For the dough: 150 g flour, 140 g butter, 100 g sugar, 1 egg yolk, 1 pinch of salt; 8 ladyfingers.
Quickly knead a dough from it, wrap in cling film and for 1 hour off in the fridge with it. Then line a 26 cm quiche tin thinly with the dough, prick several times with a fork and bake in the oven at 220° until light brown.
Meanwhile, cut 1 kg of rhubarb into pieces, removing the strings, and briefly sauté with 100 g of sugar in a pan large enough for the pieces to lie side by side. Drain and spread on the pastry in the dish. For the glaze, whisk together 3 egg yolks, 50 g sugar and 5 cl sweet cream until well combined, pour over the rhubarb in the tin and bake the cake again until the top is nicely browned; but this time only at 200°. Remove, leave to cool and serve while still lukewarm.
To gratinate: beat 3 egg whites with 100g sugar and a pinch of salt until stiff, spread decoratively over the cake and leave to colour again slightly in the hot oven.
Rhubarb parfait
.500 g rhubarb, 2 tbsp dry white wine, 150 g sugar, grated zest of 1 untreated lemon, 1 tsp raspberry syrup and 5 egg yolks, 50 g sugar, 1/2 l cream.
Cut the rhubarb into pieces, pulling off the strings, and steam until soft with the given ingredients. Puree with a blender and, if there are still a lot of offending strings left, pass through a sieve. Leave to cool. Whip the egg yolks until light and fluffy, dissolve the sugar in them and stir into the fruit mixture. Whip the cream until stiff, fold in and place the parfait in the freezer, preferably overnight. Place back in the fridge about an hour before serving to soften slightly.
With Waldemar Thomas at Rhubarb Women's Praise
In China, rhubarb was already known around 2700 BC, but they didn't eat it. They used the roots as a laxative. In Europe, too, no one thought of eating rhubarb until the end of the 16th century. Until attempts were made in England to gain something culinary from the medicinal plant. However, since at first only the leaves, which contain a high proportion of oxalic acid, which is harmful to health, were eaten, things went very badly wrong at first, and there are even said to have been fatalities. At some point, the fleshy stalks became the focus of interest, and rhubarb began to enrich the meagre spring menu. Today, however, it plays a role only in England, Holland, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. French housewives need it merely for cooking jams; in Mediterranean countries rhubarb is wholly unknown, no wonder given the abundance of native fruits there.
Bioland gardener Uwe Frauenlob from Langgöns-Cleeberg has to answer many questions from southern European customers about the meaning of these strange stalks at his market stall on Saturdays at the Konstabler Wache in Frankfurt.
For 14 years, the family business with the beautiful name produces on 4 hectares of local fruit and vegetables in organic outdoor cultivation. In summer, only their own products are offered, in winter they supplement the range by buying from neighbors and from Southern Europe. The graduate agricultural engineer would have it easier if all his other fruit and vegetables were as little work for him as rhubarb.
Botanically a vegetable, treated like fruit in the kitchen, inedible in its raw state, the undemanding plant is tough. For its original home is Siberia. The perennial perennial of the knotweed family is not affected by the deepest sub-zero temperatures and sprouts again year after year at springtime. Thankful for humus-rich, moist soil, occasionally fertilized with manure, rhubarb thrives on its own, not bothered by any pests. It tastes best from May to July. After that, however, with the end of the strawberry harvest approximately, the oxalic acid also spreads in the stems, and the rhubarb season is over.
Rhubarb contains a lot of potassium, iron, phosphorus, magnesium; many vitamins and hardly any calories to boot. It may be healthier raw, but it is only edible when steamed and properly sweetened. With sugar, or, as Anne Willan advises in her epoch-making book "The Great School of Cooking", with fruit jellies or raspberry syrup. Ground cinnamon and candied ginger also do well. When baking with rhubarb, the key is to manage the amount of liquid that inevitably forms during steaming. You can put up with it and bring rhubarb compote to the table with yoghurt mousse. I prefer rhubarb tart au gratin with beaten egg whites, accompanied by a rhubarb parfait. If you're going to go for it, go for it.
BIOLAND Nursery
Uwe Frauenlob
Aulbachstr. 31
35428 Langgöns-Cleeberg
Telephone: 06085 / 2579
Fax: 06085 / 2579
Opening hours: Sat: Frankfurt Farmers' Market, Konstabler Wache. Vegetable subscriptions in the area Usingen-Wehrheim-Butzbach-Gießen
Sale from the farm by advance order
from Waldemar Thomas