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Dessert

Strawberry Pie

A fruit pie with strawberries, rhubarb, sugar, flour, butter, cornstarch, water, egg white, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and flour 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 ↓

Strawberry 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.

Fill and bake

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour and 1 cup of sugar.

  3. Fill the pie crust with the strawberries and rhubarb.

  4. Sprinkle the dry mixture over the fruit and add bits of butter on top.

  5. Cover the pie and bake until bubbly.

Make the topping

  1. In a separate bowl, make a smooth paste with cornstarch and cold water.

  2. Pour the paste into boiling water and add the remaining sugar; boil well.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg white and a pinch of salt.

Finish and brown

  1. Spread the mixture on top of the pie and return to the oven to 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.

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 + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Strawberries
Provide the main fruit flavor and juicy filling that the thickeners must set.
Rhubarb
Adds tartness that balances the sweetness of the sugar and fruit.
Flour
Thickens the juices released by the fruit as the pie bakes.
Cornstarch
Thickens the topping into a glossy, sliceable set when it is boiled.
Egg white
Adds structure and light body to the topping and helps it brown in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and topping and helps give the fruit a jammy texture.

The step that matters

Boil the cornstarch paste well. Cornstarch only thickens fully once it reaches a boil. Stopping early leaves the topping thin and can leave a raw starchy taste.

Swap the rhubarb

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, 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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