Caper buds. Capers are a distinctive ingredient in Italian cuisine, especially in Sicilian, Aeolian and southern Italian cooking. They are commonly used in salads, pasta salads, meat dishes, and pasta sauces. Examples of uses in Italian cuisine are chicken piccata and "spaghetti alla puttanesca". Capers are known for being one of the ingredients of tartar sauce. They are often served with cold smoked salmon or cured salmon dishes (especially lox and cream cheese). Capers and caper berries are sometimes substituted for olives to garnish a martini. Capers are categorized and sold by their size, defined as follows, with the smallest sizes
Etlingera elatior (Andaliman/Szechuan pepper-spiced carp). In Bali, people use the white part of the bottom part of the trunk for cooking chilli sauce called "Sambal Bongkot", and use the flower buds to make chilli sauce called "Sambal Kecicang". In Thailand, it is eaten in a kind of Thai salad preparation. In Karo, it is known as "asam cekala" ("asam" meaning 'sour'), and the flower buds, but more importantly the ripe seed pods, which are packed with small black seeds, are an essential ingredient of the Karo version of "sayur asam", and are particularly suited to cooking fresh fish. From the leaves of