rhubarb

rhubarb and berbere cranberry beans / borlotti con rabarbaro e berbere

| Simona
cranberry beans with rhubarb / DSC_7909

garden flavors
(tablecloth by La FABBRICA del LINO)

Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather start a catering company in Dublin, Ireland, and in so doing bring together the large cast of characters in Maeve Binchy's novel Scarlet Feather, the current selection of our Cook the Books Club. Such cast includes the protagonists' families, spouse and spouse's family (for Cathy), girlfriend (for Tom), friends, clients and more.

While some characters have more elements on the negative plate of the scale than on the positive, all of them have something on both, and the story for me is about how even well-intentioned, generous, good people end up hurting others when they are focused exclusively on their personal goals. I think we can all relate to that. There are times when we need to focus on a single aspect of our life, be it our partner, a child, work or a specific project, to the exclusion of everybody and everything else. But when that continues for a long time, what is not the subject of our focused attention suffers and the consequences may be painful.

The novel also shows what happens when someone is neglected for years. Simon and Maud are nine-year-old twins born from parents who don't pay attention to them. They are "children from hell" and it is not their fault. They change in response to various people's efforts. In particular, Cathy's father gives them what no other adult in their life has: time and attention. He is not the only one: Cathy and her mother make sure the children are taught manners and discipline.

cranberry beans

fresh borlotti beans

In an episode early on in the book, Simon and Maud gorge themselves on food they find in the refrigerator and get sick. The reason they get out of control is not, as we may think, because they are gluttonous children: they wanted to stock up on food because they weren't sure when there would be more, thus giving the reader a view of their life in their parents' grand, but completely dysfunctional house.

Simon and Maud made me think of my eating preferences as a child. There is a long list of foods I didn't like then that I have come to like a lot: beans (fagioli) are high on that list. My mother did not prepare dry beans, so we had beans only when fresh borlotti were in season. She also foraged for chicory (cicoria), whose bitter taste is definitely an acquired one: I did eventually acquired it. Every time I harvest kale and collard greens from my serendipitous garden, I am reminded of the dark chicory of my childhood.

rhubarb stalks / IMG_4710

a pretty plant of rhubarb in my neighbor's vegetable garden
(only the stalks are used; the leaves are not edible)

I never tasted rhubarb as a child. I didn't even know what it looked like. All I knew was that rhubarb was used to make a digestive liqueur with a cute ad (Rabarbaro Zucca). After moving to California, I learned how rhubarb is used in the US and I have used it to make cobbler1, but I want to use it also in savory dishes: after all, it is a plant. I have a neighbor who grows rhubarb and kindly shares it with me.

In honor of Simona and Maud, I created a recipe using locally grown cranberry beans (Warren Creek Farms). I shelled and froze over 15 pounds of them last summer in ready-to-cook bags of 8 ounces / 225 g and that is what I used to develop this recipe, this year crop not being here quite yet. On the spice side I applied a favorite of mine berbere, the traditional Ethiopian spice blend, successfully used in an earlier bean recipe2.

Print-friendly version of briciole's recipe for Rhubarb and berbere cranberry beans

Ingredients for the beans:

  • 8 ounces / 225 g fresh (or frozen) cranberry beans
  • 2 cups / 475 ml water
  • A small bay leaf
  • 1/2 small onion (or a quarter of a medium one), halved
  • A clove of garlic, sliced
  • A couple of parsley stems
  • A 1-inch / 2.5 cm piece of kombu (optional)
  • 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt

Additionally:

  • 2 teaspoons / 10 ml extra-virgin olive oil
  • 3 ounces / 85 g fresh onion, finely chopped
  • 3 ounces / 85 g rhubarb, finely diced
  • 2 garlic cloves minced or thinly sliced
  • 1/2-1 teaspoon / 2.5-5 ml berbere, or to taste
  • 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste

Whether you purchase berbere or make your own, the level of hotness is variable: adjust the quantity to your taste.

How to cook the beans
Place the beans in a saucepan with the water, the aromatics and the salt (no need to thaw them if frozen). Cover and bring the water to a lively boil quickly, then turn down the heat and let the beans simmer until just tender. Taste them after 20 minutes and estimate how much longer they should cook.

Let the beans cool in their broth, then remove the aromatics and discard them. Let the beans rest in their cooking broth until ready to use.

How to finish the dish
Warm up the olive oil in a saucepan and add the onion. Stir well to coat. After a minute, add the rhubarb and stir well. Cook on gentle heat about 10 minutes, stirring often.

Add the garlic, stir well and continue cooking for a couple of minutes until fragrant. Sprinkle the berbere and stir well. Continue cooking for a minute, stirring often.

Add the beans and their cooking broth to the saucepan and stir. Cover, bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer until the beans are quite tender.

Season with salt and give it a final stir. Serve hot.

Serves 2-3.

cranberry beans with rhubarb / DSC_7911

a deeply flavored dish, though maybe not photogenic
(tablecloth by La FABBRICA del LINO)

The result may not be a vibrant-colored dish, but it is one that surprises with its flavor: creamy, slightly sweet beans, a hint of tartness from the rhubarb and warm berbere to round the dish. The greens in the photos are Red Russian kale, collard greens and Swiss chard from my garden.

1 Peach, berry and rhubarb cobbler recipe (with recipe)
2 Ethiopian-style black-eyed peas recipe
3 Wikipedia entry for Berbere

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

borlotti con rabarbaro e berbere

or launch the borlotti con rabarbaro e berbere audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

CtBThis is my contribution to the current selection of our Cook the Books hosted by Claudia of Honey from Rock. (You can find the guidelines for participating in the event on this page.)

The roundup of the event.

FTC disclosure: I have received the linen free of charge from the manufacturer (la FABBRICA del LINO). I have not and will not receive any monetary compensation for presenting it on my blog. The experience shared and the opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own.

beans, onion, borlotti, rhubarb, berbere, Italian cuisine

 

recipe: rhubarb and berbere cranberry beans

| Simona

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gelato alla vaniglia variegato al rabarbaro / rhubarb-marbled vanilla ice cream

| Simona

I grew up eating gelato, but nobody I knew made it at home. In August of 1999, after coming back from an extended stay in Italy, I purchased my first ice cream maker and started experimenting — with the book Frozen Desserts by Caroline Liddell and Robin Weir as guide. The immediate reason for my new enterprise was my husband: he missed his daily dose of gelato, and I promised him I would do something to address his withdrawal symptoms. The first flavor of ice cream that I made was vaniglia (vanilla). Later on, I learned that vanilla is the most common flavor of ice cream in the US, and I found that it is most people’s favorite.

If you are wondering about the difference between gelato and ice cream, Vanessa of Italy in SF recently published a very informative post on the subject. I don’t know whether the fat and air quantity of what I make allow it to qualify as gelato. I know, though, that I serve it right out of the machine, without freezing it first, which is what recipes I have seen instruct you to do. I freeze what is leftover, but I make sure that the consistency is creamy before I serve it again.

Without further ado, here is how I currently prepare the basic version of the vanilla kind. The evening before, I warm up to below boiling point 1 and 1/4 cups of non-fat milk with 2 of tablespoons of agave nectar and 1/2 of a vanilla bean (baccello di vaniglia) split in half lengthwise to reveal the tiny black seeds inside. The beans I get in the bulk section of the stores where I shop are very flavorful and I have found that using half of a long bean is enough. As the milk warms up, some seeds start floating around. When I remove the saucepan with the milk from the heat, I cover it, let it cool and then refrigerate.

The morning after, I make the custard: I beat 1 extra-large egg and one yolk with a 1/4 cup of granulated sugar until the mixture is bubbly. In the meantime, I warm up the milk, then slowly add it to the beaten eggs. I pour the mixture back in the saucepan and put it on the stove over gentle heat, stirring. When a film forms over the back side of the stirring spoon (I use a wooden one), I draw my finger across. If the line stays clear, the custard is ready. (If it overheats, it will curdle.) The saucepan goes straight from the heat to a cold water bath, while I keep stirring the custard to bring down its temperature. When the custard is cool, I cover the pan and place it in the fridge until thoroughly cold.

IMGP3318

When I am ready to churn, I take the custard out of the fridge, add to it one cup of chilled heavy whipping cream and mix. With a spatula, I retrieve the two halves of the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds off their inner surface, then mix again and finally pour the custard into the ice cream maker. I let the machine run until its content reaches gelato consistency. Then I stop the machine, scrape the ice cream from the sides and bottom of the machine bowl, stir briefly, scoop into small bowls and serve immediately. Only the very end of this process had to undergo some changes for the recipe under discussion, since the rhubarb is added to the vanilla ice cream after the churning is complete.

Although I had long wished to try adding rhubarb to my gelato alla vaniglia, I had never done it until now, for no particular reason. Rhubarb was unknown to me as food until my first vacation study in England, when I was 24. Then, I ate rhubarb pie (baked by my landlady) and rhubarb yogurt, and loved them both. However, a number of years passed before I managed to use rhubarb in my kitchen.

IMGP8183

This year, I decided it was time I added rhubarb to my ice cream. To prepare it, I followed (to a certain extent) a recipe in the aforementioned book: I cut into 3/4″-long pieces half a pound of rhubarb and cooked it gently in a tablespoon of water until soft, then added a tablespoon of sugar and a half a tablespoon of agave nectar and stirred. I processed the rhubarb in the blender very briefly before putting it in the fridge to chill. Once the gelato alla vaniglia was ready in all its sweet, creamy glory (its smell is heavenly), I scooped it into a medium bowl1 and added the rhubarb by spoonfuls, swirling it in with a spatula to create a marbling pattern. I then served the result, which was a resounding success, as certified by the head of my quality assurance department (a.k.a., my husband).

After almost 10 years, I still enjoy making ice cream and people who try it usually like it. When I see a person’s face light up as the creamy delight starts to diffuse in his or her mouth, I feel I have the power to contribute to the world’s happiness, one small spoonful at a time. By the way, when we visit Italy now, my husband misses my gelati and sorbetti (sorbets).

A final note: the flavor of ice cream and sorbet depends heavily on the quality of the ingredients. I use organic milk and cream (latte e panna), pastured eggs (uova) and organic fruit as ingredients.

1 I used a lidded plastic bowl, which then went into the freezer with the leftover ice cream, after I covered the surface of the ice cream with a square of wax paper.

Rhubarb This post is my contribution to the current edition of Fresh Produce of the Month, an event created by my friend Marta, An Italian in the US, that this month focuses on rabarbaro.
Here you will find the roundup of the event and the announcement of the next edition.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post: 

gelato alla vaniglia variegato al rabarbaro

or launch the gelato alla vaniglia variegato al rabarbaro  audio file [mp3].