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Dessert

Green Rhubarb Jan

A preserve of green rhubarb cooked with sugar, lemon rind, 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 ↓

Green Rhubarb Jan

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. Place the rhubarb in a preserving pan with the broken sugar.

  3. Add the finely grated lemon rind and chopped 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; old rhubarb for 1½ 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 tart flavour and the pectin-rich pulp that gives the jam its body.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jam and, with boiling, helps it thicken and keep.
Lemon rind
Adds bright aromatic oil and extra acidity that balance the sweetness.
Bitter almonds
Contribute a distinctive nutty, bitter aroma to the jam.

The step that matters

Skimming and stirring while boiling. Sugar can scorch on the base of the pan, and foam rises to the surface as the jam boils. 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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