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Dessert

Rhubarb Conserve

A sweet preserve made from rhubarb, sugar, lemon juice, rind, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 117 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Rhubarb Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the rhubarb and place it in a pot.

  2. Add sugar and lemon juice, then cook for 30 minutes.

  3. Stir in the grated lemon rind and chopped almonds.

  4. Cook for an additional 30 minutes.

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. Rhubarb + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Rhubarb + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together546 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 bulk and tart flavour that the preserve is built around.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and draws out its liquid, helping the preserve thicken as it cooks.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps the preserve set.
Lemon rind
Adds aromatic oils that give a fresh citrus fragrance.
Almonds
Add fat and a contrasting crunchy texture to the soft fruit.

The step that matters

Cooking the sugar and fruit together for the second 30 minutes. Sugar pulls water out of the rhubarb and concentrates it, so the mixture thickens as it reduces. Stirring keeps the bottom from scorching, and the almonds added partway through should be stirred in evenly so they distribute through the preserve.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, sugar, almond. 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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