Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Spice guide to Caper along with all the Caper containing recipes presented on this site, with 135 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the spice-based recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Caper as a major flavouring.

Capers are the pickled flower buds of Capparis spinosa a biennial spiny shrub (a member of the Capparaceae, or caper family) that is native to the Mediterranean. The pickled and salted caper flower bud (also called caper) is often used as a seasoning or garnish. Capers are a common ingredient in Mediterranean cuisine. The grown fruit of the caper shrub is also used, and prepared similarly to the buds to be used as caper berries. The shrubby plant is many-branched, with alternate leaves, thick and shiny, round to ovate in shape. The flowers are complete (ie has both carpels and stamen), showy, with four sepals, and four white to pinkish-white petals, many long violet-coloured stamens, and a single stigma usually rising well above the stamens. When fertilized, the flowers develop into fruit, which can also be picked and pickled and which are known as caper berries (cornichon de câpres in French). These are also pickled and sold as their spice and they have a very intense flavour. Caper Berries are much better than capers if you are going to boil them in a sauce (capers easily lose their flavour if they are cooked).

Capers are found growing wild all over the Mediterranean, though it is believed that their origin lies in direr areas of Western and Central Asia. Today they are cultivated in France, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Greece and Algeria around the Mediterranean. Iran also produces capers on a commercial basis.

Capers are categorized and sold by their size, defined as follows, with the smallest sizes being the most desirable: Non-pareil (0–7 mm), surfines (7–8 mm), capucines (8–9 mm), capotes (9–11 mm), fines (11–13 mm), and grusas (14+ mm). To prepare, fresh capers are picked and immediately preserved in brine or wine vinegar, or are packed in salt (these should be rinsed before use to remove any excess salt). Their tangy, bitter flavour adds piquancy to many sauces and condiments, such as tartare sauce, and they're a good match for fish. They can be used as a garnish for meat and vegetable dishes and in tapenade. Indeed, the sensory qualities of capers can be described as spicy with a sour note (due to pickling) with a taste that is both pungent and astringent. Caper berries have a very similar flavour profile, but are much stronger in taste. It is this piquancy and the use of capers as a flavouring that allows them to be classified as a spice.

The name 'caper' itself derives from the classical Latin capparis (caper), itself a borrowing from the Greek kapparis [κάππαρις] (whose etymology is unknown but may refer to the island of Cyprus where capers grow abundantly).

Capers are crucial to a number of Mediterranean dishes (particularly Italian and Cypriot) and are used to intensify the flavours of sauces based on tomatoes or sauces intended to be used with fish. They also occur in certain North African dishes. Interestingly, the Spanish introduced capers to Central America and they are now employed in a number of Mexican dishes.

The fragrance is spicy and a little bit sour (because of the pickling), the taste is slightly astringent and pungent. Caper berries have a stronger, more dominant but otherwise similar flavour. Capers contain iso­thiocyanates and thus resemble several spices of the cabbage family (cress, black and white mustard, wasabi and horse­radish). Among the fla­vonoids, rutin (named after its occurrence in rue) is the most important. The white spots often seen covering the surface of pickled capers are said to by rutin which crys­tal­lized dur­ing the pick­ling pro­ce­dure.