Roasted Rhubarb - Rhubarb Trilogy 2011 Part I

As I mentioned here, what seems like only a few days ago but in reality is nearly a month, rhubarb and strawberry season was underway on a recent visit to England.

It was on this trip that Poppy re-discovered Eton Mess and labelled it as the best thing in the world. So good, it was, and is still, requested at the faintest whiff of a strawberry.  

After our first Cornish lane experience in a good two years, following signs promising the first fresh strawberries of the year, I was a little shaky. We unbuckled and made our way up the path. I was worried the berries would be sold out or, even worse, Spanish. Poppy was worried the farmer would be in the fields, unable to be found to sell his or her goods. Tilly was just happy to be unbuckled from the sick making journey to get there.

Lucky day, the farmer was in her shop and had flats of huge, juicy strawberries just in from their very own tunnels, flanked by stalks and stalks of ruby red rhubarb, begging to join our berries.

Normally, without the prospect of Eton Mess, Poppy would be all over a nice bunch of rhubarb. The berries and thoughts of cream and meringue were too much though and she made me promise, promise, promise that if we got rhubarb too, I could not mix it in thereby destroying everything an Eton Mess is supposed to be.

I didn’t mix it in, but I did put it on top. And, then I put it on top of muesli and yogurt in the morning and then on top of ice cream and then, I thought some pork, roast or chops, would benefit hugely from a few bits of this on top and a sprinkling of sea salt. Or, I thought, maybe a nice wedge of camembert or a bit of goat cheese and some oat cakes would be a nice medium. What I am trying to say is that there isn’t a whole lot that I don’t think this would be really good with. 

When you roast these, you’ll find they start to look a ‘little splody’, meaning they have almost burst their skins. That is fine. As the rhubarb cools, it will firm up and then you can move it around gently.

Roasted Rhubarb

7 big stalks of rhubarb washed and cut into 3-inch pieces

3/4 cups sugar

Preheat oven to 375ºF. If you have a convection oven, or fan in your oven, I would use it. If not, you may need to increase the cooking time. 

Line a baking sheet with parchment.

Toss the pieces of rhubarb in the sugar and arrange them on the baking sheet. Sprinkle the sugar that is left behind over them.

Bake for about 20 minutes, checking often, until they look like they are bursting and the edges have started to brown.

Remove from oven and cool. Transfer to a container or plate, reserving any juices for drizzling.

Use them to top Eton Mess, or muesli or yogurt or cheese or meat. You get the idea.

It's a Hard Life

In the past, you know those very few times I remembered to actually do it, Recipeless Wednesday was a photo and just a photo. While all this travel, as I have discovered, leaves little time for anything other than tea, I thought at least I could take pictures and tell you a bit about it. Luckily, the daughters and I have being very well cared for. Meals and laundry and comfy beds abound.

I could use a little more wi-fi access to the interweb, all available at the cafe down the road but the likelihood of accompishing anything other than a MacBook swimming in spilled hot chocolate is slim. My less optimistic visions of the mayhem involve Tilly jumping across the tables, lattes and cappuccinos spilling every which way as she shouts, 'Mine, mine, mine,' wielding a spoon reaching for the chocolate sprinkles of strangers and other terrified small children.

We started out on a high note, with our very own fashion dos and don'ts on Wills' and Kate's big day. We decided that hats are back unless, of course, they are really just nude coloured fancy Minnie Mouse ears. Not sure anyone could pull that/those off. All this royal telly watching with cups of tea to fuel the six am start.

Then we enjoyed an amazing day here where we, and our cupcake smeared gaggle of cousins, didn't venture past the dining room but, after a quick internet squizz, I am determined to go back for longer than an afternoon. We were treated to a Royal Wedding Tea Party complete with wedding cake and, more importantly, Pimm's. It was all served in idyllic English surrounds on a day straight out of July. After tea and cakes and little cucumber sandwiches delivered to the garden by icing-wired offspring, I almost couldn't bear the thought of returning to bathe and put to bed my children.

Then, there was more tea, and more cake, in the form of Annabel's Marmalade Cake, recipe and more children happily playing together while their mothers determined the best and worst dressed. I will post this in due time. I am starting to worry that this will become a blog about delicious things to eat with a cup of tea and, consequently, I'll need to let my trousers out.

Later that week, we had coffee with Rosie in Appleby. Her and her husband, Andrew, run The Courtyard Gallery. Stephen would have been most impressed with my restraint, Poppy's Deborah Hopson-Wolpe bowl almost got a mate and I could hear my cupboards crying out for Dartington pottery. Rosie makes the cakes for the gallery cafe so we were treated to a walnut cake and Tiffin squares and some other things that my children devoured before I got to try.

The next day we got to Cornwall, after a most stoic, if I may say so, eight hour car journey on my own with the girls. For that day, our gustatory experiences were enjoyed on a path of least resistance basis and somewhat limited by and to motorway service stations and coffee (lots of) with bribes of chocolate and sweets, like they hadn't been eating all that for the last ten days.

Crossing the Tamar, into Poppy's birthplace, as she'll all too readily explain, is a bit of a homecoming. It is our English home. Cornwall has brought us asparagus by the literal bucket load. Said asparagus gets itself drizzled in just shy of a bucket load of melted butter and a generous salt and peppering and calls itself supper. I have absolutely no problem with that.

Poppy has been begging for rhubarb, she has only had it once since we got here, and Eton Mess, that too has also only been had once. She has determined it is better than pavlova, it is essentially smooshed pavlova. Luckily for her, we managed to not get lost, stuck or drive the car into a hedge on some single track Cornish lanes leading to the farm shop where, as their sign four miles back promised, they had not only rhubarb, but fresh strawberries too.

We drove back to the grandparents' as fast as our out of practice Cornish lane navigating would allow and set about the yummiest of English puds and roasting our rhubarb. All the pictures and instructions to come in the first installment of 2011's Rhubarb Trilogy. All this, just as soon as I find some wi-fi.

New York Yogurt Cheesecake

I have been sitting on this post for ages. Just as I was about to write it, I noticed a cheesecake post on here, one of the best food blogs ever. So, I waited, wondering whether I should post it now, or wait, or just not worry about it. Then, I decided that it isn’t really the same. In fact, it is just as much a New York Yogurt Cake as it is a New York cheesecake. 

I have never made a cheesecake that I have been 100% totally and completely happy with. I don’t know whether it is because I don’t love cheesecake or whether the ones I make just aren’t that good.  I have made them in restaurants and the feedback has been nothing but positive so I like to assume that it is the former.  I have the Cook’s Illustrated All-Time Best Recipes magazine and it has a New York cheesecake recipe with, apparently, the best way to bake one so that it comes out uncracked. I couldn’t remember ever making a crackless cheesecake so I thought I would give it a go again. Er, a go in the sense that I would follow the baking instructions but to hell with the actual recipe which, in case you haven’t noticed yet, I am fairly hopeless at sticking to.  Not that I, or my hips, needed an entire cheesecake in the fridge. I was hoping for an occasion when, luckily, we were invited to supper at some friends’ and I offered to bring dessert. 

When I worked at Lolita’s Lust, we started playing around with using pressed yogurt instead of cream cheese in the cheesecake. If memory serves, we never got it really right and it was always just okay.  I wanted to try it out again, because I can convince myself that yogurt, no matter what the fat content, is better for me than cheese.

This turned out really well, save for the cracks, which despite following the New York method, were San Andreas-like in size. To be fair, it was probably either my not following the recipe or my gas oven, which I don’t have a thermometer in. The shame, the shame...

I’ve also used rhubarb here, another recipe to get you ready for the glut and, selflessly, used some from-far-away strawberries to test the recipe because when they are in season, this will be even better. The rhubarb sauce makes a tart layer and the macerated berries a sweet freshness to compliment it.

The New York method says you should put the cheesecake into a 500º oven for ten minutes and then turn the heat down to 200º for around another 1 1/2 hours. Cook’s Illustrated says that the cake should be 150º and that if it gets to 160º, it will crack. I think that is if it hasn’t already cracked due to recipe mucking about with or dodgy oven temperatures. I am certainly not going to argue with them because they have made hundreds of cheesecakes testing this out. 

I would also put a baking sheet underneath the pan in case some of the butter leaks out of the crust. I never remember. Then you won’t have to rescue your cake from an oven full of acrid burnt butter smoke like I did.

The texture was really light, for a cheesecake anyway, and, I think, the yogurt gives the cake a lighter and fresher taste. It is a little more work to make the pressed yogurt but you have the added benefit of being able to convince yourself it is almost good for you.

The recipe here is a combination of my mom’s, some hit and misses from Lolita’s and some playing around in the kitchen.

New York Yogurt Cheesecake with Rhubarb Sauce and Strawberries

Crust (I always seem to make too much)

10 ounces graham cracker crumbs (you can make them easily just by chucking the crackers in the food processor)  

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons melted butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

Mix all three ingredients together. Press into the bottom and up the sides of a 10 inch springform pan. I used a smaller one and had extra crust and filling.

Cheesecake Filling

1 1/4 pounds pressed yogurt (you can find out how to make that here)

1 1/4 pounds cream cheese

5 large whole eggs

3 large egg yolks

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoons lemon zest

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 500º. 

Beat cream cheese, yogurt, flour and sugar together until smooth. Add zest and vanilla. Then add eggs and yolks gradually, scraping the bowl down often to avoid any unmixed bits of cheese.

Pour the mixture into the crust and bake for ten minutes.

Turn heat down to 200º for about an hour and a half, or use a thermometer and bake until cake reaches 150º. Or until it is just a little jiggly in the center.

Remove from the oven and loosen from the edges of the pan with a knife but leave it to cool in the pan. When cooled, refrigerate overnight.

Rhubarb Sauce

5 cups chopped rhubarb (I used some from the freezer and cooked from frozen, cooking time for fresh shouldn’t vary too much)

3/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

2 tablespoons water

In a large saucepan, put rhubarb and sugar and one tablespoon of water. Cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until rhubarb is softened, about fifteen minutes. Mix cornstarch with remaining tablespoon of water and stir into rhubarb. The mixture will go a little bit cloudy. Simmer and stir until the cloudiness is gone. Remove from heat and cool.

Macerated Strawberries

2 pounds strawberries give or take a few

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Wash, hull and slice strawberries. Mix with sugar and lemon juice and leave for a few minutes.

Pour the cooled rhubarb sauce onto the chilled cheesecake and return it to the fridge until you are ready to serve.

To serve, remove the cake from the springform pan and out it onto a cake plate. Top it with the macerated strawberries and slice.