Name: Brown Caper Sauce
Ingredients: ½ pint good veal or beef gravy; 2 tablespoons capers; 2 teaspoons pickle liquor or Chili vinegar; ¼ teaspoon cayenne (if using pickle liquor); ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Why it works: Capers and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,453 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Brown Caper Sauce

Ingredients

½ pint good veal or beef gravy
2 tablespoons capers
2 teaspoons pickle liquor or Chili vinegar
¼ teaspoon cayenne (if using pickle liquor)
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Directions

Thicken the veal or beef gravy in a saucepan.
Add the capers and pickle liquor or chili vinegar.
If using pickle liquor, add cayenne to taste.
Season with coarse sea salt and stir well.

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.

Capers + vinegartop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,453 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Veal + caperstop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together198 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Veal + vinegartop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together948 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

Veal or beef gravy: Supplies the rich, savory meat base that the whole sauce is built on.
Capers: Add briny, tangy bursts of flavor that cut through the rich gravy.
Pickle liquor or chili vinegar: Adds sharp acidity that brightens and balances the heavy gravy.