Name: And Caper Sauce
Ingredients: 1 lb onions; 1 lb turnips; 1 oz butter; a little vinegar; stock and milk (mixed); salt to taste; chopped capers

Why it works: Turnip and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 145 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

And Caper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Peel and chop the onions and turnips.
In a pot, melt the butter over medium heat.
Add the onions and turnips, and sauté for a few minutes.
Pour in the stock and milk mixture, and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for 3 to 4 hours.
Season with salt and vinegar to taste.
In a separate pan, melt more butter, add flour, and stir until thickened.
Gradually add the stock and milk mixture, stirring until it boils.
Finally, stir in the chopped capers.

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.

Turnip + caperstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together145 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,381 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,226 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, vinegar, milk, capers):

Shallotfits better
Mustardfits better
Chivefits better
Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, vinegar, milk, capers. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.