INGREDIENT NOTES

Tasting Capers

Capers are one of our favorite stealth ingredients. Even in small amounts, these salty, lightly acidic buds pack a punch that makes the butter and lemon sing in chicken piccata and highlights the sweet garlic flavor in pasta puttanesca.

Capers are sold in a variety of styles and sizes. For everyday cooking, we prefer the convenience of brined capers (as opposed to those sold packed in salt) and like to use the smaller size known as nonpareil. To find out which brined nonpareil caper is best, we gathered six products (priced from $0.75 to $1.46 per ounce) and sampled them plain and cooked in chicken piccata.

The products in our lineup kept things simple: All contained just capers, salt, and water plus a preservative in the form of vinegar, citric acid, or acetic acid. We can recommend every product we tasted, although we liked some more than others. One product was slightly musty, and another tasted