[QUOTE=GingerOfTheNorth]
Make a rhubarb crisp! I LOVE rhubarb crisp, but rhubarb doesn’t grow here. Dammit. I have a recipe, if you need one.
Filling:
4 cups rhubarb, washed and cut into 1/2" - 1" pieces
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3 tablespoons flour
pinch of salt
Toss together. Put into the bottom of a pretty big pan - I used 9" x 12".
Crumb topping:
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup flour
3/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Mix together, press onto the top of the filling. Bake at 350F until done. Sorry I haven’t got a time for it but I bake by sight and smell. Bake until the filling bubbles and the top browns a bit, somewhere around 30-60 minutes.
You can make this with just about any fruit. I’d cut back on the sugar in the filling quite a bit if I was making this with saskatoons or peaches or something sweet.
PS: Please send me rhubarb.
[/QUOTE]
This sounds like what we called “rhubarb crunch.” Ooh baby, that’s good eats!
OK, I have serious rhubarb envy now. No one gives me rhubarb… I have to pay $2.50/lb for the privilege (and at that price, believe me, we don’t go dipping it in sugar and gnawing on it, despite the fact that it’s my favouritest way to eat rhubarb ever).
I’d recommend rhubarb loaf, but it doesn’t really fit the criteria of “stuff made with rhubarb that doesn’t taste like it”. However, it is really damned tasty.
I saw Jamie Oliver recently making rhubarb souffles on the Food Network. He first stewed the rhubarb with orange juice and zest, sugar and ginger, then mixed it with the souffle mixture as well as putting a big blob of it at the bottom of each little individual souffle ramekin. He served the little sweet/tart souffles with a dollop of that English custard sauce. I thought they looked awesome, but Mr. brown gagged at the sight.
spoke-, I think the closest taste to rhubarb is celery. A lot of people eat it with salt, like celery. It’s tart and crunchy. If the texture was different, it might taste like a green apple.
[QUOTE=Mahna Mahna]
OK, I have serious rhubarb envy now. No one gives me rhubarb… I have to pay $2.50/lb for the privilege (and at that price, believe me, we don’t go dipping it in sugar and gnawing on it, despite the fact that it’s my favouritest way to eat rhubarb ever).
I’d recommend rhubarb loaf, but it doesn’t really fit the criteria of “stuff made with rhubarb that doesn’t taste like it”. However, it is really damned tasty.
[/QUOTE]
You know, it grows pretty much everywhere in Canada. It shouldn’t be hard to get ahold of a root and grow it yourself. It’s like a weed.
Nettle soup and rhubarb pie but a Swedish take on it, looks great. My friend is the author and I’ve made many of his recipes all to great acclaim from family and friends.
The thin base of the stalk gets cut off. The strings on stalks should be pulled off with a paring knife and your thumb. Don’t use the area right next to the leaf, if they didn’t cut it off already. The leaves have oxalic acid a poison.
[QUOTE=Labelless]
I managed to nearly make him pass out when I grabbed one up and started eating it right there.
[/QUOTE]
Raw rhubarb is poisonous. Causes brain damage.
[QUOTE=GingerOfTheNorth]
You know, it grows pretty much everywhere in Canada. It shouldn’t be hard to get ahold of a root and grow it yourself. It’s like a weed.
[/QUOTE]
That’s the plan. I’d been somewhat garden-challenged for a few years, though we finally bought a house last spring and have been working on rehabbing the weed patch that passed for a garden. Now I’ve got a lovely little space with plenty of light and no more weeds in it that’s been designated for rhubarb, so all that remains is to get my hands on a plant.
spoke, I’d describe rhubarb as having a texture somewhat like celery, but the taste is somewhere between tart green apple and lemon - fresh and astringent bordering on sour.
Care to elucidate? I have always equated you with the Ray Milland movie, Rhubarb. "Lady, you know what happens at a sale, when two women get hold of the same dress? THAT’s a Rhubarb! " (Of course, now that I think about it I was imagining you more like Ray Milland than the cat…)
[/QUOTE]
I did take my name from the Rhubarb the cat character by H. Allen Smith. Not for any particular reason, just that all of the really good names were taken .
[end hijack]
According to my mother, who has been an excellent baker for 60 years, using frozen strawberries will work fine. In fact, it’s a good use for them – they are often a bit mushy when thawed, but that won’t be noticeable after baking in a pie. You may have to reduce the amount of liquid in the pie compared to using fresh strawberries.
The greener parts at the base usually taste about the same as the rest of the stalk. May possibly need a bit more sugar, depending on how much of your rhubarb is green like that. More relevant is the size of the stalks. The smaller sized stalks are more tender (and usually sweeter) than the large, thick stalks, which can be bland & woody.
Mom uses rhubarb a lot in conjunction with other fruits to make pies, tarts, jam, and preserves. She says the rhubarb give better ‘body’ to the result, but that the taste comes mostly from the other fruits. She will use anywhere from 1/2 to 2/3rds rhubarb in the mixture, adjusting to the strength of the taste of the other fruits. Strawberry-rhubarb, for example, has more rhubarb than apple-rhubarb or peach-rhubarb.
I have a rhubarb patch in my back yard (it was there when I bought the house 30 years ago; I don’t think I could kill it off if I tried). I don’t much like rhubarb, but I pick it, wash & cut it into small pieces, and freeze it. Occasionally I take some bags home to Mom, and get strawberry-rhubarb pies, or tarts, or jam in exchange. And I’m real happy with that exchange.
[QUOTE=AuntiePam]
I hate rhubarb. I found a recipe for strawberry-rhubarb cream pie that sounds pretty good.
Question for baking Dopers: The recipe calls for fresh strawberries. I have frozen strawberries. Individually frozen though, from Schwan’s. When thawed they’re like fresh, except wetter. Can I use them in the recipe?
Also, the rhubarb goes from reddish (at the base) to green – does it matter which part I use? Is the reddish part less bitter?
Any other rhubarb recipes that don’t taste like rhubarb would be appreciated.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve been touting this recipe a lot lately - I made it when I had a bunch of fresh strawberries picked that morning. Yum! (and it freezes well; I put the fruit mixture in one zip-loc, the flour mixture in another, the butter in a third, and the buttermilk in a fourth, and bagged it all together; made one of them a couple weeks later and it was very good).
I didn’t know this, but when I googled, I found rhubarb comes in a variety levels of green-ness depending on the variety. I seem to recall that the greener varieties are actually less sour but my memory could be wrong.
As far as the frozen strawberries, I’d think they’d be fine in something like the cobbler though perhaps you’d need a bit of extra thickener (cornstarch). A recipe where the excess water might dilute things might not work as well.
[QUOTE=Mama Zappa]
As far as the frozen strawberries, I’d think they’d be fine in something like the cobbler though perhaps you’d need a bit of extra thickener (cornstarch). A recipe where the excess water might dilute things might not work as well.
[/QUOTE]
That recipe looks too good to waste on rhubarb.
The strawberry-rhubarb pie tasted fine – according to hubby, I didn’t eat any – but it was definitely too juicy. I added extra rhubarb without adding additional thickener – maybe that was the problem. I had 6 cups of rhubarb, 1 cup of strawberries, 1.5 cups sugar, and 1/3 cup flour for thickener. It didn’t thicken at all.
It probably didn’t help that my husband had to have a piece (of pie) before the pie cooled.
[QUOTE=AuntiePam]
That recipe looks too good to waste on rhubarb.
The strawberry-rhubarb pie tasted fine – according to hubby, I didn’t eat any – but it was definitely too juicy. I added extra rhubarb without adding additional thickener – maybe that was the problem. I had 6 cups of rhubarb, 1 cup of strawberries, 1.5 cups sugar, and 1/3 cup flour for thickener. It didn’t thicken at all.
It probably didn’t help that my husband had to have a piece (of pie) before the pie cooled.
[/QUOTE]
Huh - such a high ratio of rhubarb to strawberries… if you’re not fond of rhubarb, you would NOT have liked that. The cobbler’s nice in that the proportions are roughly equal, so the rhubarb has the effect of adding just a bit of tang, and a lot more body than a plain cooked strawberry pie would have. It doesn’t scream RHUBARB at you the way something with a higher ratio would.
.