Rhubarb Curd

Our rhubarbs have once again sprung to life with a vengence and I've been searching for things to do with them. Last year, I was able to harvest 3 times, despite the two flower spikes that also came out. I could have even harvested a fourth time, but resisted, mainly because I had a whole drawer full in the freezer. This year, there were three flower spikes, which I decided to cut off, even though it doesn't look like they are having any draining effect on the plants themselves. I also ripped out a few of the largest stalks in order to try this recipe, which I found a few weeks ago.

Actually, I've already tried this recipe, with some of the frozen rhubarb, and I can honestly say, I wholeheargedly agree with the gushing commments on the originator's website. This was a really scrumptious recipe. And today, I made it with fresh rhubarb, as per the original.

Ingredients
makes about 600 ml

400 g fresh or frozen rhubarbs to get 300 ml juice
1 tbsp cornflour or potatoflour
150 g granulated sugar
3 large eggs
170 g unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
pink food colouring (optional)

Method

1. Trim, wash and cut the rhubarb stalks into 0.5 cm chunks, then process in a blender until they turn into purée.
2. Place the blended rhubarb in a cheese cloth and squeeze out the juice.
3. Mix together the corn-/potatoflour with the sugar in a large saucepan, then add the eggs and whisk until smooth.
4. Dice the butter.
5. Place on low-medium heat on the hob, add the butter and 240 ml of the rhubarb juice, then stir constanty until it thickens up into a custard consistency.
6. Remove from the hob and stir in the remaining 60 ml of juice, the vanilla extract and pink food colouring, then transfer to jars.
7. Place clingfilm on the surface to prevent a skin from forming and leave to cool down completely.
8. Store in the fridge for up to a couple of weeks.

Now, since I don't force my rhubarbs, they are green, not bright pink like the ones in the shops. Possibly they are also a bit more fibrous. So both my original batch as well as the one I made today became a pale yellow in colour, because of the egg yolks and butter. So in the first batch I added some food colouring, a bit too much in fact and it went bubble gum pink. Not very pretty. I also had more than 300 ml juice, and added some additional 90 ml, which made it a bit runny. But the flavour was fantastic - sweet and tangy and really fresh and both Lundulph and I could have happily eaten it straight from the jar. But I had 5 eggwhites to use up, so I made my angel food cupcakes and used the curd as topping. Just like with the lemon curd originally, this was a very good combination, apart from the runniness.

In today's batch, I resisted the temptation to add the surplus juice and it's now cooling down on the cement slab in the larder. Lundulph said to skip the colouring, he thought the pale yellow is pretty enough.

A thing I noticed is that the curd matured over time, so some of the smoothness disappeared towards the end of the two weeks it lasted. I must try freezing some and see how that affects it. It was fine with the strawberry curd I made last year.

I've also set a little bit aside and frozen it, to see how that fares. I also looked back at the other curd recipes I've tried in the past and I'll try to use the one I made with strawberries last year, it has a fraction of the butter, so should hopefully be healthier.