Green rhubarb safe and tasty for use like red?
My mom in her earnest harvested her rhubarb early and sent me stalks that are indiscernible from celery. It tastes very tart which I like but has very faint "rhubarby" flavors. A couple applications I have in mind are a standard cobbler and making bitters by infusing them in vodka. Is it safe to eat (i.e. does red stalk indicate that oxalic acids are no longer present in the stalks?) and how can I intensify the rhubarby flavors without overwhelming anything with the acids?
Best Answer
There are many cultivars of rhubarb, just like there are for most other vegetables. Surprisingly, it seems some cultivars with the best flavor have less of the prized pink color. The color of any particular rhubarb stalk will depend on both the cultivar, and how it was grown.
You should treat it the same way, regardless of the color. So yes, green rhubarb is safe to eat, with the same caveats as apply to any rhubarb. Especially, don't eat the leaves.
In On Food and Cooking (2004 edition), Harold McGee indicates that rhubarb tends to be about 1.5-2.0% acid by weight (mostly oxalic acid), which makes it quite tart. This is an inherent aspect of the vegetable. The only way you really will reduce it is to use proportionately less of it in your recipe, by either reducing the absolute quantity of rhubarb, or increasing the quantity of other ingredients.
In pies and coblers, this is usually done by combining the the rhubarb with another fruit like strawberries, as well as a great deal of sugar.
Oxalic acid is soluble in water at about 14 grams / 100 mL, and even more soluble in ethanol at about 24 g / 100 mL, per Wikipedia. This means that anything you infuse into vodka is likely to be extremely tart, perhaps unpleasantly so. You will want to carefully control steeping times and or ratios. While I have never tried this, I would imagine the tartness would overwhelm whatever rhubarb flavor you might pick up. There might be a reason there are so few famous rhubarb cocktails.
Still, there are a number of rhubarb cocktail recipes that you can find by googling "rhubarb cocktail". They tend to start with a cooked down puree of rhubarb, rather than an infusion, however, and it seems to often be used in the sour role.
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Quick Answer about "Green rhubarb safe and tasty for use like red?"
Can I eat green rhubarb stems? MILLIE: Absolutely! Green stems are just as delicious as the red stems we are more familiar with on other varieties of Rhubarb. Many rhubarb varieties never develop red stems at all, but they are no less tasty than the others.Does green rhubarb taste the same as red?
Green Rhubarb: What's the Difference? Believe it or not, there's no significant flavor difference between red and green rhubarb. Instead, rhubarb's color actually indicates the variety.Is it OK to cook green rhubarb?
Most commonly, green rhubarb stalks on a rhubarb plant are the unripe stalks and will not be as sweet as ripe red stalks. While safe to eat, you may need to adjust the sugar in the recipe to accommodate the tart flavor of green stalks. The color of the pie will also have a paler green appearance.How do you make green rhubarb red?
One site visitor has suggested that placing wood ashes around the base of the rhubarb plants is the solution for turning the rhubarb plants more red. The theory is that, since rhubarb leaves are so large, they often become heavy, touching the soil, and making the soil more acidic.Is green rhubarb poisonous?
\u201cRhubarb leaves are considered poisonous to humans and animals due to high concentrations of oxalic acid,\u201d says Dr. Barbara Ingham, a professor of food science at the University of Wisconsin. This oxalic acid can cause difficulty breathing, nausea and even kidney stones.THIS is how you eat rhubarb.
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Answer 2
Indeed, the green stalks were delicious in cobbler and the infusion is coming along nicely. The flavors and textures were perfect and the color remained greenish. No kidney stones to speak of... yet.
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