The Giraffe of Baking

Psssst: IT'S SPRING! You deserve a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Today, I spied some ruby red and beautiful rhubarb in Publix. Just a regular old Publix had some of the prettiest rhubarb I have seen in some time. Which means we must be in high rhubarb season - a thing that, sadly, is an iffy thing down in the south. This tart, sumptuous vegetable sometimes needs a longer colder winter than the south allows, so we have some unreliable seasons and typically just get our rhubarb from up north. It’s a real joy to find it just hanging around a sometimes mediocre grocery store.

Rhubarb, to my mind, is so exotic. I know it seems common and maybe even plain to the American baking vernacular, but it feels akin in mystery to say, a giraffe, to me. I often wonder, who was the lucky bastard who spied the first giraffe?! How bizarre and wild and curious and mind blowing it must have been do discover a long necked, long limbed, spotted giant of an animal pacing slowing across the tundra like a slow and somewhat spooky song.

Rhubarb feels like that to me. Who was the brilliant cook who dug this thing, this strange fibrous and tart and richly colored stalk out of the ground after it’s two or three year slumber in the cold earth and decided that, this thing, this bizarre beet-red-tannic-until-cooked-vegetal-as-they-come plant, should become a centerpiece of spring? Whoever they were: way to go and thanks.

On a lazy Sunday, I like to gently poach rhubarb in a simple vanilla syrup with just a touch of some kind of citrus. I then like to eat them on top of a biscuit.

Rhubarb can be practically anything you need it to be. I’ve had it in savory applications, shaved in salads, lightly blanched and still tart and offering something remarkably unusual to your bite. I’ve had them carefully poached, yet perfectly tender and sweet from their poaching liquid. And, naturally, I’ve had them in every kind of pie you can imagine because I’ve made them in every kind of pie you can imagine.

It’s simple, really, to poach a rhubarb stalk, and you get better and better as you go. It’s really a matter of knowing when to remove the heat and knowing when to hold it for a moment, just like Kenny Rogers says. You make a simple syrup - aptly named because it is simply equal parts water to caster sugar - and, as I mentioned, I like to add vanilla bean or paste and maybe a little orange zest as orange and rhubarb are natural bedfellows. I make the syrup, steady it to a slow simmer, trim my rhubarb into handsome batons, add them to the hot, barely simmering syrup and - especially if the rhubarb are petite - I usually bring to an easy-going boil and immediately remove from the heat. Then I let the rhubarb cool in the syrup. Sometimes I don’t even bring them up to a baby boil. Sometimes, they just need to sit in the hot liquid. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll learn how to be delicate in your poach so as to keep your rhubarb both pretty and intact as well as flavorful.

Spring does double duty when strawberries stay in season past the first warm couple of weeks. We are, in fact, having one of those summers. The strawberries from the south, which sometimes harvest as early as February, are still coming up like champions and we are seeing our first Tennessee strawberries this week. This only means one thing: godddamned Strawberry Rhubarb Pie.

Here’s a recipe to send you into your weekend with the highest potential for a good self-care decision. Make this on Saturday morning and you’ll be having pie for dessert on Saturday night and, more importantly, pie with your coffee on Sunday morning. It’s one way of living and I highly recommend it.

Happy baking and lots of love, L

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Strawberry Rhubarb Pie / Lisa Donovan

Makes 1 10” pie

One batch LD’s Pie Dough (this makes for a double crust)

Filling:

2#                   Rhubarb, trimmed and cut into ½” slices

1½ #       Strawberries, rinsed, hulled and thickly sliced

¾ cup            Cane Sugar

½ cup             Light Brown Sugar

1                      Vanilla Bean, scraped and bean shell saved for another use

Zest and Juice of one lemon

Large pinch of salt

3T Tapioca Flour

Egg Wash:

1                      whole egg

1T                    Water

Preheat oven to 425.

Roll bottom round of pie and fit into pie tin. Trim the edges to ½ “ outside of the rim of the pan, do not crimp. Freeze. Roll out either a double crust or prepare a lattice lattice top and lay flat on a sheet tray with parchment paper. Chill top in refrigerator, do not freeze, while preparing filling.

Toss the first seven filling ingredients together until well combined and then toss in the tapioca flour. Let this mixture sit/macerate for at 10 minutes to release some of the excess liquid from the fruit and to let the tapioca flour bloom. Put the fruit in prepared pie shell by mounding higher than you might think and then brushing the rim with egg wash and topping with preferred style of top dough. Brush top of pie with more egg wash and sprinkle with sugar or vanilla sugar if you have some handy.  If preparing a full double crust instead of a lattice, cut three small slits in top to release steam.

Place pie on sheet tray (preferably with a silpat so you have an easier time cleaning up the sugar drippings from the pie) and place in oven. Bake at 425 for 10 minutes and then reduce heat to 350 degrees. Bake for 45 minutes until brown and bubbly. Let cool at room temp for at least four hours or overnight if you have time. If your pie lasts longer than two days (it’s good to sit out that long), you can store it in fridge for another two days.

Cold pie is it’s own special gift.