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Neapolitan Sauce

A sauce made with shallots, capers, peppercorns, lemon, stock, spices, butter, flour, shrimp, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Neapolitan Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the flavoured stock

  1. In a small enamelled saucepan, combine shallots, capers, peppercorns, and lemon juice. Stir over medium heat for 3-4 minutes.

  2. Add stock, cayenne, clove, bay leaf, and mace; simmer gently for 20 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

Thicken the sauce

  1. In a separate stewpan, melt butter and mix in flour until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the cooled sauce, stirring until it boils.

  3. Strain the sauce back into the saucepan and bring to a boil again.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat, stir in shrimp and cream.

  2. Add anchovy essence and lemon juice if desired, then serve immediately.

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. Shallot + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Capers + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 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

Shallots
Soften and add savoury depth as they cook down into the base.
Butter
Carries fat and flavour and forms the roux with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by swelling with the melted butter and stock.
Stock made from bones
Forms the liquid body of the sauce and carries the seasonings.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, rounder texture to the finished sauce.
Shrimp
Adds the main seafood flavour and texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce after cooling. Flour thickens only when its starch swells in hot liquid. Adding the cooled sauce gradually while stirring prevents lumps, and bringing it to a boil fully activates the starch for a smooth, even texture.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, capers, clove, mace, butter, egg, flour):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Limefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, capers, clove, mace, butter, egg, flour. 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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