

  4. Boil the clarified butter.

Fry and drain

  1. Fry the bread rounds until pale golden.

  2. Drain the croutons on paper towels.

Top and bake

  1. Finely chop the anchovies.

  2. Spread the chopped anchovies on the croutons.

  3. Grate cheese thickly over the anchovies.

  4. Place the croutons in a hot oven (400°F/200°C) until the cheese melts.

  5. Sprinkle pepper on top.

  6. Serve immediately.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. 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

Butter
Clarified butter fries the bread to a golden color and adds rich, nutty flavor.
Bread
Forms the crisp base that holds the topping.
Anchovies
Adds a salty, savory flavor that complements the melted cheese.

The step that matters

Clarifying the butter. Milk solids in butter brown and burn quickly at frying heat. Pouring off the clear fat and leaving the sediment behind lets the bread fry to an even pale golden without scorching.

“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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