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Sauce

Caper 8atck

A simple sauce of capers, vinegar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and butter 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 8atck

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Add capers and vinegar to the melted butter.

  3. Stir well and heat through before serving.

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. Capers + buttertop 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. Vinegar + buttertop 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

Capers
Provide briny, sharp bursts of flavour that cut through the richness of the butter.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery sauce and balances its richness.
Butter
Supplies fat and richness, forming the base of the sauce.

The step that matters

Heating the butter gently. Butter is a mix of fat, water and milk solids. Over low heat it melts smoothly without the milk solids scorching or the emulsion breaking, which keeps the sauce silky.

Swap the capers

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter. 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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