Episode Details

Chicken Piccata puts the bird in its title, but the capers run the show. Pull out that hand-harvested flower bud, too precious to come in a normal-sized jar, and two professional chefs will tell you the dish stops being itself. So how did an ingredient you can barely fish out with a spoon, one that people swear once cost more than gold, become the thing a weeknight classic lives or dies on?

This week we get into what a caper actually is and why it comes in six market sizes almost no one has heard of, the word everyone uses for this dish and no one can define, and how these little buds landed in a recipe that started without them. We settle the non-negotiables (the brine beats the bird, apparently), make the case for vermouth over wine, and land on lemon three ways that keeps it all light and bright.

The caper even makes it into the glass. This week's two drinks both take a hit of caper brine: the Piccatini, an Italian gin martini with dry sherry and a touch of Bianco vermouth, and the Dirty Limoncello Spritz, homemade limoncello lengthened with Prosecco and sparkling mineral water.

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Thanks to all of this week's partners:

G4: https://pkgdgroup.com/g4-tequila/

Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/

Wines 'Til Sold Out: https://www.wtso.com/

Buy this episode's wine: https://www.wtso.com/shared/product/ID92321/

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