The most famous seasonal desserts of old Europe have a mysterious plant from the Tibetan mountains as their basis.
Fragrant rhubarb is one of the oldest products on the European table. It is mentioned in Greek, Roman and Arabic chronicles.
Marco Polo wrote that a huge amount of excellent rhubarb grows in China. He was definitely not mistaken, because rhubarb, like its close relative buckwheat (which reached Europe much later), comes from the highlands of Central Asia.
Polo’s message greatly excited Columbus – confident that he had sailed to those very lands, he wrote to the Spanish king Ferdinand V that he was about to bring the best rhubarb from India. Of course, he mistook something else for the desired plant, but this is no longer essential for cooking and history.
Rhubarb was originally used for medicinal purposes – for all diseases at once. But, as often happens with medicines (remember the history of vermouths and bitters), it got from the pharmacy shelf to the holiday table.
The balance of sweet and sour tastes made rhubarb an ideal ingredient for desserts. It makes excellent candied fruits, it is boiled with honey or sugar, getting all kinds of sauces, preserves and jams.
Rhubarb is a great friend with fruits. It is combined either with very sweet fruits – figs, peaches, so that it shades them with its sourness, or with apples and strawberries, which are close in taste profile, with which it masterfully accompanies.
Crumble, a lazy pie from the British shores, in which the fruit filling is not wrapped in dough, but only sprinkled with sweet flour crumbs, is a true triumph of rhubarb.
England is one of the leaders in the consumption of this plant, mousses and puddings, compotes (fruit cooked in syrup) and pies from rhubarb are prepared and eaten throughout the kingdom.
Like Espelette peppers and Neapolitan tomatoes, there is also “that very” rhubarb – grown in the “rhubarb triangle”.
This is the name of a valley in the English Yorkshire, located in the center of the island of Britain. The surrounding hills make its microclimate colder and wetter than in neighboring regions, and these are ideal conditions for rhubarb.
Fertilizer for vegetable gardens comes from sheep farming (by the way, lamb with rhubarb and mint is a special treat). The local rhubarb is hard, dense and crunchy. Almost blood-red at the root, the color smoothly turns into milky white at the top. Its leaves are small, yellowish and inedible.
On the other side of the English Channel, English products are treated with distrust – they say, how can something worthy of our great cuisine grow on this island?
But Yorkshire rhubarb is just the case when centuries-old rivalry turns into mutually beneficial cooperation. The greatest dessert – French rhubarb galette is best made with the Yorkshire variety.
Classic French rhubarb pie is delightfully simple and beautiful. It is made with ordinary shortcrust pastry: flour, butter and lots of sugar to shade the acidity. Sometimes yolks are added to the dough, but purists reject this.
The edges of the dough are tucked in slightly carelessly, so that the finished pie looks like a rustic pizza. The filling, on the contrary, is laid out artistically.
Geometric patterns – diamonds, stripes, parquet herringbone – are created from rhubarb stalks, cut into small bars and boiled in caramel syrup. The magic of this pie is hidden in the contrast between the precise content and the casual form, the dry crispy dough and the pink juiciness of the filling, the sourness and sweetness.
And who would dare say that our ancestors were mistaken in considering rhubarb a medicine? It is certainly a wonderful remedy for a bad mood.
And here is the recipe:
Fruit layer
- 675 g rhubarb
- 3 tbsp orange juice
- 3 tbsp sugar
Dough
- 200 g flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- a pinch of salt
- 1 cup natural yogurt
Topping
- 1 tbsp orange zest
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp ground ginger
Preparation:
- Cut the rhubarb into small squares, put in a saucepan, add orange juice and sugar. Put on the fire and simmer for about 10 minutes.
- Mix the flour with baking powder and salt
Gradually add yogurt and knead an elastic dough. - Roll out the dough into a thin layer on a table dusted with flour. In a separate bowl, mix the grated orange zest, ginger and sugar. Put the mixture on the dough layer.
- Roll into a tight roll.
- Put the stewed rhubarb in a baking dish.
- Cut the roll into 1 cm thick buns and put them on top of the rhubarb.
- Put the pie in an oven preheated to 200 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
- Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.
