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Sauce

Liberty Caper Sauce

A sauce made by boiling tarragon vinegar with salt, mustard seed, celery seed, and pouring over nasturtium seeds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 901 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Liberty Caper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bring the tarragon vinegar to a boil.

  2. Add the salt, white mustard seed, and celery seed.

  3. When boiling hot, pour the mixture over the nasturtium seeds.

  4. Seal the container and use as you would ordinary imported French capers.

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. Tarragon + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Tarragon + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 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

Nasturtium seeds
Provide the main caper-like texture and bite once pickled in the vinegar.
Tarragon vinegar
Acts as the pickling liquid, adding sharp acidity that preserves and flavors the seeds.
White mustard seed
Adds a pungent, sharp aroma that carries into the pickling liquid.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against tarragon, vinegar, mustard. 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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