Skip to main content
Dessert

Rhubarb Sauce

A simple sauce made from boiled rhubarb, sugar, water, and butter.

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

Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Rhubarb Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place water and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the rhubarb and cover the saucepan.

  3. Reduce heat to low and cook until tender, about 7 to 8 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat, stir in butter, and serve hot or cold.

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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Rhubarb + buttertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 breaks down into the sauce's body as it cooks.
Sugar
Balances rhubarb's acidity and adds sweetness to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth finish when stirred in off the heat.

The step that matters

Cook on low until tender. Rhubarb softens as its cell walls break down in the heat. Keeping the heat low prevents scorching on the bottom of the pan and keeps the pieces from turning to mush before they are tender.

Swap the rhubarb

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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.

You might also like

Rhubarb PieRhubarb Pie152 recipesRhubarb MarmaladeRhubarb Marmalade35 recipesRhubarb JellyRhubarb Jelly28 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes