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Rhubarb Jam [Green]

A jam made from green rhubarb, sugar, lemon zest, bitter almonds, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 117 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Rhubarb Jam [Green]

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wipe the rhubarb dry and cut it into 2‑inch pieces.

  2. In a preserving pan, combine the rhubarb, broken sugar, lemon zest, and divided almonds.

Cook

  1. Boil the mixture, stirring and skimming frequently.

  2. When nearly done, stir in the ginger.

  3. Cook young rhubarb for about 45 minutes, or old rhubarb for 1.5 hours.

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 + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Rhubarb + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Green rhubarb
Provides the main body and tart flavour of the jam.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jam and helps it thicken and set as it cooks.
Bitter almonds
Adds a distinctive bitter, nutty aroma to the jam.

The step that matters

Skimming and stirring while boiling. Rhubarb and sugar form foam and can scorch on the bottom of the pan. Frequent stirring prevents sticking and burning, and skimming removes foam so the jam looks clear and tastes clean.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, sugar, lemon, almond. 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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