Why it works: Olive and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,688 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Olives Farcies Aux Anchois
Ingredients
Directions
Spread Montpellier butter on fried bread pieces the size of a coin.
Place an olive in the center of each piece.
Surround the olive with capers.
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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Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,688 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,091 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Olive + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,887 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Bread + caperstop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together307 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the capers
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, bread, butter):
- Capersthe original
- Parsleyfits about as well
- Garlicfits about as well
- Thymefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against olive, bread, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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