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Rhubarb Meringue Pie

A pie filled with rhubarb and topped with a sweet meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and rhubarb match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 670 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rhubarb Meringue Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

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 filling

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

  2. In a bowl, mix together sugar, flour, and salt. Add the beaten egg yolks and chopped rhubarb, and stir well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

Bake and top with meringue

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until set.

  2. In another bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, then gradually add 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pie and brown slightly in the oven.

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.

  1. Flour + rhubarbtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + rhubarbtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 tart flavor and bulk that the filling is built around.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set, giving it a custard-like body.
Flour
Helps thicken the rhubarb juices so the filling holds its shape when sliced.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks to form the airy meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart rhubarb and helps stabilize the whipped egg white meringue.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be fully whipped and sugar added gradually so the meringue holds its volume and does not weep or collapse during baking. Any trace of fat or yolk in the bowl can stop them from whipping properly.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, 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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