Name: Pie Plant Pie
Ingredients: pie pastry; 4 cups pie plant (rhubarb), cut into 1-inch lengths; 1 cup sugar; 2 teaspoons butter

Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Pie Plant Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather slow oven

Ingredients

pie pastry
4 cups pie plant (rhubarb), cut into 1-inch lengths
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons butter

Directions

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

Prepare

Line a pie tin with pastry.
Prepare the rhubarb by removing the skin and cutting it into 1-inch lengths.
Fill the pie tin with the rhubarb.
Add 1 cup of sugar to the pie.
Dot the filling with 2 teaspoons of butter.

Bake

Cover the pie and bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven.

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.

Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,852 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Rhubarb + buttertop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb: Forms the bulk of the filling and supplies the tart flavour that sugar balances.
Sugar: Sweetens the tart rhubarb and helps soften its fibres as the pie bakes.
Butter: Adds richness and fat to the filling, carrying flavour and smoothing the texture.
Pie pastry: Forms the crust that holds the filling and browns as the pie bakes.