Name: C^per Sause
Ingredients: 1 pint good, plain drawn butter; 6 tablespoons capers

Why it works: Butter and capers are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,637 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

C^per Sause

Ingredients

1 pint good, plain drawn butter
6 tablespoons capers

Directions

Start with 1 pint of good, plain drawn butter.
Add 6 tablespoons of capers to the butter.
Stir well and serve over boiled mutton.

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 + caperstop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,637 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

Drawn butter: Provides rich fat and a smooth, coating body that carries the sauce's flavour.
Capers: Add a sharp, salty acidity that cuts through the richness of the butter.

“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.