Rhubarb Ginger Buckwheat Crumble
This recipe has been a long time coming. I think the final recipe was worth the wait. I hope you do, too. It’s a tart, zingy, earthy twist on a traditional combination.
I am fascinated by the stories about how foods have made their way to the United States. Researching which foods are native to this continent is an eye-opener. Very few foods that are commonly eaten by the average American family are native to North America. Our diets have been powerfully influenced by the colonization/enslavement/immigration history of this country. The three primary ingredients in this recipe traveled with those colonizers, enslaved people, and immigrants through time and across continents to end up in my kitchen.
Rhubarb is thought to be native to southwest Russia, southern Siberia, and China. It was cultivated as a medicinal and traded via the Silk Road, arriving in Europe in the 14th century. One of the earliest records of it in this country is from sometime around the American Revolution. It’s very tart, and hard to love raw, but its texture is easily improved by cooking it, and it blends well with other ingredients while not getting lost.
Ginger is native to tropical Asia and the Pacific, but it has been cultivated for thousands of years. It was traded throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, and the Spanish brought it to the “new world” (Mexico) to cultivate it, so it would be less expensive to export. It likely was brought here by British subjects, as there is record of Indigenous people (in what is now Virginia) using it in a medicinal beverage in 1589. I probably don’t need to describe ginger to you, but if you have not tried it in all its various forms, you have not truly experienced its versatility.
Buckwheat is native to central Asia. There is evidence of its use in Japan going back thousands of years, and there are so many dishes from so many countries using this “grain” (not really a grain, because buckwheat is not a grass) that I can’t list them all here. It is a staple food in many parts of the world. It was brought to this continent by the Dutch in the 17th century. Buckwheat’s flavor is nutty, earthy, and a bit floral. Buckwheat flour is naturally gluten-free.
When we moved to New England, I fell in love with rhubarb. It has such a unique flavor and texture, I have repeatedly been inspired to find new ways to use it that aren’t typical in the United States. While rhubarb is commonly paired with strawberries or lots of sugar here in the US, during my binge-watching of The Great British Baking Show, I learned that rhubarb is commonly paired with ginger in British baking, often in the form of stem ginger preserved in syrup. I knew I needed to explore that, because it just sounded so yummy.
I also like to research which plants are in the same plant family, because they will often go together well in recipes. This research can yield some surprising combinations, and no one was more surprised than me to find out that rhubarb is in the same plant family as buckwheat. I was off to the races at that point, determined to figure out this culinary puzzle.
This recipe has been in development off and on since 2016. The combination was tasty, but the textures were never right. Some of the ingredients I wanted to try were unreliably available. We don’t have stem ginger here in the US, (WHY?) so I spent many grocery trips camped in front of the jams and jellies trying to find an alternative. I settled on ginger preserves. Then I couldn’t find buckwheat groats, or kasha, but one silver lining of the growth in the gluten-free market is readily available buckwheat flour. One unexpected challenge was finding rhubarb once it was out of season locally. During the pandemic’s supply chain issues, fresh rhubarb disappeared from my grocery store, and even frozen rhubarb was not available. But these were not the biggest challenges.
A lot has happened in the last 7 years, and there were times that I could not work on getting this recipe right. I took on a leadership role at my church that grew into something I never expected - navigating a pandemic while President of the Church Board was not a thing I thought I ever would do, or could do. This has changed me, and I will never be the same.
Of course, life does not stop, even for a pandemic, and we also finished homeschooling our son and got him successfully enrolled in the local community college. There have been significant losses, from good friends in my church community, to my fine best friend, my dog Luna, who passed suddenly almost a year ago.
I found all of my focus shifted to living through all of that, and doing well at it, leaving little time for figuring out how to get this recipe across the finish line. But it stayed with me, through service, through illness, through loss and grief.
A lot has happened in my life since I started working on this recipe, but it has remained a creative touchstone for me, because it reminds me of the reasons I love cooking, recipe development, and food history.
This recipe has been a long time coming. I think the final recipe was worth the wait. I hope you do, too. It’s a tart, zingy, earthy twist on a traditional combination.
If you cannot find fresh rhubarb, frozen rhubarb will work, but may release more liquid during the baking. If using frozen rhubarb, be sure to use the tablespoon of all purpose flour that is suggested in the recipe.
Ingredients:
Filling:
2 pounds rhubarb
1/2 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
2 tablespoons ginger preserves
(1 tablespoon all-purpose flour - optional - see NOTES)
Topping:
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons finely chopped candied ginger
1/4 cup unsalted butter, cold
Method:
Preheat the oven to 375 deg. F. with a rack in the center of the oven.
Chop the rhubarb into 3/4-inch pieces, enough to fill a 1-quart glass measuring pitcher to the top.
Combine the rhubarb, brown sugar, and ginger preserves in a large bowl and allow to sit for 15 minutes, stirring once or twice to coat the rhubarb with the sugary juices. (Add flour and stir, if using.)
Transfer the filling to a 9” pie plate and spread in an even layer.
In a bowl, combine the flour, granulated sugar, and salt. Add the candied ginger, and toss to coat. Cut the cold butter into small pieces, then using a fork or your fingertips, work the butter into the dry ingredients until the topping has the texture of wet sand.
Spread the topping mixture over the top of the filling in an even layer.
Place the pie plate on a cookie sheet to catch any overflow, and bake in oven for 45 minutes, or until the topping is browned in places, and the filling is thick and bubbling through the topping.
Cool on wire rack. Equally delicious warm, at room temperature, or cold. Top with a drizzle of cream or custard, a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or a dollop of whipped cream, if you want, but it’s great on its own.
NOTES:
If using frozen rhubarb, use the all purpose flour suggested for the filling to thicken the extra liquid it might release.
Recipe can be halved, and baked in a smaller dish.
Recipe can be divided into 4 small dishes to make individual portions (I used 7 oz. ramekins). If the dish or ramekin is deeper than a pie plate, your crumble may be juicier, not as thickened. Add a tablespoon of all purpose flour to the filling in Step 3 as indicated. Bake for less time, approximately 30 minutes.