Name: Apple and Pie-plant Pie
Ingredients: equal quantities of tart apples and pie-plant (garden rhubarb); sugar; pastry

Why it works: Apple and rhubarb work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 162 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple and Pie-plant Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

equal quantities of tart apples and pie-plant (garden rhubarb)
sugar
pastry

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Peel and slice the apples and pie-plant.
Heap the fruit in a deep pie dish.
Cover the fruit thickly with sugar and wet the edges of the dish.

Assemble and bake

Roll the pastry to about ¼ inch thick and cover the pie with it.
Do not press the edges of the pastry.
Cut two or three small slits in the pastry.
Bake the pie for 45 minutes or until the fruit is done.

Finish and serve

Sift powdered sugar over the pie and serve hot or cold.

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.

Apple + rhubarbtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together162 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Tart apples: Provide the main body and structure of the filling, softening as they bake.
Pie-plant (garden rhubarb): Adds tart acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Sugar: Sweetens the fruit and draws out juice that forms the filling.
Pastry: Encloses the fruit and bakes into a crisp, golden crust.