Rhubarb Salsa

dreadnut

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Rhubarb is in season!

5-6 stalks of rhubarb, thinly sliced. Blanch for 10 seconds, place in colander and rinse with cold water to stop cooking.

Add to taste: freshly chopped red onion, bell pepper, tomato, cilantro, 2 T honey, dash of salt, juice from 1 lime, sprinkle with coarse ground black pepper.

Stir, then chill in the refrigerator for a few hours...ENJOY!

Yesterday, it paired well with a grilled ribeye and an ice-cold IPA.
 

JohnW63

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Rhubarb Salsa. Not a pair of words I would expect together. 10 seconds is enough time in the hot water ?
 

silverfox103

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Nothing better than rhubarb or strawberry rhubarb pie, which I had this past weekend. About 25 or 30 years ago, one of the neighbors gave us a bunch of rhubarb. Never got around to using it, so the Mrs. chucked it behind the house. Well, it caught, flourished and multiplied. Now we have more rhubarb than we can use. As soon as the tomatoes hit the farmers markets, we're going to try the salsa. The recipe sounds good!

Tom
 

Nuuska

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Hello

I am nothing of a cook - but I know there are plenty good stuff made of rhubarb

pie - fool - jam - juice

We have some growing in the back of garden - unfortunately we never eat it, because our dear dog was buried there about 20 years ago. Of course there is no dog in the rhubarb, but my wife just can't think of it.
 

dreadnut

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JohnW, I thought the same thing but if you bring the water to a hard boil, you only need to blanch the rhubarb for 10 seconds, if you go longer than that it turns to mush. Unexpectedly made "rhubarb sauce" one time by boiling too long.
 

Guildedagain

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I don't recall eating rhubarb ever in my life. This sounds really good though.....


Just chew on a stalk ;-)

Our plants are 6' tall in flowers right now, quite impressive, a side of rhubarb not too many people get to see...

People around here freeze it until strawberry season which is just around the corner, and then look out! ;[)
 

adorshki

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Just chew on a stalk ;-)

Our plants are 6' tall in flowers right now, quite impressive, a side of rhubarb not too many people get to see...

People around here freeze it until strawberry season which is just around the corner, and then look out! ;[)

I shoulda remembered you before I decided not to post a reply to Tom earlier:
Hi Tom

Not 100% sure, but I think rhubarb needs cooler weather to grow. We've got plenty of that. The Mrs. is from WA state, she never had it either until she moved out east.

Tom

That's kind of funny because Wiki says:
"...half of all US production is in Pierce County, Washington."
Now to be fair that's firmly seated in temperate rain forest west of the Cascade Range but east of the Cascades is extremely dry in comparison, arid and surprisingly hot summers in some areas to boot, more like high prairie grasslands.
Not good for rhubarb but great for things like apples, hops, and grapes.
In fact became the nation's leading producer of apricots and cherries after my beloved Santa Clara Valley Pave-Over Project was finally completed in the '00's.
"The valley, named after the Spanish Mission Santa Clara, was for a time known as the Valley of Heart's Delight for its high concentration of orchards, flowering trees, and plants. Until the 1960s it was the largest fruit producing and packing region in the world with 39 canneries.[1][2]"
Apple Computer even has a symbolic replanted orchard inside its Apple Park campus, known locally as "that alien thing that f----ed up all our traffic":
apple-park.png

Apparently the irony escapes them.
maxresdefault.jpg

That whole piece of land was covered with one huge cherry orchard when I was a kid, around 1965.
How do I know?
Because that street down in the lower right hand corner dead-ended where those houses stop, in fact, that section above 'em was orchard too, marked by the tree line surrounding that little residential section.
My best buddy lived in the house on the north side of the street at the dead-end.
You can imagine what we did in early summer when the cherries started getting ripe.
And the mustard used to grow so tall and thick in the spring you couldn't see 3 feet through it, or over it if you were less than 5 feet tall, either.
Oh well, nobody comes here for the food anymore, anyway.
 
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adorshki

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Actually Al, the Mrs. is from way east of the Cascades where it is a desert and very hot. They can grow anything there, but maybe not rhubarb.

Tom

Right, suspected that was the case, but thought it would sound patronizing the first time around.
Had a girlfriend in Yakima once, always remembered the extreme difference of climate compared to the coastal forests.
:friendly_wink:
 

dreadnut

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This salsa would also pair really well with Dungeness Crab!
 

adorshki

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This salsa would also pair really well with Dungeness Crab!
How about Fish tacos?
I got on a fish taco kick for a while using tilapia/perch filets, pan fried for a couple of minutes before tossing some shredded red cabbage on top to "sweat" for a couple of minutes until ready to fill tacos (soft ones, not the crunchy kind).
At the time I had some great jalapeno jelly (sweet and hot together) that I used for "sauce" but I bet that salsa'd work great too.
 

dreadnut

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I said Dungeness Crab for our NW Washington friends, I was introduced to Dungeness crab when I was stationed on Whidbey Island.

I'm guessing it would also go well with fish tacos, which I also love.

Actually, I'm guessing it would pair well with almost anything.

I also just opened my last jar of my jalapeno/wild blackberry jam.

I am hoping to do a lot of canning this summer!
 

silverfox103

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The Mrs. just made up a batch of Rhubarb Salsa.....very tasty. On the menu for tomorrow night. She makes Mango Salsa also. Gotta say, the Rhubarb Salsa is way better.

Tom
 
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dreadnut

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Yup, gotta make more of that before rhubarb goes out of season!

Maybe I'll can some, I really have to can a bunch of stuff this summer, including some hot salsa.
 

Cabarone

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It grew wild in the backyard of my childhood home. We would pull stalks of it off and eat it raw...kinda like sweet-n-sour celery...

Our mother would make pies with it...more like cobbler, she used so much sugar...

I'll see strawberry/rhubarb pies in grocery stores but never just rhubarb...
 
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