Skip to main content
Dessert

Rhubarb Pix

A fruit pie made with rhubarb, sugar, salt, nutmeg, and pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rhubarb and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 177 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Rhubarb Pix

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rhubarb

  1. Cut the rhubarb stalks where the leaves begin and remove the outer skin.

  2. Cut the rhubarb into pieces half an inch long.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line a pie dish with a rolled pie crust, thicker than a dollar coin.

  2. Add a layer of rhubarb, nearly an inch deep.

  3. Sprinkle the sugar, salt, and grated nutmeg over the rhubarb.

  4. Cover with a rich pie crust and cut a slit in the center.

  5. Trim the edges with a sharp knife and bake at 400°F (200°C) until the pie loosens from the dish.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together177 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

  3. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

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

Sugar and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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 stalks
Provides the tart flavor and the bulk of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart rhubarb and helps draw out its juices.
Pie crust
Forms the structure that encloses the filling and bakes to a crisp, golden shell.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic spice that complements the rhubarb.

The step that matters

Cover with a rich pie crust and cut a slit in the center.. The slit lets steam escape while the pie bakes, so the filling doesn't build pressure and push the top crust apart or turn the filling watery.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, 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.

More rhubarb pie recipes

Strawberry 5 See all 198 →

You might also like

Rhubarb MarmaladeRhubarb Marmalade35 recipesRhubarb JellyRhubarb Jelly28 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes