Skip to main content
Main

Cannelon of Beef

A rolled beef and bacon mixture flavored with lemon rind, herbs, and egg yolks, baked and served with brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Cannelon of Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Mix the chopped beef and minced bacon thoroughly.

  3. Combine the lemon rind, parsley, thyme, nutmeg, pepper, and salt in a bowl. Add the mixture to the meat along with the egg yolks and mix well.

Shape and bake

  1. Form the mixture into a roll and wrap it in well-buttered paper, securing it with tape.

  2. Place the roll in a greased baking tin and bake for about 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Once cooked, remove the paper and tape, and place the roll on a serving dish. Pour brown gravy around the roll and garnish with fried potato balls.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 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

Lean beef
Forms the bulk of the roll and gives it a meaty, sliceable body.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour, keeping the lean beef moist as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Bind the chopped meats together so the roll holds its shape when sliced.
Lemon rind
Adds bright aromatic oils that lift the rich meat flavour.

The step that matters

Shaping and wrapping the roll. The mixture must be packed firmly and wrapped tightly in buttered paper and tape. Loose packing lets the proteins set unevenly, so the roll can crumble or lose its shape during baking.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, lemon, parsley, thyme, pepper, egg, fried potato. 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes