In Season: Tart rhubarb complements anything sweet

Now that spring is moving ahead, the rhubarb plants are over their winter senescence and the cranberry-red stalks are elongating. That sound you hear is me clapping in appreciation.

One of my earliest dinnertime memories is the small cup of stewed rhubarb my mom would set beside the main plate. It looked inviting - all stringy, reddish and off-white. It was sweet from the sugar she added. And it had the most wonderful tang. Here was a vegetable that magically had the virtues of fruit!

Many years later, I discovered that rhubarb’s big leaves and red stalks made a bold landscaping as well as culinary statement, and were as striking as any perennial in the garden. Not only that, but you could tear off a stalk, discard the poisonous leaves, and chew your way down the stalk to turn it into tangy pulp that you could suck dry, then spit it out in favor of a new crunchy bite.

Rhubarb has an affinity for fruit. Rhubarb and strawberry pie is a classic, but have you ever tried rhubarb and blueberry pie? The little, extra-flavorful, wild blueberries in the frozen fruit section of the freezer aisle make the pie double good. Or make a fruit crisp with rhubarb, strawberries and plums, sweetened with maple syrup and cooked in ramekins.

Sub-acid fruits are insipid - meaning they lack that acidic tang that whets the appetite and makes a fruit delicious. Mulberries, for example, are good-looking fruit, but they taste flat due to a lack of acid. Mix them with tangy rhubarb, however, and they come alive. Citric, malic and oxalic acids give rhubarb stalks their acid edge, although a concentration of oxalic acid makes the leaves poisonous. Oxalic acid binds with iron, rendering it unavailable in the bloodstream, and so can cause anemia. Substances in the roots make them a powerful purgative and are to be avoided. The long leaf stalks, though, have about as much oxalic acid as spinach and chard, and are the only edible part of the plant.

Because it tastes like fruit, rhubarb is usually classed as fruit, although botanically it is a vegetable. It’s made into fruit pies, either alone or in combination with other fruits, and it’s also made into jam. Chilled rhubarb soup can be refreshing on hot summer evenings, and rhubarb-strawberry sorbet can sometimes be found on the menu at Chez Panisse. Ginger, the herb angelica and orange make particularly nice flavor harmonies with rhubarb, but its sour taste also melts seamlessly into cinnamon, brown sugar and plums.

Rhubarb from the market or store is not likely to be contaminated with agricultural chemicals because rhubarb is usually pest and disease resistant. The amount of conventionally-grown rhubarb fluctuates, but usually hovers somewhere around just 1,000 acres in the whole country, with most production in northern states (rhubarb is native to Mongolia and Siberia). Washington produces hothouse-forced rhubarb, while Oregon farmers grow it in the field. It often shows up in our farmers’ markets in April when advancing spring gets those stalks growing.

Organic rhubarb is likely grown in the field as part of mixed crops. You’ll find the choicest stalks at farmers markets and organic grocery stores in early to mid-spring when the tender young leaves have unfurled and the stalks are ready for picking. The stalks toughen up as summer comes on, usually losing enough quality by late July that picking stops. The oxalic acid content of the stalks increases as the summer progresses, which is another reason it goes out of season in August.

When choosing rhubarb at the market, check both ends to make sure they aren’t dried out. Many varieties are stringy and need to be peeled, others are tender and need no peeling. If you have an ornamental garden, mix in just one perennial rhubarb plant, and you’ll not only have its good looks as a foil for finer-leaved plants, but you’ll probably have more than enough stalks for your kitchen use.

Besides its use as a partner for fruit, think of it as a sour ingredient in sauces to contrast with sweet meats like pork and chicken, and let its acid content cut through the fattiness of oily fish like salmon, or of poultry like duck or goose.

Rhubarb freezes well, so simply cut stalks into inch-long pieces and freeze on a cookie sheet in the freezer, then store the frozen pieces in a freezer bag for use during the off months. A rhubarb sauce with the Christmas goose would be just the ticket.

Of all the uses of rhubarb, however, I like the comfort of my mom’s stewed rhubarb, which is so simple to make: in a saucepan place 3 cups of cranberry-red rhubarb stalks, cut into 1-inch pieces. Add a scant teaspoon of grated fresh ginger, a quarter cup of water, a small pinch of salt, and two tablespoons of honey. Cover, bring just to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer. Cook until the rhubarb falls apart, adding a little more water if necessary. Serve warm, like my memories of my mom.

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Bags of frozen wild blueberries are available at Oliver’s and Whole Foods year ‘round, just waiting to be made into this wonderful pie. Make enough pie-crust dough for a bottom and top crust for a nine-inch pie pan. Have the crust dough rolled out into 12-inch rounds between sheets of waxed paper, and chilled in the fridge.

Rhubarb-Wild Blueberry Pie

Makes 1 pie

½ cup organic all-purpose flour

1½ cups sugar

3 cups 1-inch pieces of fresh or frozen rhubarb

3 cups wild blueberries

2 teaspoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice

2 rounds of pie-crust dough

2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, diced into pea-sized bits

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Mix flour and sugar together. Toss rhubarb, blueberries, and lemon juice together. Combine dry and wet ingredients and gently toss.

Line the pie plate with one of the rounds, then trim the dough so there’s at least a half-inch of overhang over the edge of the pan. Fill the pan with the filling and evenly dot the surface of the filling with the diced butter.

Place the second round of piecrust dough on top. Working along the edge of the pan, tuck the excess of the top crust under the edge of the bottom crust, then crimp with the back of a fork. Cut three or four 2-inch vents in the top crust with sharp scissors or knife.

Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 375 degrees for another 45-60 minutes - until the crust is golden brown and the juices are bubbling through the vents.

Allow the pie to cool until it’s just warm. If you want it a la mode, coconut gelato makes a great accompaniment.

Jeff Cox is a Kenwood-based food and garden writer. Reach him at jeffcox@sonic.net