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Dessert

Rhubarb Pie

A pie filled with rhubarb, sugar, water, nutmeg, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Rhubarb Pie

Why it works: Nutmeg and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,230 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Rhubarb Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the rhubarb, sugar, water, and nutmeg.

  3. Pour the mixture into one pie crust.

  4. Dot the top with bits of butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover with the second pie crust and seal the edges.

  2. Cut slits in the top crust to allow steam to escape.

  3. Bake for about 45 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.

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. Nutmeg + walnuttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Rhubarb + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together177 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Rhubarb + walnuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together73 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb
Provides the tart flavor and the body of the filling once cooked.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sourness of the rhubarb.
Water
Adds moisture so the sugar dissolves and the rhubarb softens as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the filling as it melts over the top.
Pie crusts
Form the structure that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Cut slits in the top crust. Slits let steam escape while the filling cooks. Without them, trapped steam can build pressure, lift or split the crust, and make the filling bubble out.

Swap the rhubarb

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, nutmeg, butter, walnut):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nutmeg, butter, walnut. 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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