Rhubarb chutney

CIAO RAGAZZI!  Annalena is making a special appearance because, well, this recipe deserves sharing.  It's easy, you probably have everything you need (but the rhubarb), and getting the rhubarb at this time of year is as easy as walking through your farmers' market.

Annalena LOVES her rhubarb.  She laments that most recipes for it are for sweets - not that she doesn't love sweets, or sweet rhubarb desserts.  In fact, one of the top 10 desserts Annalena ever had was simple, slivered rhubarb, raw, dusted in white sugar, and over vanilla ice cream.  DAMN that was good.  And you could make THAT tonight too.  But make this.  Rhubarb, like Annalena, is a fruit of many faces.  And like Annalena, most of what you'll be doing is taming its strong acidity.  You can do it.  It's ultimately not hard.  Just be true to yourself, and it will work.

This is a recipe that admits of many, MANY variations, so please use this as a guide, ragazzi, and then either follow it by route, or play with the various components.  To be honest, you could switch out the rhubarb and use something else in season.  Strawberries?  Sure.  Apricots?  Uh huh.  Peaches.?  Get thee behind me Satan.  Just get to work.

Ok, here's our first batch of ingredients:

What you have, in the back, is 1/3 cup of apple cider vinegar - you could use whatever vinegar you like.  You will also see 3/4 cup of brown sugar.  Don't have it?  Forgot to close the box and it's as hard as a rock?  Use white.  Prefer date sugar?  Ok by Annalena.  

To the left, you will see a couple of cloves of grated garlic (use your microplaner), and a hunk of ginger, also diced.  Fine, not so fine, anyway you like it.  

The final component:  that brown powder - is Annalena's spice mix. It's a teaspoon of ground cumin, 1/2 a teaspoon of cinnamon, the same amount of ground cloves, a pinch of hot red pepper flakes.  Were Annalena eating this all herself, she would have added a jalapeno pepper.  You could play with these spices to your heart's content.  You also see a diced onion.  That will come in later.  Traditionally, it's a red onion. Annalena grabbed a yellow one.  Toss her in jail. 

So, ok, you put all of these ingredients into a non reactive pot, and you heat them, at a low heat, until you get a simmer:

While this is happening, cut up 1.5 pounds of fresh rhubarb.  That means, you'll probably need close to two pounds, because the ends of the stalks will be somewhat , well, BLECH and you won't want them  (mix them with water and sugar and make a syrup for drinks, or to glaze a pie, etc) Go for half inch pieces, and get about 1/3 (which is a stingy 1/2 cup) of a dried fruit.  Recipes recommend cherries, or raisins.   Annalena had raisins.  

Now, here comes the "hard part."  Toss your rhubarb, and your dried fruit, into the simmering liquid.  Turn up the heat, and when you get a light boil, stir it.  Stir it every minute, for about five minutes.  At first, you will think 5 minutes is too little time. Trust Annalena on this.  Rhubarb is not something that cooks gradually.  It holds together and then breaks down - sort of like Annalena at the opera (forgive please.   She was thinking of "Les Troyens" this afternoon, and "Hansel und Gretel" which have no connection whatsoever, but she broke down more than once).   

This is Annalena's chutney after 3 minutes.  After five minutes, she got what you saw at the start, in her canning jars: 

There is no need to "water process" this stuff, nor is there any need to refrigerate it until you open the jar.  You can use it right away, but if you can wait for 24-48 hours, bambini, you are in for a transcendent rhubarbian experience (which may or may not be your think). 

Gang, notwithstanding the opening of our states and cities, we are still in this for the long haul.  The least we can do is be good with ourselves by cooking good food.  Annalena likes this with a strong cheese, like brie , or ricotta salata, but traditionally, you put it on anything but the reddest of meats.  No beef or lamb, but anything else is , pardon the pun,  "game."  This chutney may have determined Annalena's protein for the week, as it feels right with duck.  She will report back.  

Go and make something tasty gang.  Even if you did nothing but watch Judge Judy reruns for three months, as Elaine Strich once said "I'm still here." You're still here, we're all still here.  Eat well.