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Dessert

Pie-plant Jelly

A jelly made from rhubarb, lemon juice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 546 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Pie-plant Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Scald the pie plant in a little water until tender.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Add the juice of one lemon for every quart of pie plant juice.

Make the jelly

  1. Boil for 40 minutes, skimming often.

  2. Add an equal measure of sugar and boil for 5 more minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour into jelly dishes.

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 + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together546 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Pie plant (rhubarb)
Provides the main body and the tart flavour of the jelly.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the flavour and helps the juice set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, once boiled, helps the juice thicken into a firm set.

The step that matters

Boiling after adding the sugar. Sugar and acid together allow the fruit's natural pectin to form a gel as the juice thickens. Boiling too briefly leaves the jelly runny, while boiling too long can make it stiff and dull in flavour.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, 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.

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