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Caper Sauce for Boiled Mutton

A butter-based sauce with capers and vinegar, served with boiled mutton.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and capers 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 for Boiled Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the melted butter, chopped capers, and vinegar.

  2. Stir the mixture over low heat, simmering gently for about 1 minute.

  3. Serve the sauce in a sauce tureen.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Capers + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,453 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Provides fat and richness, carrying flavour and giving the sauce a smooth, silky body.
Capers
Add a salty, briny bite that gives the sauce its distinctive sharp flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Simmering gently over low heat. Butter can separate or scorch if it gets too hot. Gentle heat for about a minute warms the sauce and keeps the emulsion smooth without breaking it.

Swap the capers

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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