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Rhubarb and Apple Jelly

A preserve made from rhubarb and sour apples sweetened with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and apple work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 162 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Rhubarb and Apple Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Wash and chop the rhubarb, then place it in a pot over medium heat without adding water.

  2. In a separate pot, cook the quartered apples with a small amount of water until soft.

  3. Strain the juice from both the rhubarb and apples.

Make the jelly

  1. Combine the juices in a pot and add 3 cups of sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture hard for 20 minutes.

Set and seal

  1. Pour the jelly into glasses and set them in the sun for half a day.

  2. Seal the jars the next day.

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 + appletop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together162 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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 flavour and natural pectin-rich juice that helps the jelly set.
Sour apples
Add natural pectin and acidity that support the jelly's gel and balance the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and, with boiling, helps it thicken and set.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture hard for 20 minutes. A hard, sustained boil concentrates the juice and sugar so the pectin and acid can form a gel. Too short a boil leaves the jelly runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and dull in flavour.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Rhubarbthe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar. 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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