Rhubarb Catch-Up

Summer has been so slow to get going, it seems the only thing growing out in the back yard is rhubarb.  Strangely, it's doing so well we can hardly use it all.  So to catch up, we made ketchup.

Rhubarb ketchup is a thing of great beauty.  It looks good, it tastes good, and it's a great way to use the big old fibrous stalks that you left too long to reasonably use in a pie...

Hot and Sour Rhubarb Ketchup

loosely adapted from Marguerite Patten's ketchup recipes

1-1/2 lb chopped rhubarb stalks
2 sweet white onions, diced
2 c water
1/2 c raw cane sugar + more to taste
3 cloves garlic, crushed
3 thai chili peppers, stemmed and split
1 tbsp fish sauce
2 c spiced vinegar (see below)

Combine the rhubarb, onion, water, sugar, garlic and hot peppers in a large sauce pan.  Bring to a boil.  Stir well to make sure all the sugar is dissolved, then turn down and simmer until the rhubarb and onions are soft.   

Puree the mixture with an immersion blender (or in batches in a regular blender, or run it through a food mill) and return to the stove.  Simmer until reduced to thick sauce.  

Stir in the fish sauce and spiced vinegar.  Taste it; add more sugar if needed or otherwise adjust your seasoning.  Simmer until desired ketchup-thickness.

Transfer to a clean jar or bottle and store in the refrigerator.   Alternatively, you can fill sterile jars with hot ketchup and heat process for 10 minutes, saving the fridge space.

Don't have cheesecloth around to tie those spices up in? Don't
worry.  Infuse the vinegar then strain them out.

Spiced Vinegar

2 c white vinegar (5% acetic acid)
1 tsp fennel seed
1 tsp whole cloves
1 tsp broken-up star anise
1 cinnamon stick

Put everything in a saucepan with a lid.  Heat over medium until it comes to a boil then remove from heat.  Leave, covered, for at least 2 hours to infuse the vinegar.  Strain through a sieve when you are ready to use.

~~~

Marguerite Patten died recently, at the age of 99.  I can't help but figure she had something right about cooking and eating to have made that far.  

I didn't know anything about Patten before I met Fefe Noir and her ever-increasing collection of old British cookbooks.  What we have of Patten's (handed down from her mother and carefully protected in resealable bags so that the loose pages don't get lost) only scratches the surface of her bibliography, but they are well used -- as much for technique and inspiration as for actual recipes.  If nothing else, I owe her a great debt of gratitude for giving me permission to make ketchup out of things that aren't tomatoes.*

*I grew up in Heinz country.  Literally in the midst of tomato fields that fed the local factory which produced ketchup from 1910 until it closed in 2014.  I was reared on Heinz ketchup** so the idea that ketchup is made, always, from tomatoes was just woven into me.

**Well, okay, if we bought ketchup, it was Heinz, but mom did make her own ketchup.  From tomatoes.

This is what I love about Marguerite Patten: she is full of solutions.  I tore the kitchen apart looking for cheesecloth to tie all my spices in a bundle for simmering with the rhubarb.  As I was puzzling how I was going to get my spice mix infused through the ketchup I happen to notice that some of Patten's recipes used spiced vinegar, not a spice sachet.  Whoa-ho, then!  What a fantastic solution.  Infuse the vinegar and stir it in later.  Brilliant.

There is no recipe in her book for rhubarb ketchup, and certainly no recipe with thai chilies and star anise.  But she is very reliable about the proportions of fruit to sugar to vinegar.  So when we found ourselves with a glut of rhubarb (the opposite problem to what we faced a couple years ago), the obvious plan of attack was to pull the 500 Recipes: Jams, Pickles, Chutneys off the shelf.

~~~

Hot and sour rhubarb ketchup is fancy, but it's not snobby.  Served here with  grilled cheese made with sprouted grain sourdough bread from Rocket Bakery and smoked cheddar cheese from Five Brothers Artisan Cheese purchased at Admiral's Market.  Er, okay, maybe a little bit snobby...

Oh and by the way, you really want to make this ketchup.  Working on the recipe I knew we hit it when, tasting a batch, I immediately thought, "this would go really well with cava!".  Which means it would go really well with champagne... and there's your excuse to have champagne with your french fries.  The good news is that although you can serve it to your snobby friends, it's not really a snobby ketchup: also goes well with burgers and beer.   

Three Cheers for Rhubarb!

One batch of rhubarb cordial turns into three summer drinks.  Perfect for warm evenings on the front porch.

From the Left: The Rhubarb Sangria, The Rhubarb Royale, and The Rhubarb Daiquiri.  One batch of rhubarb cordial provides the extra-special not-so-secret ingredient for all these drinks.

The Rhubarb Daiquiri

(for a pitcher)
1/2 c. freshly squeezed lime juice
1-1/2 c. rhubarb cordial (see recipe below)
1 c. amber rum

(for an abstemious single drink)
1 oz. freshly squeezed lime juice
3 oz. rhubarb cordial
2 oz. amber rum

This is not the over-sweetened slushy stuff you get at Thank God I Don't Work Here on two-for-one Tuesdays.  We have provided the measures for a single daiquiri, but make a pitcher.  Really, make a pitcher.  This is a rock star of a drink.  

Mix all the ingredients in a glass pitcher sometime in the afternoon, like just before you weed your garden or take your dogs for a long walk.  Chill in the refrigerator.  Rim serving glasses using a wedge of lime and dredging in sugar (we like a martini glass for this).  Put the glasses in the freezer.  Go do something outside for a couple of hours.  Give the daiquiri a stir before pouring into chilled glasses and enjoy.  Here's the good news: because you made a pitcher, there's another one waiting for you.


The Rhubarb Royale

(per single serving)
1 oz. rhubarb cordial (see recipe below)
3 oz. dry white cava

Pour one ounce of rhubarb cordial in the bottom of a champagne flute, top up with cava (about 3 oz.).  Garnish with a curl of fresh rhubarb (a carrot peeler works perfectly for this).  You could, of course, substitute champagne or other sparkling white wine for the cava, but why would you?  Cava is a beautiful bubbly, made in the same method as champagne and is substantially less expensive than similar-quality french champagnes.  

When we were moving from Ontario to Newfoundland, we took our time driving out.  In Nova Scotia, we spent a few days at Risser's Beach Provincial Park, taking a break from the road, picking up sand dollars in the surf, and making ridiculously pretentious meals on our campfire (like fire-roasted beetroot and goat cheese salad).  One day when we were too hot and tired for cooking, we drove down the road to MacLeod's Canteen and had fish & chips (some of the best fish & chips we ever ate, incidentally) and rhubarb fizz.  We went back the next day for more rhubarb fizz.  We are fans of fish & chips (who isn't?) but the rhubarb fizz completely stole the show, and we talk about periodically even now, 11 years later.  The Rhubarb Royale is a grown-up (that is, alcoholic) tribute to that rhubarb fizz on the beach.

Hey... where did this cat come from?

The Rhubarb Sangria

1 c. rhubarb mash (by-product of rhubarb cordial, see below)
1/2 c. brandy
1/2 c. freshly squeezed orange juice
1 bottle cheap red Spanish wine   
orange wedges for garnish
ice cubes

In a blender, puree rhubarb mash and brandy.  Pour rhubarb-brandy mixture into a glass pitcher or carafe (the container needs to be able to handle 1.5 liters of liquid).  Let the flavours mingle for a little while (long enough to fold a load of laundry or do some dinner prep work).  Add orange juice and red wine to the pitcher, stir thoroughly.  Serve over ice in red wine glasses or tumblers, garnished with a wedge of orange.

Use an inexpensive red wine for this, but not one that will leave you with a headache. So pick a red wine you might drink on it's own, but stick to the lower price range that you typically buy from (we used a temperanillo).  The rhubarb matches the wine for flavour and there's a lovely subtle burn from the brandy; altogether a beautiful way to boost your fiber intake and get a good dose of antioxidants; not to mention all that vitamin C between the rhubarb and the orange juice.  Oh yes, we're totally selling this to you as a health-food... 

How to Make a Ridiculously Easy Rhubarb Cordial

recipe adapted from Eat Like a Girl

2 lbs. rhubarb, chopped roughly (thumb-sized hunks)
1-1/2 c. water
1 c. (scant) sugar

Combine rhubarb, water and sugar in a heavy bottomed saucepan.  Bring to a boil over medium heat and cook for about 15 minutes, until rhubarb is softened and has broken down and become stringy.  The sauce should be slightly reduced and thickened.  Stay in the kitchen while the rhubarb is cooking and watch your pot -- it can boil over suddenly if you aren't paying close attention (ask me how I know).  Remove from heat and let cool about a half hour (hey, that's enough time to read a couple chapters of that book you are trying to finish!).

Left: Rhubarb chopped into thumb-sized pieces.  Right:  The thick stringy stew ready for straining.

Strain the liquid into a jar or other suitable glass container:  this is the cordial, congratulations, it really is that easy.  The cordial will keep refrigerated for about a week.  If you want to save some for later, freeze in ice cube trays or other appropriate-sized containers then transfer the frozen blocks to freezer bags to make your freezer space more flexible.  Reserve the rhubarb mash for sangria (above) or to use in smoothies in the next couple of days.  

Most cordial instructions tell you to use a jelly bag for straining.  We bought a jelly bag a few years ago and used it exactly once:  for some reason, jelly bags are cat hair magnets, so it didn't last long in our house.  We use a drip coffee system for straining cordials, jellies and such the like, and have found it has a couple of advantages.  Firstly, the gold mesh filter does not seem to capture cat hair.  Secondly, there is not need for creating a complex string and weights hanging system; you just set the filter on top of your jar and don't worry about it.  Plastic drip holders and filters come in a couple of sizes (mug sized and coffee pot sized), are pretty inexpensive and a lot less messy than mucking around with muslin or jelly bags.  

Dude, where's my rhubarb?

In which Fefe Noir and caribougrrl search the countryside for abandoned rhubarb patches, embarrass a fish monger, and make a surprising discovery close to home.

We stopped in Perry's Cove to have a quick look for rhubarb and took advantage of the scenery to take a picture
of what 4 lbs of fresh cod looks like.

Over the last couple of weeks, we have been using a lot of rhubarb; partly because it is rhubarb season but largely because it has been a bit of work perfecting a particular rhubarb recipe for the blog.  Something we've discovered with this blogging business is that "this is great, next time we should try this or tweak that" is fine when you are cooking for yourself, but it doesn't pass muster when you are cooking in order to tell someone else how to make something.  Through the jigs and the reels, we have exhausted our rhubarb supply.  We have exhausted the supply of rhubarb we can politely beg from our neighbours.

Fefe had a tickle in the back of her mind of having seen a decent rhubarb patch somewhere, that looked like it didn't belong to anyone.  Maybe along the shoreline?  Maybe at an abandoned house?  Somewhere in Newfoundland for sure, she thought.  Fefe, by the way, has a poorly developed hippocampus. We figured even if we didn't find the patch from her memory, there are enough derelict homes around that we might strike gold on our rhubarb mission.

There are some great old houses, sadly abandoned,
but that's the way of things.  Watch your step for sheep
poop, but some apple trees and raspberry canes to keep
in mind for future forays. 

It sounds a bit shady, I know... but think of it like dumpster-diving for rural people.  Food left uneaten simply because it's not actively tended.  (We did have cash in our pockets and were prepared to buy some at a roadside stand if necessary.  But free is better when it doesn't cause any harm.  So a-scavenging we went.)

At a Sunday-drive pace, we meandered through Carbonear and Freshwater with no luck, but it was early still.  Heading into Victoria, Fefe and I startled the dogs (happily snoozing in the back seat already) with a burst of excitement.  Not rhubarb, no.  As good or better: a sign for a fish truck!

The significance of this is probably lost on most, if not all, of you reading here.  Firstly, in Newfoundland, it's not at all strange to stop on the side of the road or in a parking lot and buy fresh, frozen or salted fish from a truck.  Up until sometime last summer or fall, one of these trucks was permanently situated on the south side of Harbour Grace.  So for years, we bought our fish across the harbour from the house.  Lovely.  But then the truck was gone, and until the moment we spotted that fish truck sign, we hadn't found one convenient to home for buying local fish.  So what luck, right?  Whee!

He was out of halibut and scallops, so we went for the fresh
cod.  Note the greens hanging in bags in the background.

In all the ado I forgot to ask the very charming fish truck man his name, but: the fish truck is in Victoria on Thursdays and Saturdays, and in Clarke's Beach on Wednesdays and Fridays.  He was happy enough to let us take a picture of his set up, but turns out to be camera-shy himself.  Or maybe we just startled him with what must have seemed like disproportionate exuberance? (I have to confess that when I get excited about something, I talk too much and too fast and it's possibly overwhelming if you were planning on a calm, steady, ordinary day of selling fish.)  In any case, he waved away the camera and ran for cover.  

Since we had just started out, not yet found rhubarb, and were reluctant to turn back, we bought some ice at the gas station up the road and turned our rhubarb basket into a makeshift cooler.  Did I mention that when I'm excited and talking too much, I sometimes take leave of my senses?  I bought 4 lbs of fresh cod (there are only two of us) AND a big bag of turnip greens (our garden is full of both salad greens and cooking greens... I mean, it's evident the absolute last grocery item we could possibly need is leafy green veg, but there you have it, I just had to have some).

caribougrrl wore her favourite rhubarb-hunting footwear,
 but to be honest, you'd have trouble finding an event
that she didn't think of as an excuse to wear rubber boots.  

As an aside, but an important one if you ever plan to tour Newfoundland by car, the drive we continued on is part of the Baccalieu Trail, one of the official "scenic routes" of the province.  Newfoundland has few roads and most roads outside of St. John's that aren't the Trans Canada highway, are coastal, so driving almost anywhere in the province is part of a scenic route.  I don't mean to sound dismissive... the scenery really is spectacular in a wild-fantastic tumble-into-the-ocean way.  Not that we noticed, eyes trained as they were to try and pick out patches of broad deep-green leaves breaking up the otherwise scrappy early summer vegetation.  Incidentally, the blueberry plants are heavy with flowers right now, and not that I'm wishing time away, but I'm already looking forward to berry season.  


We diverted whenever the road looked reasonably safe and occasionally pulled over to check out some promising vegetative patterns (no luck).  We spotted a few lonely looking rhubarb patches that on closer inspection appeared to belong to a house being lived in.  We took the dogs for a walk at Perry's Cove (no rhubarb) and toyed with the idea of knocking on a couple of doors where the backyard rhubarb looked like it wasn't being used.  Yet in the end, our mainlander selves got the best of us and we decided to keep looking rather than be sociable.

In Ochre Pit Cove, there was a brilliant looking patch of rhubarb that seemed to belong to an obviously empty and unused house.  But so many neighbours out about.  Deciding to wait for a more covert opportunity we pressed on.  The gas gauge by now was getting a bit low; worrisomely low actually.  We went past a few abandoned properties taking a mental note to check on the way home if we didn't have better luck before then.  There are some really huge rhubarb patches tended in front yards and back yards along that stretch of coast.  We began to develop rhubarb-envy.  When the gas station I knew would be our saving grace in Northern Bay turned out to be closed down, we decided that was the signal to turn ourselves around and head back.

Those abandoned properties we saw earlier were too long abandoned.  If there had ever been rhubarb, there wasn't any more.  But some good finds anyway:  a few apple trees in bloom, though from the evidence at the scene, we might have to fight through some grazing sheep for them come fall (I am only mostly kidding, I wouldn't aggravate sheep just for a few apples, and we do have an apple spot already, but you never know when you need a second picking ground).  But those are the breaks, sometimes these scavenging trips are a bust.  For good measure, we kept going slowly and kept our eyes peeled all the way home.  And forget the money in our pockets, not only had we spent it on fish and greens, but there was nary a roadside rhubarb stand to be seen.    

When we'd finally given up, easy walking distance from
home, there it was.  The mythical feral rhubarb!

A few hours after we'd started out, feeling a teensy bit disappointed (but we had fish!), we drove back into Harbour Grace.  Which is when Fefe Noir was struck by a metaphorical thunderbolt.  Harbour Grace.  Along the water.  Walking distance from home.  THAT might be where she'd seen the rhubarb.  

The full haul.

Sure enough, precariously clinging to the edge, there it was.  A rogue patch of beautiful rhubarb, likely taken root after being dumped with other yard waste over the edge.  So we got out, sat securely on what we hoped was solid cliff-edge and plucked enough rhubarb to both meet our immediate needs and ensure some new growth. 

Likely part of the reason we exhausted our own rhubarb is that we have been picking it incorrectly over the last few years and thereby not encouraging it to spread.  As it turns out, you should not cut it with a knife.  Grab and twist those suckers right out of the ground. (If you'll allow me another diversion, here is where I confess that I grew up parented by gardeners, gardeners who know how to maintain rhubarb, gardeners who undoubtedly taught me how to pick rhubarb.  I should have paid better attention.)

Fully successful and feeling rather pleased with ourselves, we took our bounty back home.  We ignored the spatchcocked chicken in the fridge prepped for our supper; it could wait another day.  What we needed at the end of this day was obvious: fresh cod, wrapped with sage in bacon, cooked on the barbecue   Life doesn't get any better.  Well, it does, but if I told you what we drank with it, that would spoil an upcoming post...

Bacon and sage wrapped cod.  Life could be worse.