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Dessert

Good Rhubarb Pie

A pie made with rhubarb, sugar, and a thickening agent, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Good Rhubarb Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rhubarb

  1. Cut the ends off the rhubarb and peel the skin.

  2. Combine rhubarb and sugar in a bowl and let sit overnight.

Make the filling

  1. Strain the juice from the rhubarb and cook the juice on the stove until boiling.

  2. Add the rhubarb to the boiling juice and cook until tender.

  3. Dissolve a little cornstarch or flour in cold water and pour in enough to thicken the mixture slightly.

  4. Line a pie pan with the pie dough and fill it with the cooled rhubarb mixture.

Bake

  1. Cover with the top crust and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until the crust is light brown.

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 + 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

Rhubarb
Provides the tart flavor and the bulk of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the rhubarb and draws out its juice during the overnight rest.
Cornstarch or flour
Thickens the cooked juice so the filling sets rather than running.
Pie dough
Forms the crust that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Thickening the filling. Cornstarch or flour must be dissolved in cold water before it goes into hot juice, otherwise it clumps. Adding only enough keeps the filling set but not gluey, since starch thickens as it heats and gels as it cools.

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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