Don't waste rhubarb!

Easier said than done! My rhubarb is suddenly soooo prolific. I canned four jars a rhubarb in honey-water for my winter enjoyment. But for quick eating, here's my favourite recipe for rhubarb muffins. I've had this recipe so long, I don't recall where it originated. I make it several times every summer.

Rhubarb Muffins
1 1/2 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cup chopped rhubarb
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
Topping: 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 tbsp melted butter, 1/2 tsp cinnamon

In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and salt. Stir in the rhubarb. In a mixing bowl, blend sugar and oil. Mix in egg, buttermilk and vanilla until well blended.

Pour the contents of the mixing bowl into the flour-rhubarb mixture. Blend with a wooden spoon as briefly as possible, just until the flour is incorporated. Spoon the batter into a 12-muffin tin (oiled or lined with paper cups).

Mix the topping ingredients together. Sprinkle evenly on top of each muffin. Bake at 350F for 20-25 min.

RHUBARB MATRIMONIAL CAKE

This summer, I have good intentions of trying rhubarb in savoury dishes, but I still seem to be stuck on desserts, like this one. It's a matrimonal date cake without the dates -- rhubarb instead. The recipe is from "Mrs. Marr's Rhubarb Recipes," the cookbook of the historic Marr Residence in Saskatoon. Rhubarb is apropos for a pioneer house since it was one of the easiest, quickest, most versatile vegetables in the prairie garden. Be sure to check out the annual Rhubarb Festival at the Marr Residence on the August long weekend.

Nat's Rhubarb Dessert
8 cups rhubarb
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup tapioca (I used flour)
pinch salt

Crumb mixture:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups rolled oats (I used 2 cups)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar (I used 1 cup only)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup butter, melted

Mix the first four ingredients and let set for 1 hour. Mix remaining ingredients together until crumbly. Place half the crumbs in 9"x13" pan. Cover with rhubarb. Top with remaining crumbs. Bake at 350F for about 40 min., until the crumb is lightly browned.

Newspaper Column - RHUBARB CHUTNEY

Published in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, 25 May 2009

You know it’s a late spring when, by the end of May, there’s not enough rhubarb for a pie. This would have caused consternation for many rural families in the early days of farming, when rhubarb represented the end of winter and the first fresh food from the garden. It was the first “fruit” of the season at a time when grocery stores didn’t carry abundant produce from around the world. Rhubarb was so popular for pies that it earned the nickname the Pie Plant.
Of course, rhubarb is not really a fruit. It’s from the same plant family is sorrel and buckwheat, but its distinctive tart flavour lends itself to pies, cobblers, jams, beverages, chutneys and stews.

It’s high in fibre and a source of vitamin C and potassium, a natural laxative, thought to lower cholesterol and control weight gain, according to modern research. The marvellous thing about rhubarb is that it’s a perennial vegetable that loves a cold winter and comes up the next spring with no assistance whatsoever. No wonder it was found on just about every Saskatchewan farm and many city lots, too.

However, for most of its history, rhubarb was not considered a food. In China, where it originates, the rhubarb root was used for medicinal purposes, a practice which brought it to Europe. The ancient Romans coined the word rhubarb from Rha, their name for the Volga River, and barb, short for barbarian. In other words, it came from the barbarians up north. It wasn’t until the 1800s in England, when sugar because inexpensive and plentiful, that the love affair with rhubarb pie began.

Dr. John Bury of Saskatoon grew up in England where rhubarb pie was a family favourite. His youth also coincided with a time when rhubarb was still used for medicinal purposes. His father was the “analyst” or, in modern terms, the toxicologist at the London Hospital, where Bury took his medical training in the 1940s and 50s.

He still has his father’s copy of the hospital’s Pharmacopoeia, published in 1934, a book full of medicinal recipes with Latin names such as Mistura Gentianae cum Rheo, a mixture of gentian, rhubarb, ginger, sodium bicarbonate and peppermint water—a sedative prescribed for “nervous problems”—and Mistura Aperiens pro Infantibus, a laxative for children containing a tincture of rhubarb.

According to the Pharmacopoeia, the hospital pharmacy stocked rhubarb as a pill, powder and tincture (in solution with alcohol). Today, health food stores continue to stock rhubarb pills as a dietary supplement.

I prefer my rhubarb in pies, not pills, and my favourite recipes are not from a Pharmacopoeia but from a cookbook, Rhubarb: More than Just Pies, by Sandi Vitt and Michael Hickman, published by the University of Alberta Press. It’s full of rhubarb advice such as, when picking rhubarb, always pull out the stocks rather than cut them, and give the plant a good watering once a week or so.

I intend to make a pie as soon as there is enough rhubarb to fill the pastry, but I also want to branch out this year and try rhubarb in unconventional ways such as their recipes for rhubarb curry, rhubarb soup and this rhubarb chutney which I made a few days ago, halving the recipe because, well, that’s all the rhubarb I could muster. Click here for more rhubarb recipes.

Rhubarb Chutney
4 cups rhubarb
2 tsp fresh ginger, grated
2 cloves garlic
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded
1 tsp paprika
1 tbsp mustard seeds
1/4 cup black currents (I used raisins)
1 cup light brown sugar
1 1/2 cups white-wine vinegar

Cut the rhubarb into 1/4-inch (6 mm) pieces. Seed and remove veins from jalapeno; chop jalapeno and garlic finely. Place all ingredients in a saucepan; bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer until rhubarb breaks down and mixture is the texture of jam, about 45 min. Keeps for several months in a glass jar in the refrigerator.

CBC Radio Calling - Rhubarb

I was on the radio today with Garth Materie, host of Blue Sky, talking about rhubarb. Apparently, a lot of people in Saskatchewan like to talk about rhubarb. The phones lit up.

In preparation for the program, I learned a few things about rhubarb. Rha was at one time the name of the Volga River region, and Barb is short for 'barbarian,' as the Romans called anyone who wasn't one of them. Well before Roman times, rhubarb came from China and points east. Back then, it was used primarily as a medicinal. We didn't start eating rhubarb until the arrival of inexpensive sugar, in the early 1800s. Many of the callers to today's program sent in their favourite rhubarb recipes, which you'll find on the Blue Sky website.

Here are some other rhubarb recipes on this blog:

Rhubarb and Berry Galette

Rhubarb and Lingonberry Bread Pudding

Bumbleberry Pie

Rhubarb Muffins

Newspaper Column - RHUBARB AND BERRY GALETTE

Published in the Star Phoenix, 20 April 2009.

The buzz word these days seems to be “frugal” and the kitchen is a good place to start. In Italy, they have a phrase to describe good, old-fashioned frugal cuisine — cucina povera (coo-chee’-na poe-ver’-a). It means food of the poor.

However, cucina povera is in no way inferior fare. It relies on the best, freshest, local ingredients, prepared with the care and flare of an imaginative cook. It’s a good concept to contemplate as we head into another growing season in Saskatchewan. Very soon, we’ll have an abundance of fresh local ingredients, from the tender rhubarb of spring to fall’s plump golden squash.

I first heard about cucina povera from Jennifer Willems, the innovative chef at the New Ground Café in Birch Hills, near Prince Albert. Jennifer’s blackboard menu changes every day (and sometimes more than once a day) depending on the local ingredients that arrive at her kitchen door. Her dedication to local flavours earned an invitation to Terra Madre in Italy, a symposium dedicated to preserving sustainable agriculture and the flavours of regional food around the world. She discovered cucina povera in small family-run restaurants in Italian towns.

“Simplicity is the rule. The tiniest kitchens could turn out the most amazing food with just five ingredients,” she says. “The things that I’m committed to were just natural there.”

What is cucina povera Saskatchewan-style? It could be different things to different people, depending on their cooking traditions and connections to locally-produced foods from lentils to apples to wild rice. For me, it’s a ham bone and lentil stew, or a mushroom and herb frittata, or a pasta sauce of fresh tender vegetables, or a pear tart made with fruit I picked myself.

Learning to cook with Saskatchewan ingredients is an interesting and satisfying exercise. Just ask the seven women with whom I attended a Saskatchewan Bounty cooking class last week in Saskatoon, at the kitchen of Wild Serendipity Foods.

The menu included pork loin rubbed in herbs, served with a wild blueberry sauce, northern whitefish in a lemon-dill sauce, wild rice pilaf with dried berries and a rustic rhubarb & sour cherry tart. I came home with some terrific new recipes for Saskatchewan ingredients and a burning anticipation for the first rhubarb of spring. This picture shows the rustic rhubarb & cherry tart we made in cooking class; this recipe is the version I make at home. Very cucina povera!

Rhubarb & Berry Galette

Use a mix of fresh or frozen berries such as: raspberries, strawberries, saskatoons, blueberries, sour cherries. You can also include apple in the mix.

5 cups of fruit, of which 1 cup is rhubarb, cut in small slices

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
Dash of salt
A bit of butter
Pastry for one-crust pie

Heat oven to 375F. Dice the larger fruit, such as the apple or strawberries. Combine the fruit and rhubarb in a bowl. Sprinkle on the flour, sugar and salt. Gently mix.

Place the pasty into a pie plate. Choose a pie plate that allows the pastry to hang about 1 inch (2.5 cm) over the edge. Scoop in the fruit mixture. Fold the loose edges of the pastry toward the centre, so it forms an open circle around the fruit. Dot the fruit here and there with a little pat of butter.

If you wish, brush the pastry with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 375F for about 40 minutes, until the crust is golden and the filling bubbly. Allow the pie to cool before slicing.