Why it works: Sauce and capers work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 678 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
White Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Add ketchup, soy sauce, and flavored vinegar to the melted butter.
Stir in pepper, fine spice, sweet herbs, capers, and eschalots.
Serve the sauce with roasted meats.
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.
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Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together678 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Pepper + caperstop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,088 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,814 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + caperstop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,637 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Melted butter forms the fat base that carries the flavors of the sauce.
- Soy sauce
- Adds salty, savory depth that rounds out the sauce.
- Flavored vinegar
- Brings acidity that sharpens the sauce and balances the richness of the butter.
- Capers
- Contribute briny, sharp bursts of flavor that stand out against the sauce.
Swap the capers
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce, vinegar, pepper):
- Tarragonfits better
- Parsleyfits about as well
- Capersthe original
- Garlicfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, vinegar, pepper. 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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