Why it works: Rhubarb and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 670 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Pie Plant Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, combine the pie plant, water, and sugar, and mix well.
For the crust, mix flour, lard, and salt in a bowl.
Add water gradually until the dough forms.
Assemble and bake
Pour the mixture into a pie crust and dot with butter.
Roll out the dough and place it over the filling.
Cut slits in the top crust for steam to escape.
Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the crust is golden.
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 + flourtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together670 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,852 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 tart flavor and the bulk of the filling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the tart rhubarb and helps soften its fibres as it cooks.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the dough so the crust holds together when rolled.
- Lard
- Adds fat that keeps the crust tender and flaky by coating flour particles.
The step that matters
Cut slits in the top crust. Slits let steam escape during baking. Without them, trapped steam can build pressure, lift or split the crust, and make the filling bubble out unevenly.
Swap the rhubarb
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Jalapenofits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Rhubarbthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour. 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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