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Olive and Caper Bars

A sandwich spread made from finely minced olives, capers, butter or oil, paprika or cayenne, and celery salt, served between buttered brown bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,688 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Olive and Caper Bars

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spread

  1. Mince the olives very finely.

  2. Mix the minced olives with the chopped capers.

  3. Work in the butter or oil, paprika or cayenne, and celery salt until smooth.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture between thin strips of buttered brown bread.

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. Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Capers + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Olive + celerytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Olives
Provide the main bulk and a briny, savoury flavour to the spread.
Capers
Add sharp, acidic bite that contrasts with the rich butter.
Butter or oil
Adds fat and smoothness, helping the spread come together and feel creamy.
Brown bread
Forms the sandwich base, adding a sturdy, nutty structure for the filling.

The step that matters

Work in the butter or oil until smooth. Fat must be fully worked into the finely minced olives and capers so the spread turns smooth and holds together rather than staying crumbly or greasy in patches.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, capers, butter, bread. 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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