Rhubarb Ginger "Downside Up" Oatmeal Cake

Much to my surprise, I discovered that in today's "Good Appetite" column, Melissa Clark writes about rhubarb upside-down cake. There must be rhubarb upside-down cake vibes going around in the universe because I made a similar cake just yesterday. I'd certainly think about making Melissa's cake at some point, but that will have to happen later. First, I want to make yesterday's cake again, if only so I can have a bigger piece of it. I brought it to a work gathering and looked on a little bit sadly as wedge after wedge was eaten by my colleagues, including the ones who proclaimed not to like rhubarb. I was selfless enough to take one piece home for Alex, but I left the rest there, and when I came in this morning, it was all gone. Sigh.

I have Food 52 to blame (or, really, credit) for this one as well. When I did a search for rhubarb, the first recipe that came up was the one for rhubarb curd (shortbread). The second was for rhubarb ginger downside up oatmeal cake. I was intrigued. I clicked. I baked.

I've never made a cake quite like this before. First, I don't think I've ever made an upside down cake. And I've never made one in a cast iron frying pan. I may have made a cake with oatmeal in it at some point, but the details are fuzzy. But, having done this once, I would do it again without hesitation. This is really an excellent cake.

First, you melt some butter in a cast iron (or other ovenproof) frying pan:

Once the butter is melted, you take it off the flame and spread a cup of brown sugar across the bottom:
On top of that goes a layer of rhubarb mixed with grated fresh ginger:


And on top of that goes the cake batter:


The cake batter process was interesting in and of itself. You mix rolled oats with boiling water and butter. You mix the dry ingredients in another bowl. When the oatmeal mixture has cooled, you add an egg, some vanilla and more sugar, and then mix in the dry ingredients.

The cake one way:


And the other:


There is little I would do differently. I might think about replacing the fresh ginger with crystallized ginger (or maybe not). I did replace 1/4 cup of all purpose with whole wheat pastry flour. But there's not much else to change. The slight taste of oatmeal is lovely with the rhubarb, reminiscent of a crumble. The cake was moist and flavorful, with a little zing from the ginger, some tart from the rhubarb, mellowed out by the oatmeal and the sweet cake. It really was just all around delicious. My only regret was that I hadn't brought some vanilla ice cream to eat with it. No, I take that back. My only real regret was that I didn't get a bigger piece. I'm not sure I could give it higher praise.

Rhubarb Ginger Downside-Up Cake
from thirshfeld at Food 52

For the rhubarb::

• 2 1/4 cups fresh rhubarb, 1/2 inch slices
• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter

For the oatmeal cake:

• 1/2 cup thick cut rolled oats
• 3/4 cups boiling water
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, 1/4 inch cubes
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

1. In a mixing bowl combine the oats with the boiling water. Add the1/4 cup of butter. Set aside to cool.


2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Gently melt the butter in a 10 inch cast iron skillet. Remove it from the heat. Spread the brown sugar evenly across the bottom. In a large bowl mix the ginger and rhubarb. Spread the rhubarb evenly across the brown sugar. Set aside.


3. In the empty rhubarb bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.


4. To the cooled oatmeal add the egg, both sugars, and vanilla. Mix to combine. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until combined.


5. Spread the cake batter evenly across the top of the rhubarb. Place into the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes.


6. Remove from the oven when done and let cool for 5 minutes before inverting onto a cake plate. Let cool for 20 minutes before slicing.

8-10 slices

Rhubarb Roundup 2011

Every year, I do a rhubarb recipe roundup post. This year's was prompted by, as always, the sight of my massive rhubarb plant outside my kitchen window. Then, there was an email from my colleague Nancy Eckert, she of the chicken-drawing talent, that said "Rhubarb Curd just might be my most favorite food of the moment. It is heavenly." That got me thinking about other rhubarb delights I haven't tried yet (since my experience with rhubarb curd is only a few days old). And then, there was a message in my inbox this morning from Deb at Smitten Kitchen with news of her new post on Rhubarb Streusel Muffins. And I knew that the time had come to do a rhubarb roundup (as I have done in 2009 and 2010 both). I'm going to arrange the various recipes according to type, in an attempt to be useful to those who want to use rhubarb in a particular way in addition to those who just want to make a rhubarb-something and won't know til the right recipe appears. I will also indicate those I've actually made as opposed to those I've just drooled over longingly.

The Sauce-y

First, my first, best and favorite rhubarb recipe of longstanding, the astonishingly delicious (and very easy to make) Rhubarb-Ginger Jam.

I've also had my eye on this lovely rhubarb sauce from Tea and Cookies.

Molly at Orangette recommends this rhubarb with white wine and vanilla bean.

The Cake-y

I'm very tempted by this big-crumb coffee cake, originally from Melissa Clark's column in the NYT, written up by Deb at Smitten Kitchen.

I also have my eye on this homey-looking rhubarb cake. (This blogger made--and praised--Marion Cunningham's Fresh Ginger Cake, which is how I discovered the blog.)

There's also Darina Allen's Country Rhubarb Cake, first written about in the New York Times and then adapted by Luisa at The Wednesday Chef.

These are not exactly cake, but I wasn't sure where to put them. Knowing how good everything else from Good to the Grain has been, I'm even more eager to try these rustic rhubarb tarts.

The Crumble-y

Here we have Molly at Orangette's Rhubarb Crumble.

Not to be confused with Deb at Smitten Kitchen's Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble

This tasty rhubarb cobbler was originally from Smitten Kitchen, but I made and enjoyed it last year as well, and wrote about it in last year's Rhubarb Roundup

I also made Sweet Mary's rhubarb-oatmeal bars, also delicious.

The Fancy

I haven't yet embarked on any kind of fancier recipe involving rhubarb, but should the occasion present itself, I'd certainly think about one of these.

Rhubarb Meringue Tart, from Tamasin Day-Lewis by way of Orangette

Rhubarb and Ginger Brioche Bread Puddings, also from Tamasin Day-Lewis by way of Epicurious

One of the beauties of the month of May is that good rhubarb recipes are as plentiful as the rain drops that will not stop falling on our heads. We may be in the midst of a stretch of gray skies and wet days, but at least there is a lot of rhubarb to eat until the sun comes out again.

Rhubarb Curd

The above is my standard photo to show the enormity of my rhubarb plant. It's partly that I haven't gotten around to taking a new photo this year, but it's also that this one still quite nicely represents how much the rhubarb likes its spot in the garden. I am delighted that it's so happy; it means that every year, there are ample quantities of rhubarb so I can make my beloved rhubarb-ginger jam while still having enough rhubarb to try some new recipes. Last year, I made rhubarb-oatmeal bars, which were quite tasty. This year, for the first new rhubarb recipe of the season, I made rhubarb curd.

Food 52 is once again responsible. When you're looking at a recipe, on the right side of the page is a list of how many people are looking at other recipes. Four people are viewing rhubarb curd shortbread at this very moment, and very smart people they are because this is another great recipe.

I can't speak for the whole recipe, admittedly. I decided to make the curd but not the shortbread, at least not now. Instead, I paired the curd with a ginger-lemon buttermilk cake. (Because there are still 16 days of May to go, I will write about that later.) I have nothing against shortbread, of course, but I was more intrigued with the rhubarb curd, and so, on this rainy, lazy Sunday, I decided to give it a try.

First, you chop up about 3/4 pound of rhubarb:


Then you cook it down with sugar and a bit of water and then puree it.

Then you whisk together some egg yolks and more sugar along with some butter, lemon zest and lemon juice. Slowly, you add the rhubarb to the egg mixture. Meanwhile, you have some water simmering in the bottom of a double boiler, if you have one, and if a regular pot, if you don't. (I don't, so experimented with my pots and bowls to see which ones would work best. I ended up with a medium-large saucepan and a small stainless steel bowl which worked quite nicely.)
And then the whisking begins. Making curd is nerve wracking in the same way that making custard is. You definitely don't want to end up with some version of rhubarb-lemon scrambled eggs, but you also don't want to be whisking into infinity. It had been awhile since I'd made curd (the lemon extravaganza a few years ago may have been the last time), but I remembered that you always have to whisk longer than you think you do and the flame has to be a little bit higher than you feel comfortable with. The recipe said it would thicken in 5 minutes; mine didn't. It was probably on the stove for 15 minutes, thickening slightly but not overwhelmingly. After 15 minutes, I got worried that the eggs were cooking too much, and I took it off. I also neglected the final step of pushing it through a sieve. The curd was plenty silky and smooth without it.

One thing: my rhubarb curd, as you might have noticed above, is not pink. (The curd in the Food 52 recipe was decidedly pink.) Perhaps it was because the rhubarb I used was not particularly pink or perhaps it was those dark orange yolks from the eggs that Beth's hens laid. My rhubarb curd was more apricot-colored, or perhaps a pale butternut squash.

No matter. It was, in a word, delicious. Sweet and tart and smooth and luscious all at once. It would have made a fine dessert on its own. And maybe, another day, it will.

Rhubarb Curd
Adapted from Rivka's Rhubarb Curd Shortbread on Food 52

• 3/4 pounds rhubarb (about 6 stalks)
• 4 tablespoons water
• 1/4 cups sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/3 cup plus 1/8 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 3 tablespoons butter, cut into chunks

Wash rhubarb and trim as little off the ends as possible. Cut rhubarb into 1-inch chunks. In a small saucepan, heat rhubarb, 1/4 sugar, and water on medium. Cook until rhubarb falls apart and there are no whole pieces left, adding water by the tablespoon if rhubarb sticks to the bottom of the pan. At this point, puree mixture with an immersion blender or push the mixture through a strainer. The first method is definitely easier.

Add a couple inches of water to the pot of a double boiler and set over medium heat. Put egg yolks, butter, remaining sugar, lemon zest, and lemon juice in the bowl of the double boiler and whisk to combine. When sugar has dissolved completely, add the rhubarb puree by the spoonful, to temper the eggs. When all rhubarb has been added, set bowl over pot; the water should be simmering. Continue stirring the rhubarb mixture; after about 5 (or 15) minutes, the mixture will be warm and slightly thickened. At this point, remove from heat. Press through a strainer -- this will give your curd that smooth, pudding-like texture.

Sweet Mary's Rhubarb Oatmeal Bars

Earlier this month, during the first group blog day about our favorite blogs, I mentioned that I was rather in a rut when it came to food blogs. Not that my favorite food blogs aren't worth visiting often, but I was beginning to realize that I wasn't straying too far from them, which really is a loss, given the quantity and quality of food blogs around these days.

So, one thing the blogathon has done is broaden my horizons. First, it led me to Jen Walker's My Morning Chocolate, and Jen, in turn, led me to Sweet Mary, who, in turn, led me to these rhubarb oatmeal bars, which I made a few days ago.

Clearly, I enjoy cooking with rhubarb (see 2008's Rhubarb Season, 2009's Rhubarb Redux and this year's Rhubarb Roundup), but again, I was in a bit of a rut, falling back on my favorite rhubarb-ginger-lemon combination. And, to be honest, only the fact that I still had no crystallized ginger in the house kept me from using that combo again in these bars. (That has been remedied since I made these.) I decided, instead, for this first time, just to follow the recipe and (mostly) not fiddle with it. It was instructive--I learned a new tasty rhubarb combination--and also inspiring--even as I was making the recipe, I was thinking of ways to tweak it.

This recipe shares some traits with the blueberry crumble bars we all fell in love with last summer. There is an oatmeal bottom and a fruity filling. This time, however, the topping is not a separate thing but more of the bottom layer sprinkled across the top, simplifying the recipe and the dishwashing both. I couldn't resist a single tweak and added some chopped walnuts to the topping. Mary uses orange juice and orange zest, along with vanilla and some powdered ginger, to flavor the rhubarb, and it's a nice combination. There's a citrus tang, but it's not quite as tart as the lemon/crystallized ginger combo. I have to admit, though, that next time I probably will try them using crystallized ginger and lemon zest, just for the hell of it.

The dough, which you mix with an electric mixer rather than by hand, is rather stiff, and I had to actively press it into the pan. I probably used slightly more than half of the dough for the bottom and the rest on top.

The rhubarb bars were bubbling and crumbly when they came out of the oven. I let them cool in the pan before I tried to cut them.

I have two brief stories about the response to these rhubarb bars. I brought the bulk of them to the office barbecue. When I offered one to a chocolate-loving colleague, she said, "No, I don't care for rhubarb." But later, in the kitchen when we were putting things away, someone else was taking a rhubarb bar home, and my rhubarb-disliking colleague was milling around looking for something to take. I jokingly pointed out that she'd spurned my rhubarb bars, and she said, "Okay fine, I'll take one little taste." She cut off a tiny piece, ate it, and paused. "These are really good," she said. "Do you mind if I take some home?"

Since I had still had some left (this barbecue was very well stocked with food, including the largest cookie platter I've ever seen), I left a few for Alex in his fridge. When I asked how he'd liked them, he said, "I hated them. Don't give me anymore." And then he went on and on about how much he hated them. This is not like Alex, and it seemed that perhaps he was protesting a bit too much, that maybe this was more about his propensity to eat too many rhubarb bars than about the rhubarb bars themselves. That became clear last night when he said, "Those rhubarb bars I hated? Do you have any left?"

Rhubarb Oatmeal Bars
barely adapted from Sweet Mary

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened (1 stick)

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 cups old fashioned oats

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup walnuts (optional)

Filling:

3 cups chopped rhubarb (1/2 inch pieces)

3/4 to 1 cup sugar (I used 1 cup, but 3/4 is also fine)

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp ginger

1 tablespoon orange zest

3 tablespoons orange juice

1/4 cup water

Heat oven to 350. Grease a 13x9-inch baking pan with butter or non-stick spray. (I lined the bottom with parchment paper and lightly sprayed that.)

Make filling first.

Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium high heat. Dissolve sugar and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low. Cook until rhubarb has broken down and mixture has thickened a bit. The mixture should be like syrup (meaning not entirely liquid and not as thick as jam). This will take about 10 to 15 minutes. Keep in mind that the mixture will thicken as it cools, too. Cool for about 10 minutes.

While the filling cools, make the crust.

Whisk flour, salt, and baking soda together in a medium bowl.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add flour mixture and mix until fully incorporated. Add the oats and 1/4 cup water. Mix until crumbly.

Firmly pat half of this mixture into the greased baking pan.

Then, add the rhubarb mixture. Spread evenly over the crumble mixture.

Sprinkle the remaining crumb mixture on top of the rhubarb. I added a half cup of walnuts to the top as well.

Bake at 350 for 25 minutes until it starts to brown. Cool. Cut into bars.

Rhubarb Roundup

When I told Alex that I was planning to make a rhubarb cobbler, or perhaps a rhubarb cake, he gasped. "But what about the jam?" he asked. "Aren't you going to make the jam, a whole pot, just for me?" And it's true that every year for the past four or five years, I've made rhubarb-ginger jam as my first rhubarb treat of the season, and it's also true that he's gotten his own special container of it.

It wasn't that I didn't want to make the rhubarb-ginger jam; it was that I was almost out of crystallized ginger, and it was Sunday afternoon, and I didn't feel like driving to the store that I knew would have some (since the store I was going to anyway definitely didn't). My rhubarb plant and its satellites at the edge of the yard will provide a copious supply, however, so I knew there would be time for the jam. I decided that this meant I had to branch out and try something new.

I love reading through all the rhubarb recipes written up this time of year, and I was tempted by several of them.

There was this rhubarb country cake, first written up in the New York Times and then baked by Luisa at the Wednesday Chef. (There's also its cousin at Epicurious.) Just a few days ago, Deb at Smitten Kitchen wrote about some yummy sounding rhubarb tarts. And the minute I have an event to cook for or a dinner gathering or something where multiple people will be eating it, I'm totally going to make this rhubarb ginger brioche bread pudding. (It was in the most recent issue of Bon Appetit, which I just started getting in lieu of the late, lamented Gourmet.)

But what I ended up with, after much recipe consultation, was this rhubarb cobbler, from Smitten Kitchen in May, 2009. I figured that I could mix the rhubarb with what little crystallized ginger I had left, to give it at least a hint of subtle ginger flavor. It also helped that I already had ginger frozen yogurt (made by this fabulous Boston company, Sweet Scoops), which seemed like it would complement it nicely.

The recipe is fairly straightforward. You chop up the rhubarb and let it sit with the sugar and whatever flavorings you're using. (Deb added a vanilla bean; I used the ginger and some lemon zest.)


Meanwhile, you make a sweet biscuit dough and let it chill. Then you cover the rhubarb mixture with the biscuits. My biscuits (which I cut with the lid of a stainless steel container from India) started out looking very neat and then got messier as the dough got warmer and stickier.

Thankfully, that didn't matter in the end, as everything baked together nicely into a bubbly, brown, ginger-scented pan of rhubarb deliciousness:


A few thoughts: I lightened up the biscuit topping a bit, more out of laziness than out of intention. I didn't have any heavy cream so used half and half instead. I also used 4 tbsp. of butter rather than 6. The biscuits were still delicious. If you want them richer, go with the higher amount of butter and the cream, but know that if you lighten it up a bit, it will still taste fine.

I found the rhubarb very tart. I did use slightly more rhubarb than the recipe called for--probably 2 1/2 pounds rather than 2--but I also added more sugar--probably a generous 3/4 of a cup. Still, it was very tart. I'd probably go up to a full cup next time. This really wasn't a problem, as it just meant adjusting the cobbler-ice cream ratio a bit in favor of the ice cream, and I'm never one to argue with that.

The jam will be next, but in the meantime, I'm glad to have broadened my rhubarb horizons. It's a good thing my plant is so enormous--it's going to be in demand!

Rhubarb Cobbler
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen and Claudia Fleming via New York Magazine

For dough

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
3 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon plus 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 hard-boiled egg yolks
1/8 teaspoon salt
4-6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon heavy cream

For rhubarb

2 pounds rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 1/2-inch pieces (about 6 cups)
1/2 - 1 cup sugar, depending on how tart you like it
1/2 cup chopped crystallized ginger
zest of one lemon
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon turbinado sugar

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, egg yolks, and salt. Pulse to combine. Add the butter and pulse until the flour resembles coarse meal. Add 2/3 cup of cream and pulse until the dough comes together. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently pat it together, incorporating any stray crumbs.

Using a small ice cream scoop or a large spoon, form the dough into 2-inch balls, then flatten them slightly into thick rounds. (Alternately, use a cookie cutter or something like it.) Chill for 20 minutes (and up to 2 hours). Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put the rhubarb in a shallow 21/2- quart casserole dish and toss with sugar, ginger, lemon, and cornstarch. Allow to macerate 15 minutes.

Arrange the biscuit rounds on top, leaving about an inch between them. Brush the biscuits with cream and sprinkle with turbinado sugar. Bake the cobbler until the rhubarb is bubbling and the biscuits are golden brown, about 40 to 45 minutes. Serve with ice cream or crème fraîche.

Rhubarb Redux

Remember the rhubarb that looked like this just a week or so ago?

It now looks like this:

The recent rain seems to have agreed with it, clearly. Every time I look out the kitchen window, it seems to have grown.

I wrote about rhubarb and my very favorite rhubarb recipe almost a year ago, and I will certainly be making my beloved rhubarb-ginger jam as my first rhubarb venture of the season. But, as you can see, there's a lot of rhubarb stalks on that plant (not to mention the two smaller plants on the edge of the yard, right next to the failed asparagus patch). So, I'm lining up rhubarb recipes that should keep me occupied for the rest of rhubarb season.

There's the rhubarb compote from Tea and Cookies, for one, which sounds like it would be fabulous with homemade yogurt.

Then there are a couple of recipes from Smitten Kitchen, a crumb cake with rhubarb and a strawberry-rhubarb crumble, both of which look lovely and delicious. The crumb cakes looks like a great thing for a brunch or an office thing, and anytime is the time for crumble.

Molly at Orangette also has a rhubarb crumble, and given that I'm obviously a sucker for crumble, I might have to try hers as well.

And if I'm feeling really ambitious, there's this rhubarb meringue tart, which is a much fancier dessert than I usually make, but Molly writes so evocatively about it that I'm tempted.

And given that rhubarb season is still in its early stages, at least here on the east coast, I've no doubt that there will be plenty more recipes to contemplate. It's a good thing my rhubarb plant is so massive.

Distractions

I've been absent for the past few weeks because I've been distracted by things big and small. A few examples:

Why a picture of half of my garage, you might ask. Well, this is a photo of absence rather than of presence. What is not in this picture--and what used to be in my garage--is my very large, very heavy, very expensive snow blower, which I bought out of necessity the year after I moved here, living as I do on the side of a mountain. I can't say I particularly liked the snow blower, but it did its job admirably, and we'd made some kind of peace with each other. And we would have had a long and happy life together if some person (or more likely, people) hadn't decided to help himself to the snow blower one day when I wasn't home. It was a particularly audacious theft, given that it had to have happened in the afternoon, and it would have required a truck and other paraphernalia to get the snow blower into the truck. The cop told me it was the third snow blower reported missing in the past couple of weeks, and since then, I've heard of two more. It seems unlikely that my little Western Massachusetts town is harboring a roving gang of snow blower thieves, but that appears to be the case. My insurance will cover a chunk of the replacement, which I'm not going to buy until the fall--hopefully, that will give me enough time to figure out a way to lock it up, given that my garage has no doors.

Thankfully, there are happier things to think about:

The garlic is up! I planted more than usual so I could use some as green garlic, but now, looking at it, it doesn't seem like as much as I remembered. Still, a healthy bed of garlic is always a nice thing in the spring, and I have some miscellaneous garlic coming up--from heads I didn't pull up last year--that I can also use as green garlic. I'm already thinking about that delicious green garlic soup I made last year.


The rhubarb is up too! I have it planted at the edge of my garden, and now it's still at the edge, but in a few weeks, it will become its dominating self. It's nice to have something grow so vigorously in the spring--it's very heartening when so many other plants are rather poky about coming out of the ground and presenting themselves.

That's my false indigo, take three, the one I planted last year in the spot I hope will become its permanent home. I'm not expecting a lot of flowers this year, but if the false indigo settles into its spot and is happy (and will give me flowers eventually), that's fine by me.


This last photo seems unrelated, I know. But it needed to be documented, and this was a good a place as any. I saw Andy the other day, and he told me he had a present for me from India. I really had no idea of what it was, and then he presented me with this fabulous bag. He's been doing a project on bags in India for several years now, first on jute bags, and now that jute bags are a dying industry, on the bags that have replaced them, most of which have images on them. (At some point, I may be able to link photos of some of the other cool bags he's found, but I can't at the moment.) He found this bag in Benares, and knowing my love for the Delhi Metro, he bought it for me (and then saved it to give to me now, which I appreciate).

We went on the Delhi Metro together--his first time--on New Year's Day this year, the day we were in Delhi before the endless fogbound trip to Benares. And I have no doubt that I went on and on about how much I love the Delhi Metro. I should probably write a separate post about how great the Delhi Metro is, but suffice it to say that it's Delhi's first real functional transportation system, and it's a joy. At the moment, the routes are fairly limited, but by sometime in 2010, it will be finished, and I will be able to hop on the Metro in Green Park or Hauz Khas and get to Connaught Place without having to argue with a single rickshaw-wallah. I eagerly await that day. In the meantime, I will be able to carry my bag advertising "Delhi's Pride" in anticipation. Thanks, Andy!

Rhubarb Season

Yesterday, I cut my first stalks of rhubarb from the garden. It wasn't actually because I wanted rhubarb just then. The rhubarb plant--a gift from my neighbor Pat at the community garden the summer after I moved and before I knew there actually was some rhubarb already planted --is quite massive now, and as it's grown, it's been shading the tiny lettuce plants growing near it. That might be good later on, when it's hotter, but now, with this spring of variable weather, I thought the little lettuces could use some sun. I was also putting in a row of red onions and one of shallots, and cutting some rhubarb cleared a bit more space for them. So, now I have a pound or two of rhubarb stalks in the fridge, waiting for me to turn it into something.

I'm not always that adventurous when it comes to rhubarb, though I did see an enticing photo of rhubarb ice cream over at the Kittalog the other day that looked very tempting. (If only I had a functional ice cream maker--if I didn't have to get a new lawn mower and a new dehumidifier, maybe I'd get a new ice cream maker.) The only strawberries we can get at the moment are from California, so I'm less inclined to make strawberry-rhubarb things until the strawberries are local. Or, you know, at least from the east coast. (While I have lovely strawberries in my garden, they're not all that plentiful. For the past few summers, the June ritual has been that in the morning, I wander out into the garden in my pajamas with a teacup or a medium sized ramekin and pick just enough strawberries for my breakfast. Last summer, I left for Ragdale in the midst of strawberry season, and I reluctantly told my housesitter to eat what strawberries remained because I knew they wouldn't still be around when I came back. That's the thing with truly seasonal produce--it forces you to be generous with your bounty. There is a limited window of time in which to be greedy about it, and if you have to miss the window, you might as well offer it to someone else.)

Anyway, what I'm almost certain I'll make, at least with this first batch of rhubarb, is my ritual rhubarb dish, the one I tasted once and then spent many years attempting to recreate -- rhubarb-ginger jam.

In the interests of full disclosure (and perhaps self-promotion), I should say that I wrote an essay about this rhubarb dish, and it was published in The Washington Post almost exactly a year ago. The essay, with recipe, is linked here.

I'd sent my boss the link to the essay, and she'd given it to her husband to read, and apparently, he'd said, "Yes, of course, the essay is beautifully written, but now I really want some of the jam." And so I gave her a little container of it to give to him, and he was just delighted. I saw them at a gathering for a retiring colleague, and the husband rushed over to me and began to rhapsodize. He kept saying,"It's so subtle, that slight tang of the ginger, and they're both such strong flavors, but they balance each other out so perfectly" and on and on. Although he is a professor of English and Russian, he was not particularly articulate about the jam, but I knew exactly what he meant. I feel the same way about it.

Rhubarb-Ginger Jam

Makes about 3 cups

This can be prepared in 45 minutes or less. It can be eaten warm as a compote or chilled as a jam. The recipe appeared in the July 1997 issue of Bon Appetit magazine.

From Rita Newell, innkeeper at Reading House in Watkins Glen, N.Y.

Ingredients

2	pounds rhubarb, washed, trimmed and cut crosswise into 1-inch pieces
2	to 2 1/2 cups sugar, according to taste
1/2	cup coarsely chopped crystallized ginger
	zest of 1 lemon

Directions

Combine the ingredients in medium, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Reduce the heat to medium and cook at least 20 minutes (it may take as long as 40 minutes), stirring often, until the mixture thickens and mounds on a spoon.