Name: Macaroni with Caper Sauce
Ingredients: 2 oz macaroni; ½ pint white sauce; 1 teaspoon capers, chopped; caper vinegar, to taste

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 ↓

Macaroni with Caper Sauce

Ingredients

2 oz macaroni
½ pint white sauce
1 teaspoon capers, chopped
caper vinegar, to taste

Directions

Prepare

Boil the macaroni in 2 cups of water until tender.
Prepare the white sauce.

Make the caper sauce

Add the chopped capers and caper vinegar to the white sauce.
Serve with vegetables.

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.

Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together678 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Capers + vinegartop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,453 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sauce + vinegartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,844 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Macaroni: Provides the starchy base that makes up the body of the dish.
White sauce: Supplies a smooth, creamy coating that carries the flavour of the capers.
Capers: Add a sharp, briny flavour that cuts through the richness of the sauce.
Caper vinegar: Adds acidity and tang that brightens the sauce.