Who Doesn’t Love a Good Caper?

“And you know, my dear, any dish that calls for capers is even better without them.”

My friend’s mother was seated next to me in the stately dining room of her Greek Revival farmhouse on a winding road in rural Connecticut.  Without irony, she had recently successfully petitioned the town to return the road to its original name: Poverty Hollow. 

At the time I was thirty and living in a tiny studio with a sleeping loft in Greenwich Village. Feeling pressed to make conversation, I decided to praise the veal stew that had been prepared and served by the young married couple who served as cook and butler. 

That’s when she said it. The dish did, in fact, have capers. And I’d found it delicious.  So I didn’t know if what she’d said was a way of deflecting a compliment or criticizing her cook.  

Until that evening, I had never been a fan of capers. I knew what they were, but they weren’t a staple in my kitchen like, say, anchovies, onions, garlic, parsley, Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce. As soon as I got back to the City, however, I bought a jar at the supermarket.  And I’ve kept one in my fridge ever sense.  

Capers, also called Flinders Rose, are the unripened flower buds of the capparis spinosa, a prickly bush that grows wild throughout the Mediterranean (in some places, in cracks along stone walls) and western Asia. 

For millennia, they’ve been picked, dried and preserved either by salting or pickling in brine, then added to dishes of all manner of savory dishes, both raw and cooked. (There’s a mention of  capers etched into Sumerian clay tablets in the writings of Gilgamesh.) 

The capers most readily found here in the States are brined and sold in jars, but you can find salt-preserved capers in specialty Mediterranean foods markets. With capers, size matters, but not in the way you might think. The smallest, at around 7mm in diameter (barely bigger than the pellets of a BB gun) are called non-pareil (unrivaled), are the most common, and considered the most desirable.  

From there, capers ascend in size with corresponding names: surfines, capucines, capotes, fines, up to the “giant” 14+mm grusas.  The larger ones—generally salted, not brined—are known as caper berries and often used in Greek mezze. 

But back to the little guys, the non-pareils.  Essential to signature dishes like pasta puttanesca and chicken piccata, they also add a bright and tangy mildly acidic kick to lamb stews and roasted and sauteed fish, cream cheese and smoked salmon, and deviled eggs.  

Capers don’t shout or beg for center stage. Rather, they speak in a voice that’s articulated and precise-—collaborating nicely with garlic, lemon, anchovies, and parsley in sauces and compound butters. When fried, they make a crispy garnish to almost any grilled vegetables, fish or meat.

If you routinely bypass capers at you market believing, like my friend’s mother, that any dish that calls for capers is even better without them—think again. Capers don’t belong in every dish. But where they do, they shine. 

Salmon with Caper Butter

• 1.5 lbs. fresh salmon fillets, skin on and thick end if possible
• 4 T unsalted butter, softened
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 T drained capers
• 3 anchovy filets (optional)
• kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2+ lemon 
• 3 T barely chopped or torn herbs like parsley, chives, and/or tarragon – for garnish

1. Preheat oven to 400º F
2. in a small bowl, mix softened butter, minced garlic and (optional) anchovies
3. In a heavy cast iron pan, melt half of the compounded butter. When it’s hot and bubbling, add the salmon, skin side down. Cook over high heat for 2-3 minutes, basting with pan drippings, until the skin is brown-ish.  
4. Remove from heat. Add capers to the bottom of the pan, and transfer to the hot oven. Roast 8-10 minutes, until the fish is cooked but still moist inside. (If you’re using a thermometer, the thickest part of the fillet should measure 125º F)
5. Out of the oven, add the remaining garlic-anchovy butter to pan. 
6. Plate salmon and spoon sauce over the top. Squeeze fresh lemon over the fish, top with herbs, and serve.  

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