The forced rhubarb season is upon us, these beautiful tender shoots of veg are bright pink, full of flavour and deliciously fresh and crunchy – sadly, it is almost always over cooked – or stewed, which can be a good way to cook later season rhubarb, the stuff grown outside that is more green than pink, but is a bit of a waste of this tender, early season indoor grown stuff.
So, I like to cook mine for a long time at a very low temperature – this is an ideal chance to use the bottom oven of my ESSE. Cook it, setting it on its “slumber” mode, or rather, just leaving it on that setting but making use of that gentle heat , if like me you have total control of the bottom oven, set it to about 80 degrees.
Cooking time: Is around 2 hours
Ingredients:
- 500g rhubarb
- 10 black pepper corns
- 1 star anise
- 150g soft brown sugar
- A suitable piece of stoneware or a stainless-steel baking dish and a lid or some cling film.
Method:
- This is so simple, just trim the unusable leaves off the end of the stems and tidy up the thickest ends where they have been torn form the plant.
- Use a sharp knife to cut the ‘barb stems into 3 o 4 cm long pieces – I like to do this on an angle, but it is by no means essential, just a fancy of mine.
- Rinse these in a colander and then tip them into your cooking vessel with the sugar, star anise, thyme and peppercorns. Toss everything around gently using your hands to coat the stems in sugar.
- Cover the cooking vessel with either a tight fitting lid or a layer of cling film and pop it in to the ESSE in the bottom oven for around 2 hours – you can check it after an hour and maybe gently agitate it all around a little. You want the stems to be tender but still firm, this is when you can take them from the oven and allow them to cool – they are ready!
I like to use this either as a dessert of have a little added to yoghurt for a breakfast dish – you can blend half of the rhubarb with the pink juices if you like to make a sauce to serve with the un blitzed pieces of stalk, add to this a nice shortbread and some whipped cream and you have a dessert to die for – the perfect pre spring time pudding, it has a real whiff of daylight and warmth to come about it – just the tonic when were not quite there yet but very much wish we were. Speaking of tonic – any leftover juice is really very good shaken over ice with large quantities of dry gin…. apparently……
Recipe created by Tim Maddams. Tim is a chef, food writer and cookery teacher who produces seasonal recipes for ESSE at his home in Inverness using ingredients grown in his kitchen garden. ESSE first met Tim over ten years ago when he regularly co-featured in the hit TV series River Cottage. During his time as head chef at River Cottage Tim pioneered ethical, local, seasonal produce and became a key spokesperson in the area of responsibly-sourced food.
Tim’s aim is to show off the “tremendous versatility” of the ESSE 600 X electric range cooker. The new 600 X has ESSE’s classic heat storage construction, patented ovens, beautiful colour finishes and the reassuring ‘solidity’ with modern, electric controllability and responsiveness.
