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Caper Sauce

A sauce made with flour, butter, boiling water, vinegar, and capers, served with boiled mutton.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Caper Sauce

Why it works: Flour and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,024 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Caper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, rub together the flour and butter until well combined.

  2. Gradually add the boiling water while stirring continuously.

  3. Mix in the vinegar and then add the capers according to your taste.

Serve

  1. Serve with boiled mutton.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + caperstop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,637 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vinegar + caperstop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,453 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the butter.
Capers
Add a salty, briny flavour that gives the sauce its character.

The step that matters

Gradually add the boiling water while stirring continuously. Flour starch clumps when liquid is added all at once. Adding the boiling water slowly while stirring disperses the starch granules evenly, so they swell into a smooth sauce instead of lumps.

Swap the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, vinegar):

  1. Jalapenofits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Capersthe original
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, vinegar. 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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