Nutty Rhubarb Coleslaw

I've been mulling over the idea of using rhubarb in non-desserts for the past couple of weeks. As I have so much tender, young rhubarb right now, I wanted to offset some of the other ingredients that I have to purchase by adding rhubarb in their place. The idea of coleslaw sounded promising, and I still have a couple of heads of cabbage from my purchase in mid-March. I tried it for my own lunch and was so impressed that I decided to make a large batch for our family dinner. This salad received a huge thumbs up from my family members.

A few things to keep in mind:

• use tender, crisp young stalks. Thin stalks seemed to work well for me. Older, thicker stalks may be too stringy to slice thin.
• I used the slicing blade on my food processor. A mandolin would also work very well. Basically, you want very thin slices. With my food processor, I had less of a stringy mess at the end if I didn't use the pusher that forces the stalks through the feed tube. I just allowed the stalks to "fall" through the tube, then picked out the larger chunks after slicing.
• Which brings me to this, you'll want to pick out any large pieces that didn't slice into nice thin bit. You can chop this and freeze to add to a batch of rhubarb sauce, or just compost it if you have plenty of rhubarb growing right now.

Ingredients:

thinly sliced spring rhubarb

chopped, toasted almonds

shredded cabbage

dressing:

mayonnaise

vinegar

salt

sugar

Now this is as close to a recipe as I have, for now. Use about 1 part rhubarb, 2/3 part chopped, toasted almonds, 5 to 6 parts shredded cabbage. Toss with a dressing of mayonnaise mixed with a dash of vinegar, pinch of salt, and one or two spoonfuls of granulated sugar. This should be a sweet, creamy dressing.

Rhubarb and ginger are natural a natural pair. A bit of diced, crystallized ginger would be a wonderful addition to this salad. 

A Variation of Rhubarb Sauce That is Delicious, Uses Less Sugar, and Takes Advantage of Our Surplus Rhubarb

This is baked egg custard topped with blueberry-rhubarb sauce

In the comments the other day, Allie was asking about a recipe for blueberry-rhubarb sauce. Here is how I make rhubarb sauce that gets devoured in my house.

My rhubarb sauce follows 4 points to reduce the sugar, the tartness, and the intensity.

• I mix with berries, about 1 part berries (frozen or fresh) to 3 parts chopped rhubarb. Blueberries are our favorite, but blackberries and strawberries are also yummy in rhubarb sauce. When I see blueberries at Dollar Tree in the freezer section (10-oz bag for $1), I scoop up several bags and hoard them at home until I find something special in which to use them. I was inspired to try blueberries in rhubarb sauce after a comment in my early blogging days.
• I reduce the amount of added sugar by stirring a bit of baking soda into the sauce. When the fruit has cooked to a mush, I stir in about 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda. The reaction causes a gray foam to bubble up. This is stirred down quickly and the gray color disappears. After the baking soda, I then add the sugar to sweeten, using taste as my best judge. Every 1/4 teaspoon of baking sugar has the ability to lessen the need for sugar by about 1/3 cup. When I'm really conserving on sugar, I add even more baking soda, a pinch at a time, again using taste as my guide. I wrote more about using baking soda to reduce tartness in baking and cooking in this post.
• I thin the intensity of the rhubarb with a slurry of cornstarch in water, which is stirred in after sweetening the sauce. About 2 tablespoons of corn starch stirred into 1/2 to 2/3 cup of water, then added to the rhubarb sauce and cooked until thickened will do the trick.
• Finally, at the very end, I add about 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (imitation works fine). The vanilla has a warming effect on the flavor of the rhubarb. Vanilla is a delicious counterpoint to sweet and tangy rhubarb concoctions. I love it in rhubarb jam, too.