I can’t imagine living and cooking in Queensland without regular supplies of the gorgeous red Tamborine Mountain Rhubarb.
Freshly picked rhubarb
For as long as I have lived in Queensland we have always made a pilgrimage to the Mountain to get my fix of this scrumptious, sweet, earthy ruby red vegetable.
Yes, rhubarb is a vegetable, dating back to 2000 BC in China where it was used in medicine. And rhubarb is just soooooo good that today I have two recipes for you to try.
The prize winning Gordon Bull Tamborine Mountain rhubarb
Both are delicious comfort food, full of vitamins and ideal for the sweet of tooth!
Quick and easy rhubarb recipes from Tamborine Mountain
- Rhubarb and Apple Crumble which is quick and easy to prepare. The delicious crumble can be made from ingredients you probably already have in your pantry.
- Baked Rhubarb and Creamed Rice. Think back to the creamy rice dessert your grandma used to make . . . but now without the cream. It still has the richness of the original recipe. Now we add an exotic touch with a hint of a Moroccan taste with rose water and the crunch of pistachio nuts. The rose petals are optional but do add colour to complete the delicious picture.
The famous award-winning Bull's rhubarb seedlings
If you make a special trip to buy it get two bunches, it keeps well in the refrigerator. It can also be used as a meat tenderiser and in savoury sauces particularly with pork, but that can wait for another time or Google it and be surprised.
Jamie Oliver is a fellow devotee. He describes the it like this: “It has an amazing flavour spectrum-one that floats, skips, jumps and crashes right over your tongue, from the front to the sides and back again”.
I don’t think you could get that much excitement from any other vegetable!
Rhubarb looks great in the garden with the dark green leaves contrasting beautifully with the famous red steams; it grows quickly with a regular watering and an occasional shovel of chicken manure. It is available all year round, but in winter grows more slowly and the stems are redder and thinner.
Rhubarb and Apple Crumble
Ingredients
- 1 cup of Rolled Oats
- 1 cup of plain flour
- 1 cup of sugar (I like raw)
- ½ cup chopped macadamias
- 90 gm of melted butter
Method
Combine crumble ingredients- if there is more than what you need, freeze it for next time.
Allow a stick of rhubarb and a quarter of an apple per person, chop it into 2 cm dice and mix with a table spoon of sugar and a tea spoon of cornflour.
Pack fruit into an oven proof dish, sprinkle generously with crumble and bake at 170 degrees for 15 minutes.
A big scoop of the best vanilla ice cream finishes it off.
Creamed Rice (no cream or butter necessary)
Ingredients
- 2 cups of full cream milk
- 1/3 cup of short or medium grain rice
- ¼ cup of sugar
- Finely grated rind of 1 orange
- 1 tsp rose water, 1 tbsp chopped pistachios, rose petals (optional)
Method
Combine milk, rice, sugar and rind.
Simmer over very low heat for 40 minutes, stirring often.
Add rose water at the end. Serve with baked rhubarb pistachios and petals.
Baked Rhubarb
Cut 4 sticks of rhubarb into 7cm batons and lay on baking paper in a shallow tray.
Drizzle with 2 tbsp of honey, the juice of one orange, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 2 tbsp of sugar.
Bake at 200 degrees for 7 minutes
Cooked this way it holds its shape.
The history of Tamborine Mountain Rhubarb
Rhubarb has been grown on the mountain since the 1930s, we have the perfect climate, cold but not too cold winters. Most of the varieties here have been cross pollinated by bees and growers save the seeds from the strongest plants for the next crop.
At the annual Tamborine show the most sought after horticultural prize is for the longest stem. My friends Gordon and Vanessa Bull have been growing great Tamborine Mountain rhubarb for as long as anyone can remember.
This year Gordon won the longest stemmed Rhubarb contest again - a closely fought local battle. He will breed seedlings from this prize winning and for year to come, Tamborine Mountain rhubarb buyers will benefit from his painstaking breeding program.
Rhubarb has one of those old fashioned feel good memories attached to it, reminding us of Grandma. The aroma of freshly baked pies and crumble, or simmering nutmeg laced rice custard certainly gets me in a melancholy mood and puts a smile on my face.
It has a high water content and cooks very quickly, unless you wanted a puree it is best laid out on a shallow tray, sprinkled with sugar and put into a hot oven so it holds its shape better.
Even when preparing for a pie, chop it up and use it raw, so it doesn’t turn to mush. Rhubarb pairs well with custard, apple strawberries, orange, cinnamon, chocolate, most nuts and my favourite- rose petals.
When planting the rhubarb crowns find a sunny permanent position as they will last for several years, unless the Bush Turkeys scratch them up!
To prevent that happening, lay some sort of mesh down first, I used some spare sheets of reinforcing that were lying around. In other parts of the vegetable garden an old gate and a trellis have been good turkey deterrents’. It also gives me a guide line for planting in straight rows too!
Editor's Note
Both of Terri's recipes looked so wonderful when she was cooking them that I decided to try both of them. My other half has a dreadful sweet tooth and so this decision pleased him as well.
Quite honestly Terri's Apple Crumble was better than any crumble I can recall from my childhood (sorry Mum!).
The rhubarb, apple and strawberries in the filling, formed the perfect trio.
The crumble topping took just a few moments to make. No rubbing in of butter or other messy techniques.
The macadamia nuts that Terri suggested worked well (which were missing from the childhood version) and were decadently delicious.
The Creamed Rice (without cream) was a delight. The surprise of the rose water and the sweetness of the rice was offset by the tang of the baked rhubarb.
I am certainly going to try this one again.