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 as directed for mmee taumee.
Add the capers and pickle liquor or chili vinegar to the gravy.
If using pickle liquor, add cayenne to taste.
Season with coarse sea salt.

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).