Why it works: Rhubarb and pistachio share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Rhubarb Dessert
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the rhubarb
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Place the rhubarb in a shallow baking dish.
Sprinkle 1 cup of sugar over the rhubarb.
Add the thin yellow rind of the lemon cut into strips.
Bake until the rhubarb is tender.
Remove from the oven.
Make the jelly
Add 1 tablespoon of gelatin dissolved in a little water.
Make 1 quart of plain jelly.
Sweeten the jelly with the remaining sugar.
Take 1 cup of the jelly.
Flavor it with pistachio.
Coat a fancy mold with the flavored jelly until the coating is ½ inch thick.
Beat the remaining jelly until white.
Whip the cream and the egg white until stiff.
Combine the whipped cream and egg white with the whipped jelly.
Fill the prepared mold two-thirds full with this mixture.
Fill the remaining space with the rhubarb mixture.
Set and serve
Set on ice to harden.
Serve with a thin boiled custard.
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.
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Rhubarb + pistachiotop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together12 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Lemon + pistachiotop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together431 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
-
Rhubarb + lemontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together546 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Cream + pistachiotop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together634 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rhubarb
- Cooks down to a tender fruit that gives the dessert its main flavor and body.
- Gelatine
- Sets the jelly so the mold holds its shape when chilled.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the rhubarb and the jelly, balancing rhubarb's tartness.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped into the mixture.
- Egg white
- Whipped to foam, it lightens the mixture and adds volume.
- Lemon
- Its thin rind adds aromatic citrus oil and a bright note to the rhubarb.
The step that matters
Whip the cream and egg white until stiff. Whipped cream and egg white trap air in their proteins and fat, giving volume and lightness. Under-whipping leaves the mixture dense and watery, while over-whipping can make it grainy and collapse when folded in.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rhubarb, sugar, cream, pistachio, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
- Raspberryfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, sugar, cream, pistachio, egg. 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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