Rhubarb with caramelized onions? Rhubarb salsa? Rhubarb and lentil potage? I can hear you now, the ornery ones of you that is: What the hell, woman…rhubarb’s for pie. Crisps. Crunches.

For April’s Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 event, I decided to explore the savory side of rhubarb, since there’s a ton of it growing about 50 feet from my front door. As rhubarb is technically a vegetable/herb, why not try some recipes that utilize rhubarb as a vegetable?

Hey, salsa has a tangy bite. I bet rhubarb could work in salsa. So I tracked down a viable candidate in The Joy of Rhubarb: The Versatile Summer Delight. It’s a classic Mexican salsa, with fresh cilantro, green onion (which made me happy; I can’t stand regular onions raw), lime juice, jalapeño for a bit of bite, barely-blanched rhubarb, and lots of sweet peppers and more sugar than salsa normally would have, to counteract the rhubarb’s bite.

Dad’s verdict? “It would be great on hamburgers. By the way, we’re having hamburgers tonight….” Subtle hint there, Dad. Yeah, he went home with some rhubarb salsa. Linda thought it had a bit of a bitter rhubarb taste to it and suggested more sweetener. I loved it. Fresh, crisp, clean salsa taste with the rhubarb adding uniqueness without overpowering it.

Overall verdict for rhubarb salsa: Two snaps up.

Jump to the rhubarb salsa recipe now or continue reading.

balsamic-rhubarb reduction

I swear, this was some fancy-pants shit I made. Asparagus with balsamic-rhubarb reduction (recipe here). It was dead easy, too. You cook down some balsamic vinegar and chopped rhubarb — along with a good little heap of sugar — until most of the liquid has evaporated and you get a thickish sauce. In this preparation, it’s served with roasted asparagus. You could really impress some guests with this stuff.

Dad’s verdict: Tasty, but the roasted asparagus was too soft. He grabbed a stalk of raw asparagus from the 10-pound bag I’d just picked and dipped that in the reduction instead. Linda’s verdict: “Too strong for asparagus. Would be really good with pork or something.” I liked the contrast between the tangy, balsamic-flavored reduction and the mild roasted asparagus, but I see her point. Comme-ci, comme ça.

Overall verdict for rhubarb-balsamic reduction: Two snaps sideways.

lentil and rhubarb potage

The original title of this Mark Bittman recipe is “Lentil and rhubarb stew with Indian spices,” but it’s too thick for a stew. So I did some Google-fu and discovered it was more of a potage, which also sounds fancier.

And man, it may be one ugly mofo of a dish, but damn, lentil and rhubarb potage is tasty. I was shocked. It had no added sugar. I was certain it would be inedible. But I had to try it, because it has cardamom in it, which is my new favorite spice ever.

Linda’s verdict: Really good and interesting. Nice balance of complex flavors. I’m transling from “Mmm” here, by the way.

Overall verdict for rhubarb and lentil potage: Two snaps up.

caramelized onion and rhubarb compote on herbed yogurt cheese

Hey Aunt Geri, I finally broke in the yogurt cheese maker! And all was good. This recipe, heavily adapted from one for caramelized onion, beet, and rhubarb compote, made me nervous. For one, it was another fancy-pants recipe. For another, I was adapting the living hell out of it. I’m not good at that sort of thing. Usually my adaptations tend to turn out more like the rhubarb mistake below. And for yet another thing, I was winging the whole herbed yogurt cheese thing. Entirely.

If you want to adapt the recipe like I did, simply make it without the beet purée, and add more maple syrup when you add the rhubarb, about 2 tablespoons worth. Trust me, you’ll need it. For the herbed cheese the easy way, go with a slightly sweet prepared cheese spread like Aloutte…because that was what I was shooting for. I put them in baked wonton cups, but they’d be better on small squares of puff pastry.

Dad’s verdict: “I really like the cheese and compote filling, but those wontons are like chewing on glass.” Linda’s verdict: “I love that filling!” Me? Shocked. And happy it worked. :p Cue the Smiths.

Overall verdict for caramelized onion and rhubarb compote: Two snaps way up.

rhubarb mistake

Since I had Mexican, Indian, and vaguely Italian (in the form of the caramelized onion and rhubarb compote), I decided to try incorporating rhubarb into a Thai curry. I’m not even going to link to the recipe I worked from, because the experiment was an utter disaster, and I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, so I don’t want to impugn the blogger who posted it.

Suffice it to say: disaster. Coconut milk wasn’t enough sweetness to balance rhubarb’s astringency, the rhubarb became gloopy, and it tasted awful. Oh well.

The experience did cement my dedication to you, the reader: You will never be subjected to a recipe I don’t absolutely love. I want everything you try to be something well-tested and well-liked before it ever hits this page.

Overall verdict for rhubarb mistake: Two snaps way down. Let’s forget all about it and move on to the rhubarb salsa recipe.

rhubarb salsa

Adapted from The Joy of Rhubarb: The Versatile Summer Delight by Theresa Millang.

2 cups finely diced fresh rhubarb
½ cup sweet red pepper, chopped
½ cup sweet yellow pepper, chopped
½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped
3 green onions, tops only, chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons brown sugar, or to taste
salt and ground black pepper to taste

Blanch rhubarb in a saucepan of boiling water for 10 seconds. Seriously. Ten seconds. No more. Remove rhubarb promptly from heat, dump into a strainer, and rinse under cold water until rhubarb is lukewarm or cool. This is to stop the blanching process.

Place rhubarb in a glass bowl.  Add remaining ingredients, and mix well. Refrigerate at least an hour before serving to allow flavors to develop.

© Amy for Shiny Cooking, 2010. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: balsamic vinegar, cilantro, lentils, onions, rhubarb, sweet peppers

How about a nice bowl of cheery orange-colored soup to warm your tummy on a cold winter night? I only recently began to appreciate soup, having been too lazy to properly appreciate it in the past — soup isn’t often stick-to-your-ribs fare and I’m pretty side-dish impaired, as far as getting out bread or making a salad to go with the soup.

There are two kinds of soups that tickle my fancy. If they meet one of these two criteria and are vegetarian, I’ll likely try them, no matter what the ingredients. One is the all-day kind. Prep everything in the morning or the night before, and the whole lovely melange of vegetables and broth putters away in a crock pot or on a stovetop all day. The other is the quick kind. From cookbook to table in an hour or less, the quick soup earns its flavor not from slow simmering infusing the vegetables with flavor, but more from shots of spice that deliver a quick punch.

This winter soup is of the latter variety; a thick purée resembling nothing other than a carrot or sweet potato baby food, it’s chock full of grown-up flavors like ginger and cumin that blend together in silken bliss. You’ll certainly get a perk-up of summery beta carotene from this soup, whose vegetables straddle an epicurean line between apples picked from autumn trees and carrots pulled from warm late-summer soil, and hearty ingredients pulled from winter storage.

It satisfies winter’s comfort-food cravings while delivering a whisper of the autumn just lost.

winter soup of carrots, lentils, apple, and sweet potato

I use an immersion blender for in-the-pot puréeing. It’s a zillion times more convenient than the conventional method of pouring the soup into a blender in batches and puréeing that way. However, If you don’t have an immersion blender, feel free to purée it in a blender or try it chunky. Recipe adapted from Allrecipes.com

prep: 20 minutes
to table: 60 minutes
servings: 6
special equipment: immersion blender

1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) salted butter
2 large sweet potatoes
3 large carrots
1 apple
1 onion
1/2 cup lentils, any variety
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika
4 cups vegetable broth
plain yogurt, for garnish (optional: destroys the vegan-ness, of course)

Peel and chop sweet potatoes, carrots, and apple. Chop the onion. You’ll be puréeing this later, so it’s not necessary to be super-precise.

In a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onion and cook five minutes, until translucent or nearly so. Add chopped sweet potatoes, carrots, and apple and cook another five minutes.

Now dump in everything else (except the yogurt, of course): Stir in the lentils, ginger, black pepper, salt, cumin, chili powder, paprika and vegetable broth. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover, and simmer about 30 minutes, until the lentils and vegetables are soft.

With an immersion blender, purée the soup until smooth. Serve garnished with a healthy dollop of plain yogurt. You may garnish with sour cream if you like, but I’ve tried both and the yogurt tastes better and melts into the soup better when stirred in.

© Amy for Shiny Cooking, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: apples, carrots, ginger, lentils, sweet potato