Name: Caper Sauce
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons capers; ⅓ cup drawn butter

Why it works: Capers and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,637 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Caper Sauce

Ingredients

2 tablespoons capers
⅓ cup drawn butter

Directions

Place capers in a butter boat.
Pour drawn butter over the capers.
For a similar sauce, use nasturtiums prepared the same way.

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.

Capers + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,637 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Capers: Provide a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the rich butter.
Drawn butter: Supplies fat and richness, coating the capers and giving the sauce its smooth body.

“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.