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Rhubarb Pie

A fruit pie made with rhubarb, lemon, and sugar in a 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 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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. In a stew-pan, combine rhubarb and water.

  2. Cook until rhubarb is soft.

  3. Add lemon juice, lemon rind, and sugar; cook for a few more moments.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the pie crust.

  2. Bake until the crust is golden, with or without an upper crust.

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 + 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).

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 flavour and the bulk that softens into the filling.
Sugar
Balances rhubarb's sourness and adds sweetness to the filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and sharpens the rhubarb taste.
Pie crust
Holds the filling in shape and browns in the oven as the pie bakes.

The step that matters

Cook the rhubarb until soft before adding the sugar and lemon. Rhubarb is very acidic and fibrous. Cooking it fully softens the pieces and lets the sugar dissolve evenly, so the filling is smooth rather than stringy or unevenly sweet.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, 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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