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Dessert

Lemon and Rhubarb Jam

A jam made from rhubarb, sugar, lemon rind, and bitter almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Lemon and Rhubarb Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wipe the rhubarb dry.

  2. Cut the rhubarb into small pieces and weigh it.

  3. For each pound and a quarter of rhubarb, combine 1 pound of sugar, the chopped lemon rind, and ½ ounce of bitter almonds.

Cook

  1. Boil the mixture gently, stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves.

  2. Once dissolved, allow the jam to boil more quickly, stirring occasionally.

  3. Boil for 1 hour for young rhubarb or 1.5 hours for old rhubarb.

Jar and store

  1. Pour the jam into jars and cover with oiled and egged or gummed papers.

  2. Store in a cool, dry place.

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 main fruit body and tartness that the sugar balances.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, as it dissolves and concentrates, helps it set.

The step that matters

Boil for the stated time after the sugar dissolves. Sugar must fully dissolve before a faster boil, so it does not crystallise. Boiling long enough concentrates the sugar and pectin in the fruit so the jam sets. Too short a boil leaves it runny; too long can darken and over-thicken it.

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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