When the last snow melts after a long winter, sprouts of vitamin-enriched rhubarb tend to come out of the earth. This plant is convenient in that you can prepare dishes from it in early spring, and there are also a huge number of recipes. Rhubarb, along with sorrel and spinach, is rich in trace elements.
About rhubarb
Petioles of this early spring plant are especially in demand throughout spring and in the first weeks of summer, since it is during this period that the body experiences a lack of vitamins after cold weather. There are a number of conditions, subject to which you can get the most benefit. In rhubarb petioles there are many organic acids, which in a certain period (early spring) contain a high content of citric acid, a little later - malic acid, in the middle of summer they are already oversaturated with oxalic acid. Recommended harvesting time: May - mid-June, shoot length - 20-30 cm.
“Easy” - salad
There are more than 100 recipes for making rhubarb, the most common and easiest - a rhubarb salad, which is called "Simple." Talking name, isn't it?
Ingredients:
- Rhubarb - 300 grams.
- Sugar (can be replaced with powdered sugar) - 1 tbsp.
- Cinnamon or vanillin is a pinch.
Cooking:
- Take the stems of rhubarb, rinse them well and remove the hard top layer. Cut into small pieces.
- Fill with sugar and vanilla (rhubarb tastes like apples, so cinnamon will be appropriate instead of vanilla).
- Wait a bit so that the salad is infused, and the plant can secrete juice. After 10-15 minutes you can put on the table. Bon Appetit!
You can include imagination and diversify this recipe. You can add various ingredients to rhubarb like apples, oranges, cucumbers, carrots, pineapple, cheese, beets, and even chicken or meat. You can fill the salad with any sauce, sour cream or just vegetable oil.
Pie: rhubarb, almonds and cinnamon
From rhubarb, you can make not only salads and side dishes, but also delicious pies. For example, an exquisite cake with sour cream and almond filling and a delicate aroma of cinnamon throughout the house is a very tasty and piquant dessert that will appeal to all households. Air baking with a spicy filling that combines sour and sweet notes. In addition, the rhubarb pie recipe is very simple.
We will need:
- Rhubarb, stems - 500 grams.
- Chicken egg - 3 pieces.
- Butter - 100 grams.
- Flour - 250 grams.
- Baking powder - 1 teaspoon.
- Sugar - 300 grams.
- Vanilla sugar - 2 teaspoons.
- Breadcrumbs.
- Cinnamon - 1 teaspoon.
- Almonds - 50 grams.
- Sour cream - 250 grams.
Cooking:
- Remove the thick peel of rhubarb, finely chop it.
- We fill in small cubes of the plant with sugar and while we remove, letting it soak in sugar and let the juice flow.
- We are doing the test: butter should be at room temperature, mix with 60 grams of sugar.
- Drive 1 chicken egg into this mixture, mix with a mixer;
- Sift the flour and add the baking powder to it, pour to the oil mixture - knead the dough.
- Lubricate the form (preferably with a diameter of 24 centimeters) with butter (creamy), sprinkle with breadcrumbs and add the dough.
- The time has come for harvested rhubarb - put it on top and pour the juice from the plate there.
- We set the temperature in the oven at 185-190 ° C, wait until it warms up, and put the pie in it for 35 minutes.
- Switch to the fill: beat two chicken eggs with a mixer and gradually add sour cream to the beaten eggs. Then add cinnamon and vanilla sugar.
- We do not finely chop the almonds and add it to the fill.
- We take out the cake after 35 minutes, pour over the finished pouring from above and place it in the oven again for 15-20 minutes.
We take it out of the oven, let it cool and, if desired, pour sugar powder on top. True, not particularly complicated recipes from rhubarb? Bon Appetit!
Jam
The successful preparation of jam from this plant is 50% dependent on the proper preparation of rhubarb. Petioles must be carefully cleaned of thin peel, if this is not done, the slices in the finished jam will be harsh. Cut the stems into small pieces. Cooking jam from this plant is possible only in enameled dishes, because it contains a lot of acids. The rhubarb jam recipe is very simple.
We will need:
- Rhubarb - 1 kilogram.
- Sugar - 1 kilogram.
Cooking:
- We cut the rhubarb into cubes, place it in a container and pour it abundantly with sugar and do not touch the day, allowing the plant to let the juice flow.
- After 24 hours, put the rhubarb on the fire and stir occasionally. When the jam begins to boil, cook it for another 15 minutes.
Pour the jam into the jars.
Plant benefits
Fiber, pectin, folic acid, carotene - no, this is not a list of prohibited drugs, these are the useful substances that are contained in the rhubarb stalks. This plant wins significantly among other garden crops, such as cucumbers, in terms of vitamin content. Magnesium, potassium, phosphorus and calcium are contained in this, if I may say so, a storehouse of macro- and microelements. Rhubarb, the recipes for preparing dishes from which are very diverse, occupies a large place in folk medicine: colds, constipation.
Contraindications to the use of rhubarb
Rhubarb is useful to many people. But there are exceptions in everything, so rhubarb is contraindicated in certain diseases: diabetes, rheumatism, gastrointestinal diseases, inflammatory processes in the bladder and kidneys, hemorrhoids and urolithiasis.
When cooking, this plant is not recommended to cook for too long, otherwise it will contain too much oxalic acid, which in large quantities is harmful to the body.
Sweet Rhubarb Soup
Rhubarb can be prepared not only in spring, but also in summer, so here is another recipe. Rhubarb (see photo of the dish below) is also used for making soups.
Ingredients:
- Rhubarb - 600 grams.
- Chicken egg - 1 piece.
- Kefir (can be replaced with yogurt) - 1 cup.
- Rusks - 150 grams.
- Sugar - 100 grams.
- Cloves, cinnamon, vanillin.
- Water - 1.5 liters.
Cooking:
- Peel rhubarb from a thin layer of skin, cut into small cubes.
- Boil water, put 2 cloves and cinnamon on the tip of the knife, add sugar.
- Place rusks and rhubarb. Boil no more than two minutes, then remove from heat. The resulting mixture can be whipped with a blender, you get a soup puree.
- We are preparing a gas station. Separate the yolk from the protein, beat it with kefir (or yogurt) until smooth, pour it all into the soup while stirring without stopping.
- Beat the protein with a mixer until the foam appears, add a pinch of vanillin. In the finished soup, add a teaspoon of the resulting foam.
If there are berries, then as an ornament you can add them, for example, strawberries, cherries, etc.