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Baked Rhubarb
Place 1 lb. rhubarb cut in short lengths without peeling in a covered baking dish. Add 1 cup sugar and 1/4 cup water. Cover and bake in moderate (375 degrees) oven until tender. To give variety, occasionally add a little orange or lemon peel, or a bit of ginger root or preserved ginger. A few raisins, or prunes, or chopped dates, or figs cut in small pieces are most pleasing.
A straightforward oven compote that holds its shape far better than stewed rhubarb. The only real decisions are the pan, the sugar, and knowing when to stop.
- Oven375F is given in the original and is right; a covered dish at that heat steams the fruit rather than roasting it. 30 to 40 minutes for 1-inch lengths, checking at 25.
- Stalks onlyRhubarb leaves contain high levels of oxalic acid and are not eaten. Trim them off and discard, along with any dried or split ends of stalk.
- Do not stirThe point of baking rather than stewing is intact pieces. Leave the dish alone until the rhubarb is just yielding to a knife tip, then let it cool in the pan without disturbing it.
- SugarOne cup to a pound is sweet by current taste; field and hothouse rhubarb both take well to 1/2 to 2/3 cup, and you can add more after baking. Slender pink forced stalks need less than thick green garden ones.
- VesselUse glass, ceramic or enamelled cast iron. Rhubarb is acid enough to pick up a metallic taste from bare aluminium or unlined cast iron.
- The dried fruitRaisins, prunes, dates and figs all absorb liquid and sugar, so add them at the start and expect a thicker, less liquid result. Whole ginger root should be a coin or two, lifted out before serving; preserved ginger goes in chopped and stays.
- Citrus peelUse pared zest with no white pith, a strip or two per pound, or the syrup turns bitter over a long bake.
- YieldA pound serves about four at breakfast, with cream, yoghurt or on porridge. It will keep several days covered in the refrigerator, and is good cold.
Rhubarb reached the British and American kitchen as a medicinal root long before it was eaten as fruit, and only became a common spring dessert in the nineteenth century once cheap sugar made the stalks palatable. Baking rather than stewing was sometimes recommended because the covered dish keeps the pieces whole, and the variations given here — ginger, citrus peel, dried fruit — are ways of ringing changes on one cheap spring vegetable.