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Dessert

Rhubarb Tart

A tart made with a short pastry crust and a rhubarb filling, topped with egg white and sugar.

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

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).

  2. Line a tart pan with short paste.

Fill and bake

  1. Mix the rhubarb pieces with grated lemon and sugar.

  2. Fill the tart with the rhubarb mixture, without adding water.

  3. Cover the tart with egg white and sift sugar on top.

  4. Bake until golden and set.

  5. Let cool before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 filling's main body and its sharp, tangy flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the rhubarb and helps the topping brown and crisp in the oven.
Egg white
Forms a thin coating over the crust and filling that helps set and brown the top.
Short paste for tart crust
Forms the crisp, sturdy base that holds the rhubarb filling.

The step that matters

Fill without adding water. Rhubarb releases its own juice as it bakes. Adding extra liquid can make the filling runny and soggy the base, so the tart may not set properly.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, egg. 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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