Good morning. In today’s edition we cover capers, plus how to use them in piccata or a dairy free pesto.
By the way, every weekly ingredient we highlight in this newsletter gets it’s own guide in our app, where you can put what you’ve learned into action: add it to your grocery list, plan a meal, or jump straight into a recipe.
INGREDIENT DEEP DIVE 🍳
Capers
What are they?
Capers are the unopened flower buds of the caper bush, picked small and preserved in salt or brine. Think of them as tiny olives that add bursts of intense flavor to food (if you like olives, you’ll like capers).
You’ll usually find them jarred near pickled items at the store.
Look for ‘nonpareil capers,’ which are the smallest ones, and generally the best (more flavorful and better texture).
Salt-packed capers are punchier and firmer than brined ones, but brined is what most grocery stores carry. If you buy these, rinse off before using.
What’s their flavor?
Taste: Deeply salty & sour (briney), lightly bitter
Aroma: Sharp, herbal, almost mustardy
Texture: Soft with a slight pop when bitten
Human: Reminiscent of Mediterranean cooking (Italian, Greek, French) especially anywhere butter, lemon, or fish show up
Why should you buy some?
Capers add acidity and salinity at the same time, which means they can fix a flat dish without other seasonings.
A tablespoon or two wakes up simple foods like pasta, chicken, fish, or vegetables.
They last forever in the fridge and you use them slowly, so one jar goes a long way.
Pro move: rinse brined capers if you want them brighter and less salty; fry them in olive oil if you want textural crunch.
What can you make with them?
Chicken piccata or lemony fish with butter and capers
Pasta with olive oil, garlic, chili flakes, and capers (or puttanesca pasta)
Salsa verde, tapenade, caponata, or herb sauces
Crispy fried capers to sprinkle on roasted vegetables or grilled meats
A way to wake up deli salads, nicoise style salads, or dressings like tartar sauce.
Pick some up and start leveling up your food Mediterranean style! Check out the above dishes & more in our app.
FRAMEWORK OF THE WEEK ✅
Try capers in piccata!
Chicken piccata made & photographed by one of our readers, Dennis L.
If you’ve never cooked with capers before, a classic dish to appreciate their flavor is piccata, a sauce that works great with chicken, fish, or pasta alike.
Piccata is something every home cook should know how to make, because it teaches the techniques required for nailing a great pan sauce, including using flour and mounting butter to thicken and emulsify.
Here are the basic components:
And if you want to learn more about cooking techniques and the science behind how butter emulsifies and how flour gelates to stabilize sauces, we’ve loaded all of our science based cooking fundamentals into the app, which are embedded into every recipe and framework so you learn as you cook:
READER Q&A 🧠
Swapping the cheese in pesto
Question: “Any good recommendations to substitute cheese in the pesto framework?” - Ken W
Answer: First, think about what the cheese is doing in pesto: it adds salt, umami, and a bit of creamy body.
You can always sub in a different dairy for some of that creaminess: a bit of ricotta, mascarpone, cream, etc. But if you’re going dairy-free, you’ll want to replace both texture and savoriness:
For creaminess:
Extra olive oil
More toasted nuts (try cashews, almonds, or just extra pine nuts)
A spoonful of tahini
For salt + umami:
Capers (!) or olives
Just a bit more salt, adjusted carefully
It won’t taste identical to parmesan-forward pesto, but it can still hit the same savory, herbaceous notes with these swaps.
At its core, pesto is just herbs + fat + salt + something nutty/aromatic. Once you understand the roles, you can play around with the formula to get something that still tastes great.
WINNING READER SUBMISSION 🏆
Hand-pulled noodles
This week’s dinner winner is Jude A., who made hand-pulled biang biang noodles. Well done!
Reply with your best home-cooked food photos for a chance to win & be featured!
EXTRA HELPINGS 🍽️
A read: Go eat outside
In a minute or less: Easy peel eggs
What we’re watching: Simple rules for better sandwiches
Get Cooking: Download the Cook Well App
Was this forwarded to you? Subscribe here.
Need more inspiration? View the newsletter backlog.
