This text is part of the special book Plaisirs
What child has not had fun making his huge leaves into a fan inspired by Thousand and one Night ? Who has never peeled it, delighted to remove with a single cut with a knife a long ribbon of fine skin speckled with pink? Don’t say you’ve never bitten into its juicy petiole, grimacing immediately under the bite of the acidulous juice? Can you guess which vegetable (because yes, it is a vegetable under its fruit air) it is? Rhubarb, of course “sour”, which is making a strong comeback in our dishes… both savory and sweet!
In the kitchens here, it has always been paired with strawberries, the picking of which peaks in June, when rhubarb is just perfect for brightening up recipes for upside-downs, pies, clafoutis and other sweet compotes. Moreover, the arrival in the stalls of autumn strawberries has given a second wind to the perennial plant and extended its season, says Sébastien Bigras, from Serbi farms, in Saint-Eustache, the largest producer of fresh rhubarb in the Quebec. “In the past, we stopped harvesting during construction holidays. Today, we’re packing rhubarb until it freezes. The strawberry-rhubarb link is really strong! He concedes that the stalks lose some of their flavor as the season goes on, and they become more fibrous, but according to the producer, they are still perfect for cooking.
Although the Bigras cultivate 15 hectares of rhubarb and sell 20,000 boxes of 12 packets each year on the market, containing precisely 9 sticks each, they are not enough to meet demand. “Strangely, twenty years ago, several small producers destroyed their rhubarb fields because it wasn’t selling,” says Sébastien Bigras. The vast majority of Serbi Farms customers are Montrealers. “In the regions, there is rhubarb that grows in all families! »
Locavores love it
A happy trend is increasingly directing rhubarb towards savory dishes, fine pies and other colorful salads. It is also making its way into the kitchens of chefs who claim to be part of the locavore movement. Among the challenges they face is, at the top of the list, the quest for perfect acidity. Sumac, vinegar and verjuice sometimes play this role very well. But few locavoro-purist chefs will tell you that they don’t sometimes get bored of squeezing a lemon. According to some, rhubarb can come to the rescue!
In Sainte-Perpétue, chef Chloé Ouellet of the Au Pâturage restaurant uses only Quebec products in her cooking. The lemon ? A heresy! Imagine her joy when she discovered a huge stalk of rhubarb on the grounds of the ancestral home she acquired a few years ago. “I use a lot of these in my cooking! Candied with white wine and thyme, then pan-fried, it goes very well with red meat. Rhubarb gives crunch and acidity to a virgin sauce that can be made “strawberry-rhubarb” and served on scallops, for example”, launches the one who also gets caught up in the game of classic desserts. “And there are all summer, while Quebecers tend to abandon it once spring is over. “Why deprive yourself of it?
“Rhubarb is the lemon of Quebec and, for the past ten years, there has been great enthusiasm among chefs, who find all sorts of ideas for using it,” says Sébastien Bigras, to whom a chef friend recently suggested using a cube of rhubarb on his fish en papillote instead of said citrus fruit.
Trick : Do you cook rhubarb? Don’t throw away your peels and other trimmings. Instead, macerate them for a few hours in a large pitcher of water and you’ll get delicious rhubarb water. Do you cook the inseparable strawberry-rhubarb duo? Add the strawberry tails to the maceration. Thirst-quenching!