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Dessert

Rhubarb Pie

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Rhubarb Pie

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 Pie

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Line a pie dish with a thicker pie crust.

Fill and assemble

  1. Layer the rhubarb in the dish, nearly 1 inch deep.

  2. Sprinkle the sugar, salt, nutmeg, and flour over the rhubarb.

  3. Cover with another pie crust, cut a slit in the center, and trim the edges.

Bake

  1. Bake 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter 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

Rhubarb
Provides the tart flavor and the bulk of the filling that cooks down into the pie.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and draws out juices from the rhubarb as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the juices released by the rhubarb so the filling sets rather than running.
Pie crust
Forms the structure that holds the filling in the dish, top and bottom.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the filling, where it is listed as optional.

The step that matters

Sprinkle the sugar, salt, nutmeg, and flour over the rhubarb. Flour must be evenly distributed among the rhubarb pieces so it can thicken the juices released during baking. Clumps of flour leave pockets of raw starch and a runny or pasty filling.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Rhubarbthe original
  4. Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nutmeg, flour, butter. 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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