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A Seine to Preserve Butter

A method for preserving butter by brining it in a salt, sugar, and potassium nitrate solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

A Seine to Preserve Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the butter

  1. Work the butter into small rolls and wrap each in a clean muslin cloth, tying them with string.

Make the brine

  1. Make a brine with 3 gallons of water and enough coarse sea salt to float an egg.

  2. Add ½ cup of sugar and 1 tablespoon of saltpetre to the brine.

  3. Boil the brine, then let it cool and strain it carefully.

Preserve

  1. Pour the brine over the rolls to cover them completely, excluding air.

  2. Place a weight on top to keep the rolls submerged.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Is the fat being preserved; the brine and saltpetre protect it from spoiling.
Saltpetre
Acts as a curing agent that inhibits spoilage bacteria and helps preserve color.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the brine and draws water out of the butter while preserving it.
Pure white sugar
Balances the salt's sharpness and adds mild sweetness to the preserved butter.

The step that matters

Cover the rolls completely with brine. Any butter left above the brine can be exposed to air and microbes, which encourages spoilage and off flavours. Keeping every roll fully submerged and weighted protects the butter throughout storage.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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