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Stewed Rhubarb
Take some thick stalks of rhubarb, cut them into pieces about one and one-half inches long, and plunge them into a vessel of fast-boiling water. At the end of three minutes' time, when they should be tender, drain off the water, and serve the rhubarb with a liberal sprinkling of white sifted sugar on it.
A stripped-down treatment: no syrup, no baking, just a fast blanch and sugar at the table. It only works if the rhubarb is watched closely.
- The hinge is the three minutesRhubarb collapses into strings the moment it overcooks, and boiling water works fast. Start testing at two minutes and pull the pieces the instant a knife tip slides in with slight resistance; they will soften further as they drain.
- Leaves are not foodUse the stalks only. Rhubarb leaves contain oxalic acid in quantities high enough to cause poisoning and should be cut off and discarded, along with any leaf base still attached.
- "Thick stalks"Most likely mature, heavy stalks, which hold their shape in boiling water. Thin early-season stems soften much faster, so shorten the boil.
- Drain hardBoiled rhubarb holds a great deal of water and will flood the dish. Tip it into a colander and let it sit a full minute before plating, or the sugar dissolves into a pink puddle.
- White sifted sugarPlain granulated sugar pushed through a sieve so it falls evenly rather than in clumps; caster sugar does the same job without sifting. It is sprinkled on at serving rather than cooked in, so the rhubarb stays tart underneath.
- Peeling and stringinessField-grown stalks late in the season can be fibrous. Pull the outer skin from the wide end with a paring knife before cutting if the stalks feel tough or look coarse.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity; about 1 lb of trimmed stalks would make four small servings.
Rhubarb came into European kitchens by a roundabout route: the root was imported from Asia for centuries as a purgative drug, and only in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did the stalks become a food, a shift usually linked to the falling price of sugar. In nineteenth-century America it was known widely as "pie plant," one of the first things out of the kitchen garden in spring, and it turned up in pies, fools and sauces through the season. Oscar Tschirky's version is austere by comparison — a hotel cook's way of putting spring produce on the table with nothing between it and the diner but boiling water and a sugar sifter.