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Grab Canapes

A toasted bread appetizer topped with crab mixture, melted cheese, and pimento olives.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Grab Canapes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cut the bread into slices that are 3 inches long and 1.5 inches wide.

  3. Spread butter on the bread slices and brown them in the oven.

Assemble

  1. In a bowl, mix the crab meat, lemon juice, Tabasco sauce, salt, onion juice, and olive oil.

  2. Mark the bread diagonally into four sections.

  3. Spread the sections alternately with melted cheese and the crab mixture.

  4. Separate the sections with finely chopped pimento olives.

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

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

  2. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Crab + meattop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Bread + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Provides a sturdy base that holds the toppings in shape.
Crab meat
Supplies the main flavor and a tender, flaky texture.
Melted cheese
Adds richness and a creamy layer that binds the topping to the bread.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich crab and cheese.
Olive oil
Adds fat that keeps the crab mixture moist and smooth.

The step that matters

Brown the buttered bread before topping it. Toasting dries and browns the bread surface, which forms a barrier so the moist crab mixture and melted cheese soak in less and the base stays crisp.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, crab, meat, sauce, onion, olive):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, crab, meat, sauce, onion, olive. 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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