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Brine That Preserves Butter a Year

A brine for preserving butter for a year.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Brine That Preserves Butter a Year

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brine

  1. Combine water, sugar, and saltpetre in a pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Remove from heat and let the brine cool.

  4. Strain the cooled brine carefully.

Pack the butter

  1. Shape butter into small rolls.

  2. Wrap each roll in clean muslin cloth.

  3. Tie the cloth with string.

  4. Pack butter tightly into small jars, ensuring the brine covers the butter by at least 4 inches.

  5. Place a weight over the butter to keep it submerged in the brine.

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. 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

Saltpetre
Acts as a curing agent that inhibits spoilage-causing microbes in the brine.
Good loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the salty brine.
Butter (in the method)
The fat being preserved; it is held fully submerged in the brine.

The step that matters

Keep the butter fully submerged in the brine. Butter exposed to air can oxidise and spoil, and mould can grow on any surface not covered by brine. Packing firmly, covering by at least 4 inches and weighting the rolls keeps every part under the brine.

“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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