All about the mysterious capers: what are they, what are they eaten with and where do they come from? Recipe: Pickled capers - an overseas miracle.

How much does pickled capers cost (average price per 1 kg)?

Moscow and Moscow region.

The fruits of a plant such as capers have long become an important part of modern culinary tradition. Pickled capers are included in a fairly large number of dishes. Original taste pickled capers gives the finished culinary product an interesting taste and aroma spicy notes. Capers or Capparis is a genus of plant that is classified in the Caperaceae family.

According to their biological structure, capers are a shrub that spreads along the surface of the ground. Currently, researchers know about three hundred various types capers, which form the family of the same name. Capers choose to grow in areas located in the tropical and subtropical climates of the planet.

The African continent is considered the birthplace of capers, as well as Southern Europe, where the fruits of the plant became an integral part of the culinary tradition back in Antiquity. The ancient Greeks traded capers and thus spread capers throughout the territories of all states of that time. Greek capers were considered exquisite ingredient, which was used for making soups and salads.

Not many people know that pickled capers are made from the buds of unopened inflorescences of the plant. It is worth noting that, as a rule, capers canned with vinegar and salt or pickled are used in cooking. It is worth noting that the composition of pickled capers contains enough a large number of salt.

For this reason, pickled capers are soaked in water for some time before use to remove extra salt from the product composition. It is simply impossible to describe the taste of pickled capers in a few words. However, if we talk about taste range, then the following epithets can be applied to pickled capers: mustard, spicy, sour-tart or piquant.

Thanks to the unique chemical composition that pickled capers inherit from nature, the product is capable of beneficially changing the taste of the finished product. culinary product. IN chemical composition Pickled capers contain a fairly large amount of mustard oil, which determines the taste and aroma of the product. It is noteworthy that pickled capers are often replaced with similar-tasting fruits of a plant such as nasturtium.

It is worth noting that not only canned or pickled capers are used in cooking. Fresh capers, which are enriched with protein, are also eaten. plant origin. Fresh as well as pickled capers are considered characteristic feature Mediterranean culinary tradition. Along with olive oil and seafood, pickled capers are included in the vast majority of gastronomic delights Mediterranean.

Mediterranean cuisine experts include capers in the so-called pantheon classic scents region and its culinary tradition. It is interesting that capers are used not only as a food product, but also medicine, which helps in the fight against rheumatism and also helps reduce the manifestations of flatulence.

Calorie content of pickled capers 23 kcal

Energy value of pickled capers (Ratio of proteins, fats, carbohydrates - bju).

Capers are small, unopened buds of shrubs in the caper family. In their raw form, they are completely unsuitable for consumption. At the same time, the taste of processed capers amazes with the versatility of their shades. As a rule, such sprouts are pickled or salted. After cooking, they become sharp, piquant, slightly tart with a mustard note. The benefits and harms of capers are difficult to fully assess. They are dietary low-calorie product(only 14 kcal per 100g), so they are unlikely to ruin your figure. It is also believed that caper buds promote the healing of all kinds of wounds and cuts. But it is worth noting that the characteristic sharpness and piquancy can harm people with gastrointestinal problems.

Like any other spice, capers can be ideally combined with certain foods. Experienced cooks They easily experiment, inventing new combinations of tastes, and for beginners it is better to stick to proven combinations: with meat, salted or fresh fish, seafood. Capers are an excellent aphrodisiac. Compatible product: anchovies, tomatoes, Bell pepper. A common variety of capers is Acorsa. It is difficult to find analogues of capers. If you are unable to buy fresh fruits, you can find them in pickled form (Auchan, Azbuka Vkusa, supermarket in any city in the Russian Federation and the CIS: Moscow, Minsk, Almaty, etc.). Be sure to check the expiration date. Possible allergy to the product. Agricultural technology: the plant is quite difficult to grow because it grows very slowly and can be kept for a long time in a pot.

How to pickle capers - step-by-step recipe

Caperberry buds can become an excellent alternative hot spicy spices (mustard, hot pepper etc.) in any dish. But for this, the capers need to be pickled. The process of preparing such a plant is quite primitive and no more complicated than pickling cucumbers, tomatoes or garlic. Simple Ingredients will help bring the product to taste, and imagination will help to use it in a good composition.

Required ingredients:

  • fresh capers - 500 gr.
  • apple cider vinegar - 300 ml.
  • large garlic - 3 cloves
  • onion - 1 pc.
  • lemon - 0.5 pcs.
  • dried cloves - 5 pcs.
  • allspice - 3 pcs.
  • bay leaf - 2 pcs.
  • salt - 1 tsp.

Step-by-step instruction

  1. Rinse the capers under running water, separate and discard the spoiled buds. Throw quality specimens into a colander to get rid of excess water.
  2. Chop garlic and onion small pieces. Wash the lemon and cut into slices along with the peel.
  3. Boil the marinade in a deep saucepan clean water, lemon wedges, garlic, onions and spices.
  4. Place clean capers in sterilized jars, filling them to the neck. Pour chilled buds until room temperature marinade. Cover with metal lids and leave homemade capers in a cool, dark place for 2-6 weeks.

Nasturtium capers - step-by-step recipe

Magnificent nasturtium is not only beautiful, but also edible! Nasturtium capers are an affordable analogue of a non-trivial spice, prepared from buds. In the past, this substitute was often called "the poor man's caper." With proper processing, such buds are difficult to distinguish by taste qualities from the original. As in previous recipe, they are marinated in a large number of seasonings for a relatively short period of time.

Required ingredients:

  • nasturtium seeds in buds - 100 gr.
  • white vinegar— 180 gr.
  • clean water - 1 glass
  • salt - 2 tbsp. l.
  • bay leaf - 2 pcs.
  • pink peppercorns - 5 pcs.
  • sugar - 2 tbsp. l.
  • fresh thyme - 1 branch

Step-by-step instruction


Pasta with cauliflower and capers - step-by-step recipe

Amazingly tasty and delicious pasta with capers and cauliflower - this is the optimal autumn alternative to the usual noodles and overseas pasta. Great combination soft dough, delicate cabbage, spicy capers and buttery sauce is a marvelous composition that will certainly appeal to all gourmets. Like other recipes for dishes with capers, this one may seem a little unusual. But we hasten to assure you that over time, such a dish will take pride of place among your family culinary traditions.

Required ingredients:

  • shell pasta - 500 gr.
  • garlic - 3 cloves
  • lemon - 1 pc.
  • cauliflower - 500 gr.
  • red onion - 1 pc.
  • parsley - 1 bunch
  • butter -2 tbsp.
  • capers - 3 tbsp.
  • hard cheese - 70 gr.
  • breadcrumbs - 70 gr.
  • chili - 1/8 tsp.

Step-by-step instruction


Canned capers Today you can buy it in large supermarkets. For many people, this product is still unknown because they simply don’t know anything about it.

Capers are the unopened buds of a shrub that have been culinary processing. One product contains a whole range of tastes: salty, spicy, sour, bitter and tart. In general, capers have a taste that is incomparable to anything else.

Cook correctly canned capers long and difficult, technologies have been preserved since ancient times. The buds are collected by hand, sorted and then sent for further processing. To make the capers firm and acquire their dark green color, they are placed in boiling water with salt for 3 months. The marinade is changed from time to time. After this, the capers are canned.


How to select and store?

When choosing canned capers, look at appearance bottles They should be solid and hold their shape well (see photo). The marinade should not be too cloudy.

Store capers in a jar and remove only before use. In this form they can remain fresh for 9 months.

The benefits of canned capers

The benefits of canned capers are due to the presence of various vitamins, as well as micro- and macroelements. The product has a positive effect on work of cardio-vascular system, and it also improves the wound healing process.

Canned capers are an excellent pain reliever. The spice contains capparidin, a substance that is a natural anti-allergen. Capers contain choline, which is involved in metabolic processes in the body and normalizes blood cholesterol levels . Contains spice and ascorbic acid, which promotes the absorption of other substances, improves brain function and strengthens the immune system. Contains canned capers and B vitamins, which are necessary for normal activity.. The product contains iron, which is important for the blood, so capers can be consumed by people with anemia. Capers contain large amounts of sodium, which is necessary to maintain water-salt balance.

Due to their fiber content, canned capers have the ability to cleanse the intestines of waste products. The product is widely used in recipes traditional medicine. A decoction of the buds is used as a wound healing agent.

Use in cooking

Canned capers are widely used in cooking; they are an excellent ingredient for variety of snacks, both cold and hot. They often replace the usual pickles for many, for example, in solyanka, salads, sauces, etc. Many people use canned capers in second course recipes; they perfectly complement the taste of fish and meat. There are a large number of sauces and dressings that contain capers. Canned capers are an important ingredient in original recipe popular salad"Olivie".

Whole buds are very rarely used entirely in cooking; most often they are crushed or ground with herbs or salt.

Harm of canned capers and contraindications

Canned capers can cause harm to people with individual intolerance to the product, and therefore, in the appropriate case, they are contraindicated. It is not recommended to use the product in large quantities, as it may cause flatulence and nausea.

Sometimes you see something exotic in a store and you think, WHAT IS IT FOR? This is how it always happened to me with capers... I always passed by in stores until I found myself in the very place where these capers grow... And capers grow in the Mediterranean countries (Italy, Spain, Greece, Cyprus)

Let me make a reservation right away: this product is not cheap in Europe either. Now I even know why.
So, let's start with what capers are and what they eat with. A caper is an unopened bud of a flower from a Cretan bush that grows near the sea coast. Capers are harvested early in the morning, before sunrise in the first days of May. This work is hard, because it’s manual, and there are a lot of thorns on this bush!


So, on the advice of local Cretans, we went early and collected capers: For starters, -500 grams turned out + scratched hands.

At home, I washed and sorted all the capers, this is very important, because the capers are pickled in a saline solution and it is necessary that their saltiness be the same.


Preparing the brine is absolutely simple: boil 200 ml of water, let it cool to room temperature and then gradually pour salt into the water and mix well so that the salt dissolves, while periodically immersing a raw egg in the solution. There is such a concept: saturated brine to floating on the surface raw egg. This is exactly the result we need.


Then simply pour the resulting solution over the capers, close the lid tightly and leave the capers in a dark, cool place for 2 (!!!) months. After this, you can safely and happily use them in cooking. various dishes.


This is what capers look like after a year, because I completely forgot about them and recently found them in the pantry. The taste hasn't changed.


And these are capers from a large jar, which I opened two months later, washed them of sediment, packaged them in small jars, and filled them olive oil, decorated it beautifully and gave it to friends.


Capers taste like our little gherkins. Sour and salty with a small amount of bitterness.
In Europe they are very often used in cooking potato salad, fish and when stewing meat, add to the gravy. As paradoxical as it may sound from the lips of a person who lives in Crete and is surrounded by olive groves, I prefer to put capers in hodgepodge instead of olives.

Cooking time: PT00H10M 10 min.

Capers are the unopened buds of the thorny shrub Capparis spinosa. They are inedible raw; they are marinated in vinegar and salt. How are they useful and how to use them correctly?

Capparis spinosa is a perennial plant with creeping stems. It grows on rocky mountain slopes in Mediterranean countries. Now it is cultivated in Western Europe, Spain, Italy, the Balkan Peninsula, America, and Africa.

Pickled or salted flower buds with a diameter of no more than 1 cm are known as “capers”; they are an exquisite spice with a pungent spicy taste and aroma. When pickled, they acquire a spicy mustard taste and aroma.

Useful properties of capers

In ancient times, caperberry was known for its medicinal properties. Absolutely all parts of this shrub have powerful analgesic properties, as well as antiseptic and astringent effect. So useful plant It doesn’t grow here, but pickled capers are available in stores, and they also have a rich chemical composition.

The beneficial properties of capers are explained by their unique composition, which has not yet been fully studied. Calcium and iron, manganese and magnesium, plus vitamins A and C, riboflavin (P) and niacin (PP) are all essential constituents of the plant.

Capers contain many valuable substances, but the main one is quercetin, which helps to instantly relieve inflammatory processes, quickly neutralizing allergic reactions. Quercetin is also found in fresh apples and, however, there is several times less of it: in an apple - 35 times, and in raspberries - 13 times, therefore this shrub is called the absolute leader in this area.

How to cook and use capers?

Fresh, just picked buds are no different pleasant taste, leaving a specific bitterness on the tongue. That is why in culinary traditions different countries around the world, capers are used in salted or pickled forms, thanks to which the final dish becomes very piquant spicy taste, with hints of tartness, pungency and sourness. And at the same time it is well preserved for a long time.

To make capers tasty, they are first picked by hand and sorted by size. The collected buds are dried in the shade so that they do not dry out too much, and they are covered with salt and vegetable oil. After 3 months of aging, the capers are ready. It is these salty capers that will allow you to find out real taste Mediterranean cuisine.

Pickled capers

Pickled caper buds are one of the most important seasonings French cuisine: literally a few of these buds, chopped and mixed into the sauce, make it spicier and more impressive. And the fruits of capers, which are pickled in the same way as cucumbers, are a very tasty and beautiful side dish for fish and meat.

Pickled capers last longer and are more convenient to sell in jars. If their taste seems too strong and unusual, then you can rinse them, put them in a clean container and pour warmed olive oil with herbs - rosemary, basil, thyme.

Capers occupy a special place in traditional cuisine Italy and Morocco, Greece and Turkey. Most often they are served as spices for various smoked foods. Often salted buds or fruit marinade are added to fish dishes and pizzas are created with the help of them delicious salads and solyanka. They are often combined with olives.

Recipes for dishes with capers

Salad Italiano

  • A small bunch of arugula,
  • can of tuna,
  • capers,
  • 100 g parmesan,
  • salt,
  • pepper,
  • balsamic vinegar

Finely chop the onion, grate parmesan coarse grater. Mix all ingredients. Capers, salt and pepper are added to taste. Drizzle the salad a little balsamic vinegar and add 1-2 tbsp. spoons of butter.

Mediterranean salad

  • 250 g cheese,
  • 500 g tomatoes,
  • half a pod of hot pepper,
  • 2 tbsp. l.