Roasted rhubarb

A week or so back, Dad gave me some rhubarb stalks from the new garden and I finally got round to cooking them last night.

I had thought about making a traditional rhubarb and custard tart or a crumble but it was a hot day and reflecting on the thought of me bikini-clad in a fortnight’s time, I decided to roast it and pair with some low-fat crème fraiche!

Roasting is a great way to cook rhubarb as it doesn’t reduce down to that unappetising green pulp synonymous with the vegetable (yes, apparently it’s a vegetable!) and it keeps its vibrant colour. Being greedy when Dad offered it up I chose the fattest stalks I could find but I have learnt since that the finer stems are less eye-wincing and generally sweeter.

I chopped the rhubarb into 2 inch pieces in a bowl, grated half an orange zest ontop and doused the pieces with the juice of a whole orange. I added three heaped table spoons of Demerara sugar a generous swiz of vanilla extract and a few pinches of cinnamon and poured the mix evenly into a baking tin. Then left in the fan oven at full whack for 20 minutes.

The results were pretty and smelled good. The caramelised zest tasted like the banana tarte tatin I posted on here a while back. I served with crème fraiche but I think Greek yoghurt or custard would work equally well. My four stalks made about four portions worth so I stirred some into my pukkola breakfast this morning.