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Dessert

Pie Plant Pie

A pie made with rhubarb, sugar, butter, and a crust of flour, lard, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the pie plant, water, and sugar, and mix well.

Make the crust

  1. In another bowl, mix the flour, lard, and salt until crumbly.

  2. Add enough water to the flour mixture to form a dough.

  3. Roll out the dough and place it in a pie dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the pie plant mixture into the crust and dot with butter.

  2. Cover with another layer of crust, seal the edges, and cut slits for steam.

  3. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the crust is golden.

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 + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 flavour and the bulk of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart rhubarb and helps balance its acidity.
Flour
Forms the structure of the crust once mixed with water.
Lard
Shortens the dough, making the crust tender and flaky.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the filling as it melts.

The step that matters

Cutting slits for steam. Rhubarb releases liquid as it heats. Without vents for steam to escape, pressure can build and the filling can bubble out or make the bottom crust soggy.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. 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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