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Fresli Butter

A butter-based condiment made by mixing egg yolks, pepper, and salt, then hanging it near a fire and drizzling melted butter over it.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter 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 ↓

Fresli Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the egg yolks, pepper, and salt together well.

  2. Place the mixture in a clean cloth and tie it up.

Hang and finish

  1. Hang it near a fire for 30 minutes.

  2. Turn it out onto a dish.

  3. Pour melted butter over it.

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 + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Provide richness and body, helping the mixture hold together as it firms.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour over the finished surface.

The step that matters

Hang it near a fire for 30 minutes. Holding the tied cloth by the fire for the full 30 minutes gives the mixture time to firm and drain. Stopping early leaves it soft and harder to turn out onto the dish.

“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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