Name: Mock Caper Sauce
Ingredients: ½ pint melted butter; 2 teaspoons lemon juice or vinegar; pickled green peas, French beans, gherkins, or nasturtiums

Why it works: Lemon and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,005 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mock Caper Sauce

Ingredients

½ pint melted butter
2 teaspoons lemon juice or vinegar
pickled green peas, French beans, gherkins, or nasturtiums

Directions

Cut the pickled green peas, French beans, gherkins, or nasturtiums into bits the size of capers.
Combine them in a bowl with the melted butter and lemon juice or vinegar, then stir well to mix all ingredients.

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.

Lemon + peastop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,005 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,887 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 body that carries the flavor of the sauce.
Lemon juice or vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the butter and balances its richness.
Pickled green peas, french beans, gherkins, or nasturtiums: Supplies tangy, briny flavor and a firm bite in place of capers.