Melis Campbell
It’s rhubarb time! From April you can buy fresh rhubarb stalks – and with them delicious rhubarb cake, compote and jam. We have valuable tips for you on buying and cooking and show you how healthy rhubarb actually is.
Rhubarb is a vegetable, but the red stalks are used like fruit to make compote and jam or put on cakes.
The spring vegetables are full of healthy ingredients, but also contain oxalic acid, which is why people with certain pre-existing conditions should avoid eating them.
When buying, you should make sure that the rhubarb is as fresh as possible. You can tell by three characteristics.
Cake, jam, compote: you can use rhubarb in many delicious dishes – or as a drink in the form of juice and spritzer. But how healthy is rhubarb? When is it in season and what should you look out for when buying? We have summarized the most important tips for you.
When is rhubarb in season?
The herbaceous rhubarb plant with its red stalks belongs to the knotweed family (like buckwheat and sorrel) and is a fairly undemanding plant. It grows particularly well on humus-rich, moist soil. If you want to plant rhubarb, it is best to do so in autumn and make sure that the plant has enough space.
Once the stalks have turned red, the rhubarb can be harvested. The popular spring vegetable is in season from around April to the end of June. Rhubarb is grown all over Germany and is available fresh in season at weekly markets, in organic markets and also in supermarkets. We recommend that you go for regional organic goods in spring, because they usually have the best environmental balance.
Water, minerals, and vitamins: rhubarb is so healthy
The harvested rhubarb stalks consist of more than 90 percent water – but also score points with other healthy ingredients: rhubarb has a lot of potassium, as well as calcium, vitamin C and valuable fiber.
Due to the large amount of water, the vegetables have few calories and the red sticks are even said to have a detoxifying and blood-cleansing effect. In China, rhubarb has been used in traditional medicine for centuries.
If in doubt, avoid rhubarb if you have previous illnesses
But beware: rhubarb also contains oxalic acid. This hinders the absorption of calcium, magnesium and iron in the human body. People with kidney diseases or gallbladder diseases should therefore avoid foods containing oxalic acid such as rhubarb, beetroot and spinach.
You should therefore not eat rhubarb raw, but cook it. Peeling, blanching or cooking reduces the oxalic acid in rhubarb, and as long as the vegetable is not consumed excessively, there is no risk of poisoning, according to the Bavarian Consumer Advice Center. Incidentally, most of the oxalic acid is in the rhubarb leaves and not in the stalks.
Cooking rhubarb – peeled or unpeeled?
Rhubarb tastes slightly sour – the redder the stalks, the sweeter the vegetable. However, cooking the rhubarb loses its acidity and makes it taste milder. Although rhubarb is a vegetable, most people prepare it like fruit and use it to make cakes, compotes or preserves.
Incidentally, you don’t necessarily have to peel the rhubarb: young, fresh rhubarb with hard, shiny stalks can also be cooked unpeeled. However, before cooking, wash the stalks under running water and cut off the top and bottom with a sharp knife.
Depending on the dish you want to make from rhubarb, the cooking time will change. For rhubarb cake, you only have to cook the stalks briefly: cut the rhubarb stalks into pieces about a centimeter wide and bring them to a boil in a pot of water. Let the rhubarb pieces cook for about five minutes, stirring regularly. If the rhubarb is still al dente, it is done cooking.
For compote you have to boil the rhubarb longer:
Also cut the stalks into centimeter-sized pieces, sprinkle with sugar and let stand, covered, for a few minutes. When sprinkling, use no more than a tablespoon of sugar per stalk of rhubarb.
Heat the pieces in a saucepan and let them simmer for about 15 minutes.
If the rhubarb is soft and falling apart, it’s done.
The still warm rhubarb compote tastes particularly good with a scoop of ice cream, quark, or natural yoghurt. Strawberries and rhubarb complement each other perfectly: The sweet berries soften the sour rhubarb taste – the rhubarb in turn gives a pleasant freshness.
Buying rhubarb: How to recognize fresh rhubarb stalks
You can recognize fresh rhubarb by its firm, shiny stalks. Ideally, the interfaces are still damp.
After harvesting, rhubarb quickly loses water and dries out. Therefore, process it as fresh as possible.
Fresh rhubarb will keep for a few days in the fridge, so wrap it in a damp cloth and put it in the vegetable compartment of the fridge.
Preferably use regional organic rhubarb, which is easiest to find at weekly markets and organic markets.
