More Rhubarb Recipes

Eaton mess is one of our favourite quick and easy desserts but our strawberries aren't quite ready yet so, when I saw this little recipe, I just had to give it a try.

I substituted the port for a splash of the red wine we had open on the kitchen side. This really gave a rich, 'grown up' taste to the rhubarb.

We already had a couple of our squishy-centred home made meringues so the whole thing took hardly any time to put together and the result was absolutely delicious. Definitely one to try again!

The great thing was we had some rhubarb left over, so today, I used it to top some vanilla ice-cream. Accompanied with some crushed up ginger biscuit and a dash of double cream, this made another excellent quick dessert.

Rhubarb Jam

Yesterday, I thought I'd have a go at making some rhubarb jam. I've never made jam before and, as I've become a bit of a rhubarb convert this year, I thought it would be a good place to start. So, armed with a recipe from the BBC food website, I headed down the garden to harvest some of the delicious pink stuff. The recipe requires 1kg of rhubarb which, given the rate that it has been growing this year, was soon in my basket.

Once washed, trimmed and cut down to thumb-length pieces, I mixed it in our biggest pan with an equal weight of jam sugar and a couple of vanilla pods. I'm not sure what the vanilla adds to the final taste of the jam so I might leave it out next time or replace it with some fresh root ginger. I am having a go at growing some ginger in the greenhouse this year so with any luck I'll even be able to try it with some fresh from the ground.

After gently heating, the sugar dissolves and creates a remarkable amount of liquid. Then it was time to add some lemon juice and turn up the heat, bringing it up to the boil. I used a food thermometer to check that it reached the desired temperature of 105C that it needs to make it set; then it was a case of boiling it for 10 minutes or so whilst I sterilised the waiting jam jars.

I used a funnel to make sure there was no spillage as I ladled the hot jam into the five 200ml jars and that was it. Now we will have to see how long we can resist before opening the first jar.

Fortunately, after filling the five jars, there was enough left in the bottom of the pan to try some on the freshly baked bread that had just come out of the oven. I have to say it was absolutely delicious and definitely a recipe that I will be trying again, with or without a couple of tweaks.

Succulent Spring Rhubarb Crumble

This year I decided to have a go at forcing some of the rhubarb so I shoved an upturned black bucket over the top of one of the plants just as the first shoots started coming through. It has worked wonders and already this year we have had two harvests of the sweetest young stalks, and it's only the 10th March!

I know I could have tried any number of recipes for these first tasty treats but thought I'd go with the old faithful, rhubarb crumble. So here's my recipe for Succulent Spring Rhubarb Crumble:

Rhubarb Crumble
Makes 4 generous helpings

ingredients
12 oz fresh forced rhubarb, picked less than an hour before you're ready to eat;
4 oz butter;
4 oz castor sugar;
8 oz plain flour
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp ground ginger (optional)

method


Stick the oven on.

Wash and cut the freshly harvested, sweetest forced rhubarb roughly into chunks. Bung it in a pan with 1 tbsp of water and gently stew, stirring occasionally, until the rhubarb is softened. No need to add any sugar; the rhubarb is sweet enough. The water is just there to stop it sticking but you do need to keep stirring it.

To make the crumble topping, mix the sugar, flour, butter and, if using, ground ginger, in a large bowl. Rub together until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.


Place the stewed rhubarb in the bottom of an ovenproof dish and cover with the crumble mix. Sprinkle the brown sugar over the top to give it a nice crispy topping and bake in a medium oven for approximately half an hour until the top is nicely browned.

Serve with cream, ice-cream or, in my case, custard.

Ideal to round off a Mothers' day meal.

First Harvest

I managed to get out to the veg patch this morning and examine the rhubarb. We have two plants, both of which had already started to show signs of life earlier this month. In a bit of an experiment I decided to try and force one of the plants by placing an upturned black plastic bucket over it. So today I was pleasantly surprised to see that the bucket was being lifted by the plant. A comparison of the two plants clearly showed that, whilst the untouched plant had put on some good leaf growth, the forced one had already developed some nice juicy shoots.

Forced Rhubarb

Unforced

Well, the temptation was too great and it wasn't long before I had harvested the first produce of the year and had a handful of the sweet smelling stalks.

From there it wasn't long before a fresh rhubarb crumble was on the table.

Rhubarb Crumble!!