Name: Rhubarb Jelly
Ingredients: 4 pounds rhubarb, cut into 1-inch pieces; 1 pint water; 4 pounds sugar

Why it works: Rhubarb and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,852 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Rhubarb Jelly

Ingredients

4 pounds rhubarb, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 pint water
4 pounds sugar

Directions

Prepare the juice

Wash and dry the rhubarb stalks.
Combine rhubarb and water in a preserving pan.
Boil until soft and pulpy.
Strain the mixture through a well-scalded jelly bag.

Finish the jelly

For every pint of juice, add 1 pound of sugar.
Follow the same directions as for Apple Jelly.

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.

Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb: Provides the tart flavour and the pectin-bearing pulp that gives the jelly its body.
Sugar: Sweetens the jelly and helps it set by binding water and pectin into a firm gel.

“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.