Rhubarb - better late than never

Is this a record? Possibly the slowest forcing rhubarb in the country?

The buckets went over the rhubarb, to exclude all light and to force the nascent stalks into early growth, way back in January. Today, after weeks of obsessive checking, the stems were finally long enough to cut and eat. In The Independent, Lily Vanilli says "the first lovely pink crop of forced rhubarb has been and gone". Not on my allotment it hasn't.

As well as the darkness, which makes the stems grow long and slim in search of light, covering the rhubarb and packing it with straw also makes it warmer inside its insulated bucket, aiding early growth. In most years, anyway.

This year, the prolonged cold has evidently stopped any growth, just as the suddenly warmer weather this week has set the stalks off. I certainly hadn't imagined it would take three months to harvest any forced rhubarb - usually by mid-April we've started on the 'normally' raised main stems.

It was worth the wait though. Rather than go the whole hog with a crumble or fool, I poached the stems in a light syrup infused with half a vanilla pod and a couple of cardamoms, and served with creme fraiche (vanilla ice cream for the nipper).

Pink and perky: forcing rhubarb for an early harvest

Forced rhubarb is that which has been made to grow earlier than usual by being kept in the dark. This is what they do to the rhubarb grown in huge sheds in the famous Wakefield triangle, and sold - at a premium - in shops from December onwards, but it's very easy to force your rhubarb plants on a domestic scale as well. The resulting stems are rosy pink, long and slim. They taste slightly sweeter than conventionally grown stalks, perhaps all the more so for being available when most homegrown produce is either dormant or left over from the autumn.

You can buy special pots for forcing rhubarb but apart from a certain aesthetic appeal I’m not sure what the point of them is. All you need is a bucket, a weight – half a concrete slab will do – and some straw or similar packing material.

Rhubarb crowns covered with pots, weighted and packed with straw
to ensure all light is excluded.

Once your rhubarb shows the first signs of coming to life again in January, up-end the bucket over the budding root. Put the weight on top to ensure the bucket doesn’t get blown over. Pack the straw around the base of the bucket inside and out to ensure that all light is excluded from the interior of the bucket. The budding rhubarb needs total darkness.

Rhubarb bud just showing above the
soil in early January.

Wait six weeks or so – anywhere between four weeks and eight in my experience. Start checking after four, anyway. You should be able to harvest your slim, pale pink, forced rhubarb in February and March.

Make a note of which of your rhubarb crowns you forced this year and do not force these particular plants again next year. Give them a chance to grow on naturally before forcing again.

Forced rhubarb is more tender than conventionally grown stalks so treat it gently for cooking. I love rhubarb crumble but always feel this is a quite a hefty treatment for these more delicate stems. I usually simmer them, either on top of the cooker in a pan, or in the oven, in a very light syrup, or with orange juice. I also like the idea of serving rhubarb with meat or fish as part of the man course - Jamie Oliver teams rhubarb with pork in a number of recipes and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has an interesting-looking recipe for forced rhubarb with mackerel in The Guardian this week.

The buds are simply covered with
an upturned pot.

Forcing rhubarb

The rhubarb at the allotment thrives on neglect. I inherited the rhubarb patch from the previous plotholder so I have no idea how old it is, must be 15 years at least. I know that I should have divided it by now, but I never know where I would put the divided plants, or who might want them.

So as well as never dividing it, fertilising it, watering it or anything else, I’ve never tried forcing it either, although I notice a lot of other plotholders do this.

Last year, I hardly used any rhubarb: I quite like the stuff poached in syrup and we use up spare syrup by making rhubarb ice lollies which my son likes. But that’s about it. Forced rhubarb comes at a time when there is little else going on at the allotment so I thought I might make more use of it when it’s not competing for attention with asparagus, spinach, peas, strawberries and raspberries.

To force rhubarb, all you need to do is to exclude light from the plants around January time. An upturned flowerpot or bucket will do this nicely. I fixed two large square pots over the rhubarb – or rather over the ground where I knew the rhubarb was, as it dies down overwinter. I packed straw around the rim of the pots at soil level to ensure no light could get in and used netpegs to fix the pots to the ground. A paving slab on top of each pot covered the drainage holes and also ensured the pots wouldn’t blow away in high winds.

Since about mid-February, I’ve been sneakily checking under the pots for signs of life. Each time, I’ve been gratified to see that there have been potential shoots forming. Finally, last weekend, I found enough long slim pale stems for a portion of rhubarb, our first of the year

Poached rhubarb

500g rhubarb stems, trimmed

250ml apple juice (I have also used orange juice successfully. It’s always tempting to pour in some wine to help the syrup along, but the juice will be no good for making ice lollies with afterwards – they won’t freeze hard enough)

½ a vanilla pod or 1 teasp vanilla extract at a pinch

100g sugar

Clean the rhubarb and slice into finger-lengths. Put the apple juice, vanilla pod and sugar in a pan and heat gently to dissolve the sugar, stirring. Add the rhubarb and bring to a simmer. This slim forced rhubarb seems to only take around five minutes before it’s silky-soft, and you don’t want it mushy. Lift the rhubarb pieces out of the pan and eat with crème fraiche, or scattered with (not very seasonal) blueberries, or just on its own. Keep the syrup for making ice lollies.

Rhubarb ice lollies

300ml rhubarb syrup – see above

Remove the vanilla pod (keep it for another day) and boil the liquid for another five minutes or so to reduce it slightly. Pour the liquor through a fine sieve, such as a tea strainer, into a jug, then carefully fill your ice lolly moulds. Leave to cool, then freeze. The lollies have a lovely astringent sweetness, plus the aromatic vanilla makes it taste light and creamy all at the same time too.

Later in the season, when the rhubarb stalks are as thick as a butcher’s arm and nearly as tough, I’ll use the same basic ingredients but add some darker spices instead of the vanilla: a couple of cloves and a star anise, or some cardamom pods. Brown sugar gives it a richer, more caramel flavour as well.