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Dessert

Rhubarb Pie

A pie made with rhubarb, sugar, salt, nutmeg, flour, and pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Rhubarb Pie

Why it works: Rhubarb and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 177 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. 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. Cut the rhubarb stalks where the leaves begin and remove the outer skin.

  2. Cut the stalks into pieces half an inch long.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line a pie dish with rolled pie crust, thicker than a dollar coin.

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

  3. Sprinkle the rhubarb with sugar, salt, grated nutmeg, and a little flour.

  4. Cover with a rich pie crust, cut a slit in the center, and trim the edges.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the pie loosens from the dish.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together177 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. 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 juicy filling that cooks down in the pie.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sourness of the rhubarb and helps the juices form a syrup.
Flour
Absorbs some of the rhubarb juice as it cooks, helping the filling thicken.
Pie crust
Forms the structure that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until the pie loosens from the dish. Rhubarb releases a lot of liquid as it heats. The flour must have time to hydrate and thicken those juices, and the slit in the top lets steam escape so the filling sets rather than running out and making the crust soggy.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, 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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