Yesterday the Mrs. got ambitious, planning a dessert for a dinner gathering. She was going to do our usual strawberry rhubarb pie, now that the rhubarb is growing like mad. But instead, and at the last minute she substituted cherries for the strawberries; we had a bunch of cherries shipped over from California that were just uber-ordinary. Not sweet, not particularly tart, just meh.
So away she went, mixing pitted cherries with the rhubarb and an adequate amount of sugar, and turned it into one of her great pies. She does make a wonderful crust, if I do say so. But this was her first use of cherries with rhubarb, despite years of making a wide variety of both sweet and savory rhubarb combinations.
The ultimate result was AMAZING!! The sweet tang of cherries, the sharp/tart notes of rhubarb, all in a perfect crust. Served still warm from the baking, topped with a scoop of premium vanilla iced cream, all dinner guests were soon in a nirvana-like pie coma.
My Mother had a yellow Cherry tree. The cherries were unbelievably sweet. My saliva is pooling just remembering them. She put rhubarb in the Cherry pies to offset the sweet a bit.
IMO, it’s the crust that makes a pie. Your Mrs. is a great asset to mankind if she has that perfected. You lucky guy.
And, you could share you know, just saying.
Oooh I might need to steal Mrs. Mercotan’s recipe. I’ve never cooked with rhubarb before (I actually don’t think I’ve ever eaten it before) UNTIL this past weekend, when on a whim I bought a tub of homemade rhubarb & cherry yogurt at our local farmers market. It was to die for!! I can’t believe I’ve lived my entire life without experiencing this awesome flavor combination!!
I would love to have the recipe. I have a lot of rhubarb at work I am making into pies, the straight rhubarb is popular while it lasts. But that combo sounds great, I may try it. I do a pretty good crust, after making thousands over the years. I would love to try Mrs. Mercotans pie!!!
Soon I will also be making a few mulberry pies. They are not quite ripe yet, but I like the taste. My church has a picnic in two weeks, after the Pentecost service, if I can I will take a rhubarb pie and a mulberry pie.
