Name: Rhubarb Tarts
Ingredients: 1 pound rhubarb, peeled and sliced; Sugar, to taste; Pie crust

Why it works: Rhubarb and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,852 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Rhubarb Tarts

Ingredients

1 pound rhubarb, peeled and sliced
Sugar, to taste
Pie crust

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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, combine the sliced rhubarb and sugar, adjusting the sweetness to your preference.
Line a tart pan with pie crust.

Bake

Pour the rhubarb mixture into the crust.
Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the rhubarb is tender and 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.

Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb: Provides the tart filling and its sour flavour, becoming tender as it bakes.
Sugar: Sweetens the tart and balances the sourness of the rhubarb.
Pie crust: Forms the base that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

“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.