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Caper Sauce for Fish

A rich melted butter sauce flavoured with capers, anchovy essence and veal gravy, served hot over fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Caper Sauce for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the melted butter, veal gravy or jelly, essence of anchovies, chili vinegar or cayenne, and capers.

  2. If you don't have gravy, substitute with mushroom catsup or Harvey's sauce, but note this will darken the sauce. Mix well and serve hot over 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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Capers + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + caperstop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,637 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + caperstop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,453 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melted butter forms the rich base that carries the sauce and gives it a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.
Veal gravy or jelly
Adds savory body and depth, thickening the sauce slightly and rounding out the flavor.
Capers
Their briny, sharp bite provides acidity that cuts through the richness of the butter.
Essence of anchovies
Contributes a concentrated salty, savory umami note that deepens the overall flavor.

Swap the capers

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, veal, vinegar, mushroom. 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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