Name: To Preserve Butter for Winter, the Best Avaa
Ingredients: 16 ounces of butter; 1 ounce of a mixture of 2 parts coarse sea salt, 1 part good loaf sugar, and 1 part saltpetre

Why it works: Butter and sugar 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 ↓

To Preserve Butter for Winter, the Best Avaa

Ingredients

16 ounces of butter
1 ounce of a mixture of 2 parts coarse sea salt, 1 part good loaf sugar, and 1 part saltpetre

Directions

Prepare the cure

Blend the salt, sugar, and saltpetre together well.
Mix 1 ounce of this mixture into 16 ounces of butter until well combined.

Pot and store

Press the mixture into pans after the butter has cooled.
Cover the top with some salt; if it turns to brine and does not cover the butter, add strong salt and water.
Cover the pans to protect from dust.

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.

Butter + sugartop 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 base that is seasoned and packed for keeping through winter.
Coarse sea salt: Draws out moisture and seasons the butter, slowing spoilage.
Loaf sugar: Adds mild sweetness and balances the salt's sharpness.
Saltpetre: Helps preserve colour and inhibits bacterial growth in the cured butter.

The step that matters

Covering the top with salt and keeping the butter under brine. The salt layer must turn to brine that fully covers the butter. Any butter left exposed to air can spoil, since the brine barrier is what keeps it preserved.

“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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To Preserve Butter for Winter, the Best Avaa