2010 Rhubarb Trilogy Complete

Just for the record, I would like to say that not cooking is not so bad. We have the lovely and talented Janine making scrummy meals and that is just fine. She even leaves little unsalted bits for Tilly. Nice. 

Another bonus is that my hands are looking and feeling lovely. Poppy has stopped telling me that they feel like Daddy’s stubbly chin. I haven’t been washing and then working and then washing and then taking a photo and washing and...

I think the Caribbean humidity is helping too. As the fault lines in my bamboo countertop will tell you, winter is a dry season in Canada.

And, while it isn’t the best thing for your skin, a little sun helps appearances too.

Tomorrow I will no longer have an almost four year old. I had pictured a beautiful birthday cake post. It will have to wait until the at-home celebration. The request has been made for an ice cream cake, which sounds like disaster to me in 30º sunshine, but hey-ho, it is the request. And, because I certainly don’t feel up to cleaning up gallons of melted ice cream, we have ordered one from a place that says they can do it.

In the meantime, you will have to make due with rhubarb sorbet. I wish I had some right now. 

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In the process of making this, Little Daughter in sling ‘helping’, one of my favourite bowls was broken (the green one) and consequently, half of the rhubarb I had, the first fresh of the year, was riddled with tiny little shards of green pyrex. So, I couldn’t make as much as I had hoped. 

Big Daughter loved the stuff, rhubarb head she is. I thought it was nicely rhubarby but a little too sweet. I added two cups of syrup before tasting, amateur mistake really. I did think the texture was divine, silky smooth, easy to scoop after being in the freezer for a couple of days and completely ice crystal free. This is all made possible by the sugar syrup. My sorbets are usually harder and a little crystally because I am so mean with the sugar.

I have an ice cream maker. I don’t think my husband knows I bought it and he, somehow, still either hasn’t noticed, or maybe just doesn’t care what the big silver thing in the cupboard is. And, after two years, it is way too late to get cross about it.

You can make it in any ice cream maker, according to manufacturer’s instructions. Or, you can even still make it with just a freezer and a mixer. It takes longer and it may not be as silky smooth but it should still taste fresh and sweet and tart and just like more.

You will have extra sugar syrup, which you can keep in the fridge for ages to use next time you make sorbet or for sweetening iced tea and coffee.

This does need a bit of advance prep just because of the cooling and chilling required. So, if you wanted to have it for supper, I would start in the morning. If you have leftover syrup, it will still need a bit of time to chill the rhubarb before freezing it.

I passed the rhubarb puree through a sieve to remove any stringy bits which, it turns out, was totally unnecessary. If you don’t mind the risk of a few stringier bits, I would save the time and the washing up, and not bother.

When I get home, and strawberries come into season, we will be eating this with them. I am thinking it might be nice with some lime juice and zest instead of lemon and that ginger would add a great little zing. As I experiment, I’ll update here with the variations.

Rhubarb Sorbet (makes about 4 cups)

4 cups sugar

4 cups water

325 grams (11.3 ounces) chopped rhubarb  - I started with just shy of twice as much

4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 

Make the syrup by bringing the sugar and water to a rolling boil. Remove from heat, cool and chill.

Cook the rhubarb with a few drops of water, covered and over low heat. Check often, you don’t want it to burn. As soon as the rhubarb breaks up, remove it from the heat and  puree. You can use a blender or a hand blender or a sieve and spoon if you don’t have either of those. This should yield a little over one cup of puree. Cool.

Mix the puree with 2 cups of the sugar syrup and the lemon juice. Chill until cold.

Chill and freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to an irtight container and keep in freezer.

Or, put it in a bowl, your mixer bowl if you have a stand mixer, a glass or stainless bowl, if you don’t. Freeze it is partially frozen, maybe an inch or so in all the way around, around an hour.  Quickly remove it from the freezer and mix it with the mixer or whisk for a few seconds until it is all mixed together. Return to the freezer. Repeat freezing and whisking until it is getting firm. This will take a while. Sometimes, depending on your freezer and the temperature of your kitchen and any other number of temperature based variables, it could be as quick as three or four hours. It will be worth it.

This should keep in an airtight container for a couple of weeks, if it lasts that long.