The CookingBites recipe challenge: capers/caper berries

Morning Glory

Morning Glory

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Welcome to the CookingBites recipe challenge. The current challenge ingredient is capers /caper berries and Herbaceous is our judge. To enter, all you need to do is post a recipe* which uses capers, caper berries, caper brine or even caper leaves, tag it cookingbites recipe challenge and post a link to it in this thread. The winner becomes the judge for the next challenge. You may post up to 6 entries. Deadline: midnight (close of day) Wednesday, 21st June, UK time (GMT). Detailed challenge rules can be found here.

* recipes must be posted within the time frame of the challenge but could be recipes you have made in the past, so long as they haven't already been posted on the forum as a recipe thread.
 
A good choice Herbaceous. Personally I love capers and caper berries which taste similar - although I think the berries are milder.

A bit of research to inspire entries perhaps:

The trusty Flavour Thesaurus lists 17 flavour pairings for capers of which over half are vegetarian. They are great in fish dishes and with lamb. They work well in all kinds of hot sauces as well as in salsas, pasta dishes (like the famous Puttanesca), salads, pizza toppings, flavoured butter and of course cocktails! Caper brine is also great ingredient. Capers can also be an ingredient in dips (such as hummus - I mean ground or chopped, not as a topping) and cold sauces such as remoulade sauce. I even found a Tuscan recipe for capers in ice-cream. I learned that caper leaves are also edible and can be found brined.
 
I’m reminded of those old Hardy Boy/Nancy Drew books, with names like “The Sailboat Caper.” - I was thinking in terms of “The Cocktail Caper,” but I suppose I’ll need to retitle that as “The Caper Cocktail.”
 
Here’s my jar:

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I’m not even sure I can get caper berries or leaves, but I’ll do some investigating - “The Great Caper…Caper!” 🕵️‍♂️
 
JAS_OH1 said:
World Market used to have caper berries but not sure if they still do. What about jungle Jim’s?

I love capers!
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They probably do, but it’ll be a chore actually finding them. The way they choose to stock some things is baffling.
 
TastyReuben said:
They probably do, but it’ll be a chore actually finding them. The way they choose to stock some things is baffling.
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Whole Foods has them, do you have a store in your area?

Also you can order them online from Walmart.com or amazon.com

Edited to add that I did a search on Jungle Jim's website and the Eastgate location has them. If it's something hard to find, give them a call before you go?
 
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JAS_OH1 said:
Whole Foods has them, do you have a store in your area?
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Yes, several, thanks!


JAS_OH1 said:
Also you can order them online from Walmart.com or amazon.com
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Ordering ingredients like that is beyond last resort for me. I don’t like ordering anything, TBH, but there’s something about ordering ingredients (or food in general) that I just can’t get my head around.

I don’t know why that is, but it just seems way, way off to me.
 
TastyReuben said:
Yes, several, thanks!



Ordering ingredients like that is beyond last resort for me. I don’t like ordering anything, TBH, but there’s something about ordering ingredients (or food in general) that I just can’t get my head around.

I don’t know why that is, but it just seems way, way off to me.
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I understand if it's fresh meat or produce, but this stuff is in a JAR. You can't tell anything from looking at it in the jar, and if it has a quality issue, you can return it for a refund (at least with Walmart). I would imagine Amazon has some sort of way to do that.

At any rate, if they have it in Jungle Jim's, you do know how to use the telephone to call them before you go to have them set it aside, right? Just teasing you of course.
 
TastyReuben said:
Here’s my jar:

View attachment 100380

I’m not even sure I can get caper berries or leaves, but I’ll do some investigating - “The Great Caper…Caper!” 🕵️‍♂️
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My problem with these jars of capers? They're too narrow to fit anything but a knife blade, so it's hard to extract them. As a result, I try to lean the jar and scrape out a few, and inevitably end up dumping half of them on my bagel and lox. Fortunately, I love capers, so this isn't too much of a problem.
 
The Late Night Gourmet said:
My problem with these jars of capers? They're too narrow to fit anything but a knife blade, so it's hard to extract them. As a result, I try to lean the jar and scrape out a few, and inevitably end up dumping half of them on my bagel and lox. Fortunately, I love capers, so this isn't too much of a problem.
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Yeah, you have to buy the wide, larger jars to use a regular spoon. I have some seafood forks that I use to get them out of the narrow jars.
 
The Late Night Gourmet said:
My problem with these jars of capers? They're too narrow to fit anything but a knife blade, so it's hard to extract them. As a result, I try to lean the jar and scrape out a few, and inevitably end up dumping half of them on my bagel and lox. Fortunately, I love capers, so this isn't too much of a problem.
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I've found that my coffee sugar spoons target than the tea spoons for into them nicely. Plus if you only need 1 or 2, use a knife to balance a caper on... practice makes perfect.

Though honestly, I'm still at a major loss as to what I can do with them that's vegan.
 
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