Spring rhubarb makes delicious desserts

Press, 10 October 1984, Page 12

Spring rhubarb makes delicious desserts

I like rhubarb all through the year, as long as it has been well cooked and prepared, but I think it is irresistible when it is still very young, pink and tender, in the flush of its first spring growth. Early spring rhubarb is expensive when it first appears in the shops — what a pity more people don’t grow their own. It isn’t a fussy plant and it doesn’t need a wonderful climate or a sheltered posi-; tion. It isn’t expensive to buy the rhubarb crowns or plants, either (if you don’t have friends who want to divide their clumps), but it takes a year or so to get under way, producing a good crop regularly, and it does like to be well fertilised.

I disagree with my husband saying that rhubarb likes horse manure and stack-bottom better than it

likes little white granules of fertiliser. Perhaps our rhubarb does well now because I collect horse manure at every opportunity and spread it over .the granules my husband throws in the rhubarb’s direction when he is distributing them around that i part of the garden. • Apart from the occasional fertilising you can forget about careful gardening where rhubarb is concerned. Once it gets under way, weeds don’t grow around it. I spread the leaves from the picked stalks in a layer just outside the outer leaves to discourage grass growth there, too. It is hard to cook very young rhubarb so that it doesn’t disintegrate. Now, I don’t try. I use thefact that it purees easily to make a smooth puree that I fold into the same volume of whipped cream, and serve in different ways.

I find that 1% cups of pureed rhubarb mixed with 1% cups of whipped cream makes 4 to 6 servings of rhubarb cream. To get this quantity of puree I cook 350 g of rhubarb (after trimming) with as little water as possible.

Cook it in a covered casserole dish in the oven if you have the oven on for another reason. Time and temperature are too variable to give precisely — just watch it every 10 minutes after the first 20 minutes of cooking, and re-

move it when a piece is soft. If you microwave it, see what it looks like after 5 minutes on high, and give it short bursts after this. If you cook it in a saucepan, add just enough water to stop it sticking

350 g trimmed rhubarb cup sugar 1 cup cream, whipped Put the cooked rhubarb in a food processor (or mouli or blender or sieve). Add sugar to taste. You should need between % and Vz cup. If you are freezing the mixture remember that the frozen mixture will not taste as sweet as the mixture at room temperature since freezing dulls sweetness.

Cool this puree to refrigerator temperature, then fold in about the same volume of stiffly whipped cream (1 cup cream makes about l¥z cups whipped cream).

Cream whipped with the metal blade of the food processor is very heavy and dense — excellent for this

Alison Hoist’s Food Facts,

purpose. Serve in one of three ways: (1) At refrigerator temperature (this is rhubarb fool). (2) Frozen firm but not hard — you will. have to watch the mixture in the freezer and fold the colder, firmer area near the side of ,the container into the middle. This is very good but not quite as good as

(3) Frozen hard (and stored in the freezer). Refri- , gerate 15-30 minutes then • break into pieces and pro- ’’ cess with the metal chopp- •> ing blade of the food proces-’ ’ sor until it is evenly sfnooth. This last version is abso- ; lutely delicious. You can do •* it ahead and refreeze it for 30 minutes or so — it is worth the trouble it is one of the treats of spring.