Name: Butter, to Remove the Taste of Turnips
Ingredients: 1 oz mixture of 5 parts loaf sugar, 8 parts saltpetre, 32 parts common salt; 16 oz butter; common salt (optional)

Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Butter, to Remove the Taste of Turnips

Ingredients

1 oz mixture of 5 parts loaf sugar, 8 parts saltpetre, 32 parts common salt
16 oz butter
common salt (optional)

Directions

Prepare

Ensure the butter is free from buttermilk.
Mix 1 oz of the sugar-saltpetre-salt mixture into every 16 oz of butter.

Pack and store

Pack the prepared butter into jars, pressing it down to exclude air.
For longer preservation, clarify the butter by melting it in hot water, letting it settle, and pouring off the clear butter.
Store clarified butter in a cool place.

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.

Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Forms the body of the preserve and carries the cure evenly through it.
Common salt: Draws out moisture and helps preserve the butter against spoilage.
Saltpetre: Acts as a curing agent that helps preserve the butter's colour and keep it stable.
Loaf sugar: Softens the sharpness of the salt and saltpetre, giving a milder flavour.

The step that matters

Ensure the butter is free from buttermilk. Residual buttermilk carries water and milk solids that can spoil the butter during storage. Removing it first keeps the preserve stable and reduces the risk of early spoilage.

“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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Butter, to Remove the Taste of Turnips