With this spring being plentiful in the sky moisture department, I have a bumper crop of rhubarb. Let me rephrase that, I have the the mother lode of all rhubarb harvests! There are three sections of rhubarb on my farm, and all three keep hurling out stalks of rhubarby goodness almost as fast as I can pluck the stalks from the ground. The plant that came out of nowhere in the horse pasture is the size of a Volkswagen Beetle!
We've cut up and frozen pounds and pounds of rhubarb, made crumbles, custards, and wine, but I have been wanting to take a trip to the savory side of the flavor spectrum with the rhubarb, and decided to craft some pickles.
Ahh pickles! I love them so. I love them on sandwiches and burgers, as part of a crackers and cheese tray, heck, I just love snacking on pickles of all kinds! So, I thought to myself the other day, why not whip up a batch of rhubarb pickles? I had just picked a bunch of baby kale, spinach, and lettuce, and my Food Craft-o-vision was already formulating a masterpiece of a salad that included a sprinkling of rhubarb pickles as a flavor explosion garnish.
It was then that I ran into a wall of choice. Which flavor did I want to impart to the rhubarb? More importantly, what did I have in the cupboards that I could use to impart said flavors?
In the end, I figured I better keep it pretty simple on my first pickle run, so I grabbed a gallon of rice vinegar, some sugar, and some whole cloves and set the ingredients on my counter.
It was then time to slice and dice the rhubarb. I chopped the stalks into uniform little chunks, which considering that my knife skills are about as good as my non existent Ju Jitsu skills, was quite an undertaking.
I then stuffed my fairly uniform little chunks of rhubarb into one of the many hundreds of canning jars that lurk around my farm. Things were looking pickle-licious.
After a quick rummage through the dishwasher, because I am pretty sure I am the only human in my entire realm who knows how to put dishes away without being ordered to do so, I placed my little stainless steel pot with dual pour spouts onto the stove, splashed in the vinegar, chucked in the sugar, and heated the concoction until the sugar had dissolved.
I then sacrificed the whole cloves by hurling them into the steaming pickling liquid. I might have even muttered an incantation, something like, Jager! quit swimming in the water bowl!
Jager is my son's kitten. He is a lovely shade of midnight black and has a predilection for swimming in the water dish. He's currently staring at me in a rather discomforting way right now. I think he is assessing the state of my mortality and potential liver size.
After a short stroll from the stove to the kitchen island, I poured the pickling mixture over the rhubarb. I then got out a very technical pickling tool: a glass with a diameter smaller than the canning jar mouth. You want your pickles to be completely submerged beneath the liquid, and I achieved full submersion by smashing the glass in the jar opening.
I let the whole concoction cool to room temperature, placed a lid on the jar, and pitched the pickles into the fridge over night.
This morning it was moment of truth time, did I make something remotely edible and perhaps even tasty?
I strode to the fridge with about as much confidence as a pre-pubescent seventh grader on their first day in a new school. I hate waste! What if the pickles were total trash? How could I bring myself to throw out the entire batch to the pigs.
The pickles were looking very pickle-like and alluring floating in the blush pink liquid. I plucked out a pickle and popped it into my mouth....
Like, fancy restaurant, Asian fusion flavor inspired good! I am already envisioning a baby kale and spinach salad with my rhubarb pickles, feta, and walnuts. I might even take a little of that pickling liquid and craft a vinaigrette dressing to go on that soon to be eaten salad.
So, to recap, rhubarb pickle recipe #1 is a total success! And they are easy to make. Double win!
Rhubarb Pickles
1 cup rice vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
6 whole cloves
3 cups of chopped rhubarbStuff chopped rhubarb into a quart glass canning jar.
Place sugar and vinegar into small saucepan and heat until the sugar dissolves. Add cloves.
Pour pickling liquid over the chopped rhubarb. You want to make sure your rhubarb is completely submerged in the liquid so use a glass to squish the pieces down underneath the pickling solution.
Let pickles cool to room temperature, remove the glass weight, place a lid on the jar, and refrigerate overnight before enjoying. The pickles should keep for a few weeks in the fridge.
And as not most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's needs to be more used and less neglected Canon Rebel camera.
