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Dessert

Rhubarb Pie

A fruit pie made with chopped rhubarb, egg, lemon extract, and salt, encased in a double crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Rhubarb Pie

Why it works: Rhubarb and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 546 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Rhubarb 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.

Prepare

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

Assemble and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped rhubarb, egg, lemon extract, and salt.

  2. Place the mixture in a pie crust and cover with another crust.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until the crust is golden brown.

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 + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together546 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Rhubarb + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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 flavour and moist filling that forms the body of the pie.
Egg
Binds the filling so it sets rather than running when baked.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven to form the structure of the pie.

The step that matters

Bake until the crust is golden brown. Browning depends on heat reaching the crust, so the pie should be judged by colour rather than time alone. Pulling it too early leaves the crust pale and the filling may not have set, while overbaking can dry it out.

Swap the rhubarb

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon. 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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