A good recipe: Ways with rhubarb

It's rhubarb season! I came home from my parents' last weekend with a large armful of the stuff.

Rhubarb is extremely tart and not very nice on its own unless you drown it in sugar. It's particularly good when paired with very sweet things to balance out the sharp edge of the fruit, hence its classic pairing with custard. I love the pleasingly pink hue of it when it's cooked.

On Sunday night I baked a batch of Delicious magazine's rhubarb and custard blondies and WOW they are delicious indeed. The "custard" is actually brown butter with white chocolate and vanilla extract stirred into it, and I think the base recipe would be a fabulously versatile blondie that you could chuck all sorts of fruits into. The tart rhubarb cuts into the sweetness beautifully.

I flash-froze a couple more batches of sliced rhubarb (blanch by immersing in boiling water for 1 min, then plunge into ice cold water), and I'm going to stew the rest using this lovely Jamie Oliver recipe. Last year I used some of this stewed rhubarb in an eton mess.

Most of the rhubarb recipes I've got are sweet, and there's only so many cakes one can make (though I'm sure my husband would disagree). I'm on the hunt for some more savoury recipes. In the past I've tried this recipe for lamb bulgur pilaf with rhubarb and almonds, which was pretty tasty but I don't buy lamb very often. This fruit is a good counterpart to fatty meats, and I wonder if it'd pair well with fish in the same way that citrus does. Old mate Nige seems to think so, choosing a fattier fish (mackerel).