Name: Substitute for Caper Sauce
Ingredients: ½ cup melted butter; 2 tablespoons chopped parsley; ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 tablespoon vinegar

Why it works: Butter and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Substitute for Caper Sauce

Ingredients

½ cup melted butter
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 tablespoon vinegar

Directions

Prepare the parsley

Boil the parsley slowly until it turns a good color; cut it, but do not chop it finely.

Make the sauce

In a saucepan, combine the melted butter, salt, and vinegar.
Add the boiled parsley to the butter mixture.
Let it simmer for 2 minutes, then serve.

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.

Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Parsley + vinegartop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,477 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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

Melted butter: Provides fat and a rich, smooth mouthfeel that carries the other flavors.
Parsley: Adds fresh, herbal aroma and a green color to the sauce.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that gives the sauce a sharp, tangy bite.