Name: Stewed Rhubarb
Ingredients: 2 cups rhubarb, cut into 1-inch pieces; 1 cup sugar; water

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 ↓

Stewed Rhubarb

Ingredients

2 cups rhubarb, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup sugar
water

Directions

Prepare

Wash and peel the rhubarb if tough.
Cut the rhubarb into 1-inch pieces.

Stew

In a granite saucepan, combine the rhubarb, sugar, and enough water to cover the bottom of the dish.
Cook until the rhubarb is tender.

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.

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 main body and tart flavor, and softens into a tender stew when cooked.
Sugar: Sweetens the tart rhubarb and helps draw out juices as it cooks.

“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.