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Stewed Rhubarb
Peel the rhubarb and cut in one-inch pieces. Sprinkle with sugar and put in a saucepan with just enough water to keep rhubarb from burning. Very little water is needed as rhubarb provides its own moisture. Cook slowly until tender.
A bare-bones compote that depends on restraint with both water and heat. The original gives no quantities, so the proportions are yours to set.
- ProportionsFigure roughly 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar per pound of trimmed stalks, adjusted to the age of the rhubarb. A pound of stalks yields about 1 1/2 cups of stewed fruit, enough for three or four servings.
- Sugar first, then waitThe instruction to sprinkle with sugar is doing real work. Let the sugared pieces stand 20 to 30 minutes before they go near the stove and they will release enough juice that you may need no added water at all.
- Water"Just enough to keep rhubarb from burning" means a tablespoon or two in a heavy pan, not a covered inch. Too much and you get pink water with fibres in it.
- PeelingModern field rhubarb is generally tender enough that peeling is optional; strip only the coarse outer strings from thick, late-season stalks. Forced or hothouse stalks need nothing.
- LeavesCut away and discard every trace of leaf. Rhubarb leaves contain oxalic acid and related compounds and are not edible; only the stalk is used.
- Cooking timeTen to fifteen minutes over low heat is usually plenty. "Until tender" arrives quickly and is followed almost at once by collapse into strings, so pull it while the pieces still hold shape if you want them to.
- PanUse stainless steel or enamel. Rhubarb is acid enough to react with bare cast iron or unlined aluminium and pick up a metallic taste and grey cast.
- ServingServe warm or cold with cream, or alongside roast pork or oily fish, where the acidity does the same job as apple sauce.
Rhubarb reached European kitchens as a medicinal root long before it was eaten as a stalk; the culinary varieties spread through British and American gardens in the nineteenth century, when cheap sugar finally made the sourness manageable. Because it comes up in early spring, ahead of any true fruit, it was welcomed as the first fresh thing of the year, and in American households it was widely known as the "pie plant." The same fruit, cooked down harder with more sugar, does turn up in the period as a conserve or a filling for sweets.