Growing and cooking with rhubarb

As rhubarb is in season, we thought it timely to revisit this blog from the archives, written by Misa Hay.

Pulling out a first few stalks of rhubarb in early May must surely be one of the most delightful things in gardener's year. There's nothing more exciting than taking on a rhubarb forcer (in our case an old burning bin) and being rewarded by lush, vividly pink, super-long stalks that almost beg to be eaten raw, just dipped into sugar! Forcing rhubarb is probably not a common thing in Shetland but covering the crowns will encourage the plants to make early growth and these forced stalks make a great substitute for fruit when there is little else available from the garden.

In Shetland cooking with rhubarb has a great tradition as it grows really well. In fact so well that a whole recipe book has been devoted to it. Rhubarbaria, written by the late Mary Prior - a frequent visitor to Shetland, is a brilliant and inpiring cookbook of every sort of rhubarb recipe. Rhubarb with meat or fish, vegetables, as a pudding, as a jam or in chutney are all included in this extensive resource. And since my rhubarb plant seems to have established itself quite well over the past couple of years I'm hoping I'll have enough to keep cropping throughout the summer to be able to try a few recipes from the book. I'm particularly intrigued by the idea of a lamb and rhubarb stew!

Anyway, to start with, here my two favourite recipes: