Name: Caper Sauce for Fish
Ingredients: ½ pint very rich melted butter; 6 tablespoons strong veal gravy or jelly; 1 tablespoon essence of anchovies; Chili vinegar or cayenne to taste; ⅓ cup mushroom catsup or Harvey’s sauce (optional)

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

½ pint very rich melted butter
6 tablespoons strong veal gravy or jelly
1 tablespoon essence of anchovies
Chili vinegar or cayenne to taste
⅓ cup mushroom catsup or Harvey’s sauce (optional)

Directions

In a saucepan, combine the melted butter and veal gravy or jelly.
Add the essence of anchovies and mix well.
Stir in chili vinegar or cayenne to taste.
If no gravy is available, substitute with mushroom catsup or Harvey's sauce. Note that it may darken the sauce.

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.

Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,446 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Vinegar + mushroomtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,070 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).
Butter + vealtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,381 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,513 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Melted butter: Forms the rich base of the sauce and carries the other flavours.
Veal gravy or jelly: Adds body and savoury depth to the butter.
Essence of anchovies: Adds a salty, savoury depth to the sauce.

“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.