I was ecstatic when I chanced upon the rhubarb at Finest just yesterday while shopping for the BBQ stuff. I've been looking out for rhubarb for quite some time but I just don't see it around. The rhubarb is part of the buckwheat family and it was first used in Northern China for medicinal purposes. However, it has made its way into England where the rhubarb pie became ubiquitous.


The rhubarb stems

Most people mistake the rhubarb as a fruit because of its use in pies and jams. However even though rhubarb is really good in desserts, it can be used in savoury foods as well.

It looks a lot like a red celery hence my grandma actually mistook it for celery when I brought it home. As I did not buy much of it, I couldn't make an entire rhubarb crumble. Instead, I decided that the apple and rhubarb combination will do just as fine.

After washing and peeling off the skin of the rhubarb, J sliced it into cubes before I boiled it with vanilla caster sugar to sweeten and soften it. In just 15 minutes, it was reduced to a pretty and pink mess. It's texture is now soft and its taste is slightly sourish and sweet.


Chopped rhubarb


Boiling the rhubarb cubes with vanilla sugar

The both of us proceeded to prepare the sweet-crust pastry and to chopped up a mixture of Pink Lady and Golden Delicious apples- we added lemon juice, brown sugar, salt and cornstarch to the apples before mixing them with the rhubarb mixture and pouring it over the rolled out sweet-crust pastry.

The finishing touches were fun and simple- shaving the pastry dough over the laid out apples and rhubarb and to empty my packet of blanched almonds. We then placed the tray into the oven and baked it at 180 Deg Celsius for 30 minutes.

After washing up, the crumble was ready! Everyone loves this crumble- no complaints about it being too sour, too sweet, too crumbly etc. After gobbling down a slice, I was still craving for that warm apple and rhubarb crumble.

O rhubarb! You should be widely available in every kitchen!



Before baking


Pulling out the tray of sweet and warm crumble out of the oven