Skip to main content
Dessert

Rhubarb and Ginger

A preserved jam made from rhubarb, crystallized ginger, and sugar, boiled and stored in a pot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rhubarb and ginger work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 241 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Rhubarb and Ginger

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and cut the rhubarb into pieces.

  2. Layer the rhubarb and sugar in an earthenware crock and let it sit for 36 hours.

Cook and pot

  1. Pour off the juice into a preserving pan and add the ginger.

  2. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes.

  3. Add the rhubarb and boil for an additional 15 minutes.

  4. Pot the mixture, cover, and label.

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 + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

  3. Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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, fibrous body that the preserve sets around.
Sugar
Draws out juice and, with boiling, thickens and preserves the fruit.
Crystallized ginger
Adds warm, spicy aroma and a chewy sweetness to the preserve.

The step that matters

Boiling the mixture. Boiling concentrates the sugar and pectin in the juice so the preserve thickens and keeps. Undercooking can leave it runny and prone to spoiling, while overcooking can make it stiff or caramelised.

Swap the rhubarb

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesRhubarb PieRhubarb Pie152 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipes