Why it works: Rhubarb and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,852 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Canned Rhubarb
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the syrup
Weigh the rhubarb.
Prepare the syrup by boiling ½ pint of water with 2 pounds of sugar until it boils and is skimmed.
Cook and jar
Add the rhubarb to the syrup and boil rapidly for 5 minutes.
Transfer the rhubarb into jars and seal them.
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.
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Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,852 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rhubarb
- The main fruit, which becomes tender and tart as it cooks in the syrup.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the rhubarb and, as a syrup, helps preserve its texture and flavour in jars.
The step that matters
Boil the rhubarb rapidly for 5 minutes. A short, rapid boil in syrup softens the rhubarb while keeping its pieces mostly intact. Boiling too long breaks down the cell walls and pectin, leaving the rhubarb mushy.
“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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