KATE’S PLATE
In a new column for Ottawa Magazine, food blogger Katie Shapiro takes a look at seasonal produce and how chefs in our community are using it
A look at seasonal produce. This spring find your inner rhubarb rebel
Growing up, I remember being intimidated by the family rhubarb plant. What started out as a well-intentioned — and small — neighbourly gift soon grew to be an imposing wall of rhubarb. It quickly took over the garden and simply became too much of a shrub to shrug off. Much to mother’s chagrin, my father decided it was taking up too much space without enough reward and promptly ripped it out. That pretty much spelled the extent of my rhubarb experience — until recently. Though I’ve enjoyed my fair share of strawberry-rhubarb pie, it’s not a vegetable I tend to seek out or encounter around town. I’ve always associated a sort of old-fashioned charm with rhubarb: popular in pies and grandmothers’ pantries. But with vibrant pink stalks and poisonous leaves, it’s actually a rather edgy veggie.
For many, rhubarb screams spring. The sight of the crop popping up at the market announces the bounty that will follow in the coming weeks. With that in mind, and keenly aware of my own limited experience with the veggie, I set out to see what some of Ottawa’s culinary minds make of the stalk in an effort to renew my relationship with rhubarb.
At Top Shelf Preserves, the most popular product is rhubarb-based. Sara Pishva, owner of the small-batch pickles and preserves business, explains that her topselling rhubarb and raisin chutney was initially an experiment: she wanted to make a product — enough of it to sell it through the whole year. So far, the experi- ment is working well. Heavy on the rhubarb and shallots, the chutney — wonderful on a cheeseboard or paired with everything from barbecued meats to vegetable samosas — has been a mainstay at the shop.
When I asked Pishva where she gets her rhubarb, she laughed.
“It’s a bit of a funny story,” she said, as getting enough rhubarb for such a large batch turned out to be a little tricky. Pishva stopped at countless roadside farm stands and even found a Kijiji ad where she paid by the stalk to cut her own rhubarb. Once word of mouth spread, it became a community affair: friends and neighbours would drop by her shop to trade some stalks or an uprooted plant for a jar of her preserves. After the initial ask was out there, Pishva joked she had discovered a “secret society” of rhubarb lovers.
For Andy Terauds, rhubarb’s popularity is no secret. He and his wife, Cindy, owners of Acorn Creek Farm, have been growing the perennial vegetable since their first year of farming in Carp. They dedicate about a quarter acre to the crop and sell hundreds of pounds of the vegetable each season. After experimenting with different varieties, they now grow only one — the best one, Terauds claims. German Wine, as the variety is called, is the sweetest and reddest and is a favourite among local chefs and producers. One of those producers is Michael Sunderland of Michael’s Dolce; he uses Acorn Creek rhubarb in his zingy rhubarb black-pepper jam.
I am happy to report that both Pishva’s chutney and Sunderland’s jam bake perfectly. Usually made for the Jewish holiday of Purim in early spring, hamantaschen are traditionally stuffed with a sweet poppyseed filling but can be made with any number of thick fruit preserves or jams. These little pastries are shaped to represent the tricorn hat worn by Haman, a villain whose defeat is celebrated during Purim. Instead of the traditional fillings, I used the rhubarb chutney with a sharp cheese for a savoury version and the rhubarb black-pepper jam to keep things sweet.
For a meatier rhubarb dish, I turned to chef Kyle Mortimer-Proulx. At the helm of the kitchen at Lowertown Brewery, Mortimer-Proulx is also one of the collaborators behind the Bytown Chefs Collective (BCC), a group of young Ottawa chefs dedicated to creating unique dining events in the capital. Using local pork chops from his BCC colleague David Wallace, owner of Around the Block Butcher Shop, MortimerProulx highlighted rhubarb in a simple mostarda. The mostarda is very easy to recreate at home, and the rhubarb’s tartness shines through just enough to complement your perfectly seared meat.
Though the pies I grew up with may be old-fashioned (but also delicious — I’m not knocking a classic!), rhubarb itself certainly is not. With modern twists on just three condiments — a chutney, a jam, and a mostarda — I was convinced: rhubarb has a timeless versatility, and I’m looking forward to playing with it some more. I might even go so far as to grow my own rhubarb plant one day.