Name: Baked Rhubarb
Ingredients: 1 pound rhubarb; light brown sugar; 1 tablespoon Canton preserved ginger (cut into ½ inch dice); ½ cup boiling water

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 ↓

Baked Rhubarb

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

1 pound rhubarb
light brown sugar
1 tablespoon Canton preserved ginger (cut into ½ inch dice)
½ cup boiling water

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Wash rhubarb and remove fibrous skin.
Cut rhubarb into 1 inch lengths.

Bake and serve

Arrange rhubarb in a baking dish, sprinkling a little light brown sugar and preserved ginger over each layer.
After the last layer, pour boiling water over the rhubarb.
Cover closely and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 15 to 20 minutes, or until tender.
Serve hot with cream.

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.

Rhubarb + gingertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together241 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14,054 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

Sugar and ginger 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: Forms the main body of the dish and softens into a tender, tart fruit when baked.
Light brown sugar: Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp tartness of the rhubarb.
Canton preserved ginger: Adds spicy, aromatic flavour that complements the rhubarb.