Rhubarb Chicken (Savory Rhubarb Recipe) (2024)

FAQs

What's the best way to prepare rhubarb? ›

Stew or poach (8-10 mins) or roast (15 mins for forced, 20 for maincrop) rhubarb. Use it to make crumbles, pies or jam. Roast and purée to make rhubarb fool. Rhubarb can also be added to savoury dishes, as its tartness can stand up to fatty meats like pork and duck well.

Rhubarb is a truly special ingredient. With its vivid pink colour and distinctively tangy taste, it can be stewed, poached, roasted and puréed in a range of dishes as well as drinks. Use it in a comforting crumble, a classic syllabub, a fruity chutney or a zingy kebab sauce – the possibilities are endless.

Cut away and discard any tough, woody, or bruised parts of the stalks. Wash the stalks thoroughly and scrub with a vegetable brush. You don't need to peel peak-season rhubarb, but by midsummer, the stalks tend to be tough and fibrous. You might need to peel them to make them tastier.

Crisp apple slices compliment rhubarb's flavor as well, along with other in-season fruits, like plums and peaches. However, there's a softer, floral flavor that might just be the ultimate match for this sharp-tasting veggie, and that's lavender.

Rhubarb is good to eat in spring or early summer months, so before late July, to be exact. However, during the late summer months, rhubarb stalks tend to become more fibrous and start to lose their characteristic natural flavor. So, it's better not to eat rhubarb in the late summer.

A cup is a measure of volume while pounds is a measure of weight so a direct calculation is difficult. If we only take liquid weight into account, one cup is eight ounces and two pounds would be 32 ounces so two pounds of rhubarb would equate to 4 cups.

Depending on the variety, they may be only 12 inches long, or as long as two feet. To pick rhubarb, hold the stalk firmly, pull and twist. Do not use a knife to cut the stalks from the plant. The knife can carry diseases from plant to plant, and the remaining stalk can be a point of entry for other pests.

Why is rhubarb a laxative? ›

Sennoside A and other dianthrone derivatives are reported to be the active ingredients causing rhubarb's laxative effect (6). They are metabolized by β-glucosidase of enterobacterial origin and are converted into rhein anthrone, which produces the purgative activity.

You can freeze rhubarb raw, blanched or fully cooked. Regardless of which stage you choose to freeze at, the rhubarb will break down more as it defrosts, so it's best used in dishes where you don't need neat sticks of it.

The bottom line

Since it may be high in oxalate, you should avoid eating too much of it and try to select stalks from low-oxalate varieties. If you are prone to kidney stones, it might be best to avoid rhubarb altogether. On the bright side, rhubarb is a good source of antioxidants, vitamin K, and fiber.

Removing the first layer of skin will take away its "rubbery taste" and bring out the stalk's most appealing flavors, and the brown sugar will temper the tartness.

Once in the kitchen cut away the leafy top leaving only the colored stalks. Do not eat raw or cooked; rhubarb leaves and roots contain oxalic acid which can cause convulsions, coma, and death. Leaves are safe to compost. Freshly harvested stalks are best for cooking and freezing.

Slide hand down stalk and gently but firmly twist and pull. Pulling is better than cutting, but if you must, cutting is okay too, it will just take a little longer to recover and may leave the plant vulnerable at the cut – but let's face it, rhubarb is tough!