unsung heroes of food — rhubarb
my struggles and wins with the fruit imposter
I have this impression of rhubarb as an old-fashioned food, a required favorite of everyone’s grandmother or great-grandmother.
And upon reading into rhubarb, because I’m a nerd and have books like this on hand, I found that my impression is not wrong. According to Harold McGee in his essential “On The History of Food and Cooking” :
“By the 18th century the English were using them to make sweet pies and tarts. The 19th century brought better varieties and techniques for digging up mature roots and forcing rapid stalk growth in warm dark sheds, which produced sweeter, tenderer stalks. These improvements, cheaper sugar, and a growing supply resulted in a rhubarb boom, which peaked between the world wars.”
Classified as a vegetable, the ruby red and green stalks of rhubarb have an extremely sour flavor and such a decent amount of fiber that it was used in traditional Chinese medicine to help you poop. Now, you can just eat it as part of your widely varied diet and it will help you poop. I hadn’t really thought of rhubarb as ”not a fruit” before, but now that I know, I have no qualms buying it in bulk in late spring. Having a lightly sweetened rhubarb compote on hand at all times? Don’t mind if I do!
PIE
I have only made a successful rhubarb pie once. Once. It can be very tricky to crack the code on this type of pie because there is so much goddamn moisture in rhubarb. You need to help it in one way or another by either macerating (breaking down the fibers with sugar to release moisture over several hours) or thickening the juices with corn starch or BOTH. And even then, it might not be enough. It all probably depends on the rhubarb, and to be honest, I don’t know that much about the particulars of rhubarb to know whether the rhubarb that I buy will release different amounts of liquid. To me, it seems like there is just an endless potential of liquid to be released from rhubarb — the limit doesn’t exist. Does that stop it from being delicious? Absolutely not.
From The Book of Pie, comes a simple, seemingly harmless recipe for Pure Rhubarb Pie, which does not suggest doing anything to the rhubarb before cooking. But the makeup of the filling is nothing more than thickly sliced rhubarb, sugar, nutmeg, cornstarch, and a pinch of salt. A very basic approach to pie filling.
Because I’ve been burnt before by the elusive rhubarb pie, I was skeptical to follow the instructions to a tee — I find there’s room to mess with pie recipes a little bit to account for pie plate size — so I added more cornstarch than it calls for. What did I get? A soggy ass pie.
Funnily enough, this is the recipe that I made my one successful rhubarb pie with, and I didn’t take notes on my tweaks. Curses! So I tried again with some more extreme tweaks, spelled out below.
recipe tweaks:
macerated the rhubarb for 4 hours
removed ½ maceration liquid
quadrupled the cornstarch
bigger vents in the lattice (to allow more evaporation)
longer cooking time (to cook off more liquid)
recipe tweak results: an only slightly less soupy, soggy-ass rhubarb pie 😩
What to do? Look for a different recipe? What are your suggestions?
COMPOTE
This is my favorite use for rhubarb. It’s especially favorable with frozen rhubarb, so you can squirrel some away during the rhubarb harvest of late spring and pull it out when needed to restock your fridge and freezer with rhubarb compote.
Mix it into yogurt + granola or chia pudding. Slather on toast with butter or spoon it over pancakes.
My approach to making compote is entirely dependent on what is currently available to me. This recipe that I have below is great because it’s so flexible, and I can just tell you what to put in it and adjust it to your liking. It’s very forgiving, just like your grandma.
Ingredients
thickly sliced rhubarb (fresh or frozen)
roughly chopped strawberries (fresh or frozen)
real maple syrup
additional ingredients to add, as desired
minced ginger
vanilla extract
ground cardamom (small doses)
rose water
be careful! this ingredient can be very overpowering! add only ⅛ tsp at a time, until you start to taste a slight hint of it
Directions
In a medium or large saucepan (depending on the amount of fruit you’re cooking), add your rhubarb and strawberries and turn the heat on to medium. Stir occasionally.
The fruit will slowly start to release their juices, but if the juices begin to actively boil, the heat is too high. Lower accordingly.
Once the fruit has gotten soft, add the maple syrup 1T at a time, until you can just start to taste sweetness beyond what fruit is capable of alone.
At this point, add any additional ingredients to create a more complexly flavored compote. Cook an additional 10 minutes or so, or until the juices start to thicken and can almost coat the back of a spoon.
Let cool to room temperature, and store in glass jars. Freeze the ones with jars that have no shoulders [LINK], leaving an inch of air at the top to make room for the liquid to expand while freezing
OTHER RHUBARB THINGS THAT I LIKE
I love this breakfast cake from The View From Great Island. This has never steered me wrong. Freeze extra pieces for an easy breakfast or afternoon snack with a cup of tea. Just reheat in a 350F oven for around 10 minutes and microwave further in 20-second increments until the middle of the slice is heated through.
Rhubarb has been all over Substack lately, but between these three things that can be made with rhubarb, my late spring life is complete.
If you’ve made it this far and want even more fun info and in-depth culinary inspiration for using rhubarb while it’s still around, have a look at the links below:
SARAH’S SATURDAY FARMERS MARKET HAUL
Well, I finally did it, I got a whole flat of strawberries. Most of those beauties are going in our freezer for the winter times, because there’s nothing better than finding a bag of fresh spring and summer fruit to brighten up the darkness 🍓
And there’s fennel! I love thinly slicing it for salads and using the fronds for pesto.
We didn’t need much in the way of meat, as none of us felt like eating anything hearty this past week due to a bout of stomach flu that ran through our household, so we saved on using the stuff we already had in the freezer from our last farmers market trip.
May 31
produce: 8 quarts strawberries, 1 pound rhubarb ($76.95); 2 bunches asparagus ($16.48); 2 bunches carrots, 1 bunch fennel, 2 zucchini ($18.72)
protein: 4 pounds chorizo, 2 dozen eggs ($60.32)
total spent = $172.47
After this week of the stomach flu and 4 Candlelight performances, I’m feeling a little bit like I don’t want to meal plan for you right now. Just being a real person over here.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for being here.
❤️ Sarah
Hi Sarah- you may be overthinking the rhubarb a teensy bit. It really IS an easy pie to make but it needs enough thickener and it’s important for you to see steady bubbling coming out of the vents. Then let it cool completely so it can set up. Here’s the recipe I have in Art of the Pie and that I teach in my workshops and Pie Camps. If you have questions, let me know. 😊🥧 https://katemcdermott.substack.com/i/112948578/old-fashioned-rhubarb-pie