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Preserve

A Brine to Preserve Butter

A brine made of water, sea salt, sugar, and saltpetre used to preserve butter.

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 Brine to Preserve Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  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, adding enough coarse sea salt to float an egg.

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

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

Cure

  1. Pour the brine over the butter 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
Forms the fat being cured, giving the finished dish its rich flavour and body.
White sugar
Adds mild sweetness that balances the saltiness of the brine.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the brine and sets its strength, so an egg floats in it.

The step that matters

Pour the brine over the butter rolls to cover them completely, excluding air.. Any part of the butter left exposed to air can spoil or pick up off flavours. Keeping every roll fully submerged, with a weight holding it down, limits contact with air and keeps the cure even.

“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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