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Dessert

Rhubarb Pie

A pie made with sliced rhubarb, sugar, salt, flour, and crust, baked until done.

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 flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 670 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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 the rhubarb

  1. Select red rhubarb stalks that have grown in the sun.

  2. Cut the stalks where the leaves begin.

  3. Strip off the outer skin of the rhubarb.

  4. Cut the rhubarb into pieces about ½ inch long.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pie dish with the pie crust.

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

  3. Sprinkle the rhubarb with sugar, coarse sea salt, and a little flour.

  4. Cover the pie with another crust.

  5. Make a slit in the center of the crust.

  6. Trim the edges of the crust.

  7. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until done.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. 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

Red rhubarb stalks
Provide the tart filling that forms the body of the pie.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart rhubarb and helps draw out its juices.
Flour
Thickens the juices released by the rhubarb as the pie bakes.
Pie crust
Forms the structure that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Make a slit in the center of the crust. The slit lets steam escape while the pie bakes. Without it, pressure can build under the top crust and cause it to crack or bubble unevenly, and the juices may not thicken properly.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Rhubarbthe original
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour. 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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