Nice and crisp: strawberry rhubarb crisp

Annalena is about to make her annual journey to San Francisco, and hopes to regale all of you with her tales along the way. BUT before she goes, she wants to leave you with a recipe that I do hope you will make.

It seems that some of the food crops have come to market much earlier this year than last. Is that global warming at work? Rhubarb came in on EXACTLY the same day as it has for the past two years: April 24. But I remember making desserts before this trip that included only rhubarb, because there were no strawberries. I also recall eating just a few asparagus before we went on the trip, always at the end of May. This year, we have been enjoying asparagus nearly every day, for the last three weeks. As for strawberries, we are told that, by the time we get back, the south New Jersey berry season will be over. Hmmm. Mother Nature, or global warming, or both?

well, with a dinner party upon her, Annalena decided to make a strawberry rhubarb crisp. Know what she found? NO RECIPES. Plenty of recipes for rhubarb crisp, none for the combinaton. And, she also found that these recipes were, well, SKIMPY. Annalena does NOT skimp on her friends. No siree. So, she developed this recipe which follows.

Let us start with the crisp topping. Most crisp toppings have some form of oat, and some kind of nut in them, usually pecans or walnuts. Well, recently, I have enjoyed Patty Jackson's rhubarb tart, with comes with chopped hazelnuts on top, and I recalled eating a rhubarb pie with a scoop of pistachio ice cream, and thinking it was a wonderful combination. Pistachio won out here, as the topping, but please by all means use what you like.

Here's what you do. you take a big heaping cup of flour. REALLY heaping: close to a cup and a third. Mix it with a half cup of sugar. I used all white sugar, but you can mix em if you like. Add a pinch of salt and a cup of toasted pistachio nuts.

How do you toast the nuts? Get the unsalted ones (you could, come to think of it, use salted ones if you like), put em on a baking sheet, and bake at 35o until you begin to smell nuts. Get them out of the oven and into a bowl to cool. When they're cool, add them to the dry ingredients. Then cut up a stick and a half of unsalted butter (ESPECIALLY if your nuts are salted), and rub that into the dry ingredients. You can pulse it in a food processor if you like, and that will chop up the nuts for you.

That's your topping, and you can make that a millenium ahead of time, just freeze it.


For the fruit: Get three pounds of rhubarb. Cut the yucky ends off, and then cut the rhubarb into pieces about a half to 2/3 inch long. Add a quart of strawberries, cut into halves or quarters, depending on their size. Add a cup of sugar to this, together with a third of a cup of flour. Mix it all up together, and let it sit until you begin to see some liquid coming off of the fruit. When that happens, fill a BIG baking dish with the fruit. Pour the crisp topping over it. Put the baking dish on a baking sheet, and put the whole contraption into a preheated, 375 degree oven and let it cook for nearly an hour. You want to see thick, bubbling red juices at the end, that scare you when you think of how hot they will be (because they will be that hot).

Let this sit before you eat it. It's too hot, and the flavors need time to develop. Please do Annalena a favor and do not refrigerate it, though. If you do, the crisp will lose its crispness. It will still be tasty, but you will lose that element of it. It won't sit around all that long if you have the kind of friends I do.

You could make this, by the way, in individual ramekins. That was Annalena's original plans, but when 8 for dinner became 9, and Annalena only had 8 ramekins. One makes do. It's all good.

Have some fun. Switch nuts, switch fruits, and make some of these during the summer, when fruit is at its best