Chicken with Baked Rhubarb and Cucumber and Radish Salad

I love the way rhubarb unfurls out of the spring soil to display a Mateus flushed shard of swollen stem and tough, poisonous leaves. I love the ritual of forcing rhubarb in darkened conditions to beat your neighbours to serving the first rhubarb of the season. I think back longingly of my grandmother’s hit or miss rhubarb fool that was always delicious, if a little stringy. And will almost always order a rhubarb dessert if I see it on the menu. Unfortunately, we don’t eat much rhubarb as a family because the acid gives us all joint ache. But it’s worth the discomfort.

Up until now I’d not thought too much about rhubarb (shocking I know). But the more I read, the more interesting it becomes. For starters who knew that rhubarb is actually a vegetable and is in the Rheum family and is therefore closely related to sorrel? Or that in America it is legally a fruit because a judge said so in 1947? Or that it originated in Asia and has only been cultivated in the western world for the last two or three hundred years? Or that the roots can be dried and used as a tonic to cure constipation and circulatory issues? Or, more importantly, that this enigmatic stem is amazing with chicken?

Trina Hahnemann’s recipe for “chicken with baked rhubarb and cucumber -radish salad” immediately stood out from her Nordic Diet cookbook, partly because of the stunning photograph but more significantly because of its weirdness.



But when you think about it, the idea makes a lot of sense. Chicken is great with lemon and other acid driven accompaniments, so long as it is balanced by something sweet to take the tartness away.

Ingredients

Chicken legs
2 stalks of rhubarb
A few spoons of honey (she uses raw sugar – but I prefer honey)
Salt
Pepper
1 Cucumber
10 Radishes
Yoghurt (preferably goats’)
1 clove of garlic
Chopped mint

Method

Season the chicken legs and roast for 30 minutes. Meanwhile chop the rhubarb into 2 inch long batons and lightly coat in honey. After 30 minutes add the rhubarb and cook for a further 15 minutes.

To make the salad finely slice the radishes and de-seed, then finely slice the cucumber. Mix with just enough yoghurt, a finely minced clove of garlic and the chopped mint. Season.

Serve the chicken with the salad and garnish with a sprig of mint. It’s a great way to use up a glut of rhubarb in late spring or as a way of causing a bit of Steingarten-esque debate about the differences between fruit and vegetables. I think it is a fantastic idea and am looking forward to experimenting further. I wonder what a rhubarb-ified version of honey lemon chicken would be like?

Further reading

Other rhubarb chicken recipes on Rhubarb Compendium including roast chicken stuffed with rhubarb and the psychopathically named chicken smothered in rhubarb

Rhubarb as an accompaniment to fish in the Independent

Mackerel with roasted rhubarb from Nigel Slater

Savoury recipes for rhubarb on Chowhound

Jeffrey Steingarten’s Man Who Ate Everything (including a spellbinding chapter called Ripeness is All about the differences between fruit and vegetables)

Trina Hahnemann’s – The Nordic Diet on Amazon

The science of rhubarb poisoning

This post is part of little series dedicated to The Nordic Diet cookbook which was sent to me by Quadrille.

Rhubarb Tart

Rhubarb is brilliant. Anything that can taste so good, yet potentially be deadly gets my vote. And then another. It's like a fauna version of blowfish. Maybe chefs who cook with rhubarb should be trained for 20 years as well. Imagine what amazing delights we'd be served.

I'm always looking for new ways to cook rhubarb, so when I saw this sensational rhubarb tart over on Cook Almost Anything at Least Once I got very excited. Just to look at the undulating, pink and cream furrows is enough to make you want to give up everything and become a professional rhubarb chef.

So, having rolled out some dessert pastry that may or may not have been bought we followed Cook Almost Anything at Least Once's recipe to the letter which you can see below:

"Semolina Cream:

1 1/2 cups milk
1 cinnamon stick
55 grams caster sugar
45 grams semolina
3 egg yolks

Topping:

Rhubarb stems
55 grams caster sugar

Make the Semolina Cream:

Place the milk, cinnamon stick, sugar and semolina into a saucepan over a low heat and stir while the mixture starts to thicken and boil, then stir constantly for another 2 minutes or until the mixture becomes very thick.

Remove from the heat and whisk in the egg-yolks, one at a time until well combined. Place the filling into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap - make sure the plastic wrap actually rests against the cream as you don't want a skin to form. Let this cool to room temperature.

Assemble the tart:

Pour the semolina cream evenly into the tart, smoothing out the top. Lay the rhubarb evenly over the cream then sprinkle over with half of the sugar.

Cover this loosely with foil and place in a preheated 180°C oven - cook for 20 minutes before removing foil. Continue to cook for another 15-20 minutes or until the cream is set and the rhubarb is tender.

Sprinkle over with the remaining sugar and using a blow-torch, caramelise the sugar (you could do this under a grill)."

The combination of slightly grainy semolina cream with soft, tart, full flavoured rhubarb was incredible. It was well worth the effort and is a tart I'm going make every Spring. I've now got a rectangular pastry case so I can make my tart look extra smart. As an evolution of this tart, it would be fantastic with ginger and mint ice cream.

For anyone who has noticed the continuity errors it's because we made several tarts in order to feed a lot of hungry friends.