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Sauce

Brown Caper Sauce

A sauce made from veal or beef stock, pickle liquor, cayenne pepper, thickened gravy, capers, and caper liquor or chili vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and capers are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,088 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Brown Caper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Thicken the veal or beef stock in a saucepan.

  2. Add the pickle liquor and cayenne pepper.

  3. Stir in the thickened veal or beef gravy.

  4. Mix in the capers and caper liquor or chili vinegar.

  5. Heat gently and serve with fish.

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.

  1. Pepper + caperstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,088 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Capers + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,453 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Veal + caperstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together198 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal or beef stock
Forms the savoury liquid base of the sauce.
Thickened veal or beef gravy
Adds body and richness, giving the sauce its thick texture.
Capers
Add briny, sharp bursts of flavour that cut through the richness.
Pickle liquor
Adds acidity and tang that brightens the savoury base.

Swap the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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