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By Misa HayMay 11th 2020
Misa Hay

As rhubarb is in season, we thought it timely to revisit this blog from the archives, written by Misa Hay.

Pulling out a first few stalks of rhubarb in early May must surely be one of the most delightful things in gardener's year. There's nothing more exciting than taking on a rhubarb forcer (in our case an old burning bin) and being rewarded by lush, vividly pink, super-long stalks that almost beg to be eaten raw, just dipped into sugar! Forcing rhubarb is probably not a common thing in Shetland but covering the crowns will encourage the plants to make early growth and these forced stalks make a great substitute for fruit when there is little else available from the garden.

In Shetland cooking with rhubarb has a great tradition as it grows really well. In fact so well that a whole recipe book has been devoted to it. Rhubarbaria, written by the late Mary Prior - a frequent visitor to Shetland, is a brilliant and inpiring cookbook of every sort of rhubarb recipe. Rhubarb with meat or fish, vegetables, as a pudding, as a jam or in chutney are all included in this extensive resource. And since my rhubarb plant seems to have established itself quite well over the past couple of years I'm hoping I'll have enough to keep cropping throughout the summer to be able to try a few recipes from the book. I'm particularly intrigued by the idea of a lamb and rhubarb stew!

Anyway, to start with, here my two favourite recipes:

Rhubarb, Bramley Apple and Berry Crumble

Course: Main
Servings: 6 people
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes


Ingredients:

  • Rhubarb - 4 stalks
  • Bramley apples - 2 (peeled, cored and sliced)
  • Frozen berries - 1 handful
  • Scottish porridge oats - 1 cup
  • Granulated sugar - 1/2 cup
  • Shetland Dairies butter - 2 tbsp
  • Desiccated coconut - 2 tbsp (optional)
  • Ground cinnamon - 1/2 tsp
  • Vanilla powder - 1/2 tsp (my secret ingredient in many recipes)

Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 180C/ fan160C/ gas 4 and grease an ovenproof dish with butter.
  2. Put the rhubarb, apples and berries in the ovenproof dish and mix 2 tbsp of sugar and vanilla together and sprinkle over the fruit.
  3. For the topping: put the butter, oats, remaining sugar and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Rub together until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Heap the crumble over the fruit and sprinkle with some more sugar.
  4. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the top of the crumble is golden and crisp. Serve warm with double cream or custard.
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Rhubarb Liqueur

Course: Main
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes


Ingredients:

  • Rhubarb - 6 stalks
  • Vodka - 1 litre
  • Granulated sugar - 2 kilos
  • Water -
  • Vanilla pod - 1

Instructions:

  1. Chop the rhubarb finely to expose maximum surface area. Pulsing it a few times in a food processor makes the job much faster. Place in a glass jar add the vanilla pod (cut in half; lenght wise), cover with vodka by approximately an inch or so, seal, and allow to steep a month. Over this time, the flavour and color will leach out of the rhubarb, leaving the alcohol rosy and the rhubarb yellow-white.
  2. When the rhubarb has finished steeping, strain it from the alcohol, and filter the solution through several layers of cheesecloth. Coffee filters work really well too.
  3. Measure the final amount of alcohol - this is your base number. In a saucepan, heat 1.5 times that amount of water, and 1/2 - 3/4 that amount of sugar, depending on how sweet you like things. To give an example: 4 cups rhubarb alcohol would need 6 cups of water and 2-3 cups sugar. Let the sugar syrup cool, then add it to your filtered alcohol.
  4. Taste and add more sugar if desired. Let age for at least a month before enjoying. Rhubarb liqueur keeps at any temperature, but is especially delicious straight from the freezer. Try adding it to your Cava or Prosecco, just like Kir Royale.
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