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A Brine to Preserve Butter

A brine made of salt, sugar, saltpetre, and water 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: 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 ↓

A Brine to Preserve Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the butter

  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 by dissolving enough coarse sea salt in 3 gallons of water to float an egg.

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

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

Cure the butter

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 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 rolls that are cured and gives the finished butter its flavour.
Saltpetre
Acts as a curing agent that helps preserve the butter and keeps its colour stable.
Pure white sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the salt in the brine.

The step that matters

Excluding air when pouring the brine. The butter must stay fully submerged and free of air contact, because exposed butter can oxidise and spoil. Covering the rolls completely and keeping a weight on them protects the butter during curing.

“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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