Skip to main content
Main

Savoury Canapes

Savory canapes made with sardines, anchovies, oysters, shrimps, celery, shallot, cress, tarragon, hard‑boiled egg, butter, lobster coral, aspic jelly, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Savoury Canapes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Bone and shred the sardines, anchovies, oysters, and shrimps.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the pounded shallot with the cress and mayonnaise sauce.

  2. Fill small brioche cases with the fish mixture and run a little butter around the edges.

Garnish and set

  1. Garnish each canape with lobster coral and the chopped hard-boiled egg.

  2. Top with aspic jelly, roughing it with a fork around the canapes.

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. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Celery + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together456 recipes

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

  3. Shrimp + lobstertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together403 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Celery + shallottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together459 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Oyster + shrimptop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together531 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sardines
Provide the main savory fish flavor in the filling.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savory depth to the fish filling.
Mayonnaise sauce
Binds the fish and shallot into a moist, spreadable filling.
Montpellier butter
Adds richness and fat along the edges of the canapes.
Aspic jelly
Sets on top to give a glossy, firm finish.

The step that matters

Top with aspic jelly. Aspic must be liquid enough to pour but cool enough not to melt the butter and filling. Roughing it with a fork after it sets gives the jelly grip and a textured look.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, shrimp, shallot, tarragon, egg, butter, lobster):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, shrimp, shallot, tarragon, egg, butter, lobster. 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

Lobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipes