While working with the rhubarb last week, I was very taken with the crisp fresh flavor that it added to the jam we made. All week I was musing over the idea of a glass of Rhubarb Lemonade. It seemed a natural sort of pairing and I was surprised I hadn’t encountered it before at a farmers market or state fair. At the market I selected some Myer Lemons, a sweeter relative of the lemons we commonly use, thinking the additional sweetness would be needed to counter the additional tartness the rhubarb would be bring.
To extract the juice I used a centrifugal Juicer. There are a few ways to extract the juice in the kitchen, but most others would have involved cooking the rhubarb. I didn’t want to do this thinking it would round out the flavor and mute the tartness. In researching rhubarb I had seen stories of how, between the wars, British children were given rhubarb stalks dipped in sugar as a summer candy. This was the idea I wanted to invoke with the drink.
The centrifugal juicer works by tearing the food into tiny pieces and throwing them against the sides of a rapidly spinning mesh drum. The juice, pulled outward through the mesh by the force of the rotation, is collected in a gravity fed hopper. This type of juicer is the most common home unit available. Commercially, conical juicers are used which grate the food and force the gratings through a narrow set of plates before expelling it. Both provide similar results, the commercial juicer has the advantage of being able to operate for longer periods between cleanings.
I fed four stalks of rhubarb into my home juicer; stopping once to clean it. Then I forced the pulp I had cleaned out through again to make sure I got as much juice as possible. Four stalks yielded nearly a pint of juice. I was amused, when I cleaned the machine, to find that the rhubarb stalks were so very fibrous that they had formed a natural paper on the mesh filter. Had I dried it I’m certain it would have been quite strong.
The resulting juice was tart, but not unpleasantly so as I had imagined, and a cloudy ruby-purple color. When the juice sat it separated into a light clear garnet color on top and a cloudy grey-rose on the bottom. I choose to filter the juice through cheesecloth before using it. It was surprising how much more fiber was filtered out.
To sweeten the lemonade I made a simple syrup. Using a syrup is an easy way to get the sugar into the drink. Simple syrup is, simply, equal parts (by weight) of sugar and water heated gently till the sugar dissolves. At room temperature, the sugar saturation point of water (the point at which no more sugar will dissolve) is closer to two parts sugar to one part water. At the ratio of 1:1 the sugar will dissolve without heating, but heating makes the process much quicker. You must let the syrup cool before using it in the drink.
To assemble the drink, I used a 150ml beaker and worked directly into a large beer glass. I used one part (150ml) rhubarb juice, one and one half parts lemon juice, one part simple syrup, and two parts cold water. The color was reminiscent of a commercial pink lemonade. The flavor was sweet enough to take ice. It was crisp, it was sweet, but it was not a major improvement over a fresh squeezed lemonade. The rhubarb had contributed its color, and perhaps a vegetative twang to the finish, but its flavor was completely overpowered by the lemon. Even increasing the ratio of rhubarb to lemon untill it was closer to one to one did not let the flavor show through. I have to admit some disappointment at this stage. None of the crispness that we saw last week in the jam was coming through.
Earlier I made a choice to extract the juice of the rhubarb without heat. Other ways to extract juice exist. Heat, sugar, or salt can be used to break down the cells of fruits or vegetables. You only have to think about the juice that collects in a bowl of fresh strawberries a few hours after you add sugar to see how this works. When food is heated cell walls break and release flavor. This is illustrated by slowly heating mushrooms or spinach in a sauté pan and observing how much liquid collects.
When I try this lemonade experiment again I think I would like to extract the rhubarb juice by using the simple syrup. I would cut the rhubarb fine and cook it slowly in the simple syrup. Then let it cool completely in the hot syrup to draw out more flavor. Finally, drain it through cheesecloth and press out as much liquid as possible. This method should draw out and concentrate more of the rhubarb flavor. However it will be harder to control the sweetness in the finished lemonade. When adding the rhubarb flavor, we will also be adding sugar at the same time, which means that the amount of rhubarb flavor that we can ultimately add will also be capped. Too much of the syrup and the final drink will be cloyingly sweet.
After cleaning up, I still had a lot of juice to use up, both lemon and rhubarb. Let’s talk about fruit curds and how to use them. You are probably already familiar with lemon curd. It’s readily available in jars, though it’s expensive when purchased this way and is better tasting made from scratch. Often used to fill pastries or as a topping for toast or scones, lemon curd is a combination of fruit juice, sweetened with sugar, enriched with butter, and bound with egg yolk. Any fruit juice can be used; commercially I’ve seen lime, grapefruit, and strawberry available.
To develop a recipe for a Lemon Rhubarb Curd I first looked at Michel Roux’s books. If you can address a pastry question to an MOF1, I see no reason not to. Sadly, the recipe he gives does not give a clear measure for the juice (stating only to juice four lemons). I compared Messer. Roux’s ratios with those in Friberg’s Professional Pastry Chef, 3rd edition. The two formulas varied greatly. Roux used a lot more butter and egg compared to the commercial formula; yielding a richer product. He also adds all the butter at the beginning which, while unconventional seems easier to do at home. For more clarity, I looked in Harold Magee’s On Food and Cooking. (If you don’t have a copy of this one on the shelf I can’t recommend it highly enough) Magee gives a general ratio of 375gm of sugar for each 125ml of juice and butter. In developing our recipe I can take the best from each formula as long as I don’t stray too far from Magee’s ratio.
To make the fruit curd you need to work over a Bain Marie. A term borrowed from alchemy, the Bath of Mary is used to protect the food you are cooking from extremes of heat. To make your Bain Marie put a pot of water on the stove and bring it to a boil. When it boils, turn it down to a simmer and find a mixing bowl that fits over the top of the pot. Make sure the bottom of the bowl is not touching the surface of the water. You can now be certain that whatever you put in the mixing bowl can’t reach temperatures over 212F because at sea level that is the temperature the water will boil at.
In the mixing bowl put the juice, sugar and butter. I have my formula at the end of the article. Leave this until the butter melts. Then, while whisking steadily, add the egg yolks (save the whites and read on). From here on out you’ll need to stir constantly for the next twenty minutes or so. If the egg yolk on the bottom of the bowl gets over 200 degrees you’ll end up with scrambled eggs. As the temperature moves through 165 the mix will start to get thicker, somewhere between the texture of whole milk and half and half. You need to keep stirring until the temperature reaches 185. At this point the fruit curd will be the consistency of whipping cream; don’t worry it will thicken more as it cools. Pour it off into a clean container and let it cool completely. At this stage I will sometimes add fresh herbs, basil, thyme, or rosemary. Just bruise them and leave them in the curd while it cools, this will extract some of the oils and leave just the ghost of the flavor. At least that’s my conceit. In the end we are looking to achieve a spoonable consistency with a pleasing balance of tart flavors and sweetness.
You now have a curd that would be a welcome addition to scones or biscuits. It would be a great filling for crepes or spooned on pancakes. Served alongside shortbread cookies you can quickly create a nice looking afternoon cup of tea. I’m sure if you have a jar of curd in the fridge you’ll find all sorts of excuses to dip a spoon into it.
I want to introduce one more recipe to our discussion because I find it pairs up very well with the fruit curd. I also think it will fast become a hero in your kitchen because it takes a couple rather mean ingredients, things that most of us always have about, and creates something that’s much more than the sum of its parts. Let’s talk about Fool.
You can make a quick and easy fool from whipping cream and yogurt. Whip the cream to soft peaks then sweeten it with sugar. Whip in plain yogurt. You want to use a yogurt that is a little tart so the finished fool is not bland. Don’t choose the Greek or Icelandic yogurts available now, they are too heavy. Finally add some flavoring. You can fold in some good jam, like the one we made last week, leaving it streaky and marbled. For the platings that follow I used dark rum and vanilla to flavor the fool (the recipe is at the end of the article). You can serve the fool as it is in a nice glass or use it in other preparations.
We now have two great components to use to make plated desserts. The first plate I want to introduce is a pavlova. A pavlova is a meringue case to contain the dessert, in this case the fool. You might see them out in restaurants filled with ice creams, sorbets or pastry creams. To make the meringue whip the egg whites to stiff peaks then whip in a generous quantity of sugar. I find that a sugar equal in weight to the eggs is sufficient. The eggs should get glossy and the sugar will help keep the foam together. Transfer the meringue to a pastry bag and pipe out onto Silpat or parchment paper. Leave them in a 200 degree oven 4 hours or more till dry and crisp. They will last for a few days if cooled completely and stored in an air tight container.
To present our pavlova, spread some of the curd on the bottoms of two meringue crisps. Add a dollop of the fool and sandwich them together. A bit of fruit sauce or fresh fruit on the plate makes a nice addition to the plate.
If that seems intimidating, or if you don’t like the look of your meringue crisps, I should mention the English dessert, loosely based on the above, called an Eaton Mess. It’s not hard to imagine how a catastrophic failure in a pavlova may have led to this dish of meringue pieces, fool, and jam, fruit or curd stirred together. To present the one on the right, I crushed two meringue crisps in a plastic bag then layered the crumbs with curd and fool in a rocks glass. Make sure to add some of the meringue into the glass, where it will get soft and chewy, and leave some on top, where it will stay crunchy. The sugar tuilles are made from isomalt, a low melting point sugar. If you are interested in making them drop me a line; because isomalt is not something easily found at the corner grocery I was not going to detail them here.
The final plating is a bit ‘chefy’. It represents how you might see these components in a bistro or out at a restaurant, but it’s not hard to duplicate at home. I pressed shortbread into barquette molds leaving a small well in the center. When these are baked off and cooled I filled the small depression with lemon-rhubarb curd. With the fool in a pastry bag with a plain tip, I piped some of the Rum Fool over the top. The plate was garnished with blood orange, micro basil, and the sugar tuille.
Even though the original seed of this article, the pairing of Rhubarb and Lemon, proved to be disappointing I’m very pleased with the plates that were produced. When things don’t happen quite the way we imagine in the kitchen it’s fun to adapt and to press on. In the end we can always eat the mistakes. Have Fun and Happy Cooking.
1: Un des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France: An award given, after a grueling exam by a jury of one’s professional peers, to celebrate craftsmen in France. Chefs who have received their MOF earn the right to wear the red, white, and blue collars on their jackets.
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Lemon Rhubarb Curd
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150ml Fresh Rhubarb Juice
200ml Lemon Juice
200gm Sugar
200gm Butter, cubed
6 egg yolk
-In a Bain Marie, over simmering water, combine juice, sugar, and butter
-Stir to dissolve sugar and heat until butter melts
-Whisk in yolks
-Continue to whisk until liquid reaches a temperature
Of 185f and is the thickness of heavy cream
-Allow to cool
(substitute the juice of your choice for the lemon and rhubarb. Weak flavored Juices can be reduced over heat to concentrate the flavors and maintain a total volume of 350ml)
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Vanilla Rum Fool
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8oz Whipping Cream
8Tbs Sugar
6oz plain yogurt
1tsp vanilla
2Tbs Dark Rum
-Whip the cream to soft peaks
-Whip in sugar and yogurt
-Whip in vanilla and rum
(you can change the flavor by changing the alcohol or stirring in jam or a fruit puree)
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