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Rhubarb Marmalade

A sweet preserve made from rhubarb, lemons, walnuts, sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Rhubarb Marmalade

Why it works: Lemon and rhubarb match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 546 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Rhubarb Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the rhubarb and lemons into 1‑inch pieces.

  2. Put the rhubarb and lemons in a kettle with 1 pint of water.

Cook

  1. Boil until soft and thick.

  2. Add the sugar and stir well.

  3. Add the walnuts when nearly done.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lemon + rhubarbtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together546 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Walnut + rhubarbtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together73 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Rhubarb
Provides the main body and tart flavour, softening into the marmalade as it boils.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it thicken and set as it cooks down.
Lemons
Adds acidity and aroma, balancing the sweetness of the sugar.
Walnuts
Adds crunch and nutty texture against the soft fruit.

The step that matters

Add the walnuts when nearly done. Walnuts added too early become soft and lose their crunch during the long boil. Adding them near the end keeps some texture while the fruit sets.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, rhubarb, sugar):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, rhubarb, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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