Name: Caper Sauce
Ingredients: 3 tablespoons capers; 2 tablespoons cider vinegar; ½ pint drawn butter sauce; salt to taste; pepper to taste

Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Caper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Stir the capers and cider vinegar into the drawn butter sauce.
Add salt and pepper to taste.

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.

Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,431 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Capers + saucetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together678 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Capers + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,088 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Capers: Add briny, sharp bursts of flavour that cut the richness of the butter sauce.
Cider vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the buttery sauce and balances its richness.
Drawn butter sauce: Provides the fatty, creamy base that carries the other flavours.

Swap the capers

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

Tarragonfits better
Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, butter, sauce, pepper. 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.