Springtime in Paris means rhubarb and strawberries, they usually mix delightfully on this gentle, shiny dessert. The mousse might be whipped up — actually — in just some minutes. The rhubarb is softened with sugar, the strawberries are puréed, the combination is lightened with a crushed egg white and whipped cream is folded in on the finish. Topped with strawberry items and maybe a sprig of basil or mint, the mousse makes a stunning finish to a meal.
Mousse de rhubarbe aux fraises / Rhubarb-strawberry mousse
Once I served this dessert the opposite evening to a few associates who dropped by for supper, the speak turned to rhubarb. Was it toxic if eaten uncooked? Somewhat a moot level in my humble opinion, as uncooked rhubarb is so disagreeably tart that one chew would discourage anybody. However we requested Dr. Google and located that the uncooked stalks are usually not poisonous, however the leaves are.
I regarded into it additional within the morning and realized that rhubarb has been cultivated for almost two millennia, for each culinary and pharmaceutical functions. Over the centuries it moved from China to the Islamic world over the Silk Street after which on to Europe and the Americas. Rhubarb was deemed so valuable within the 1400s that it was included in a diplomat’s listing of the perfect merchandise arriving in Samarkand from China, together with silk, satin, diamonds, rubies, pearls and musk (merci Wikipedia).
It made its approach to our desk by way of a circuitous route stemming from my daughter’s request that I make a rhubarb dessert she’d had in England on the dwelling of my good friend Penny, a superlative prepare dinner. The e-mail change that adopted established that the dessert in query should have been ‘rhubarb idiot’, wherein the rhubarb is baked within the oven after which mixed with the juice of a blood orange and custard, i.e. what is thought in France as crème anglaise. Penny suggested utilizing compelled rhubarb for its shiny purple coloration.
Effectively, mes amis, compelled rhubarb, which is grown in sheds by candlelight, could also be well-liked in England however I’ve by no means seen it right here in France. Meantime the season for blood oranges is behind us, and getting ready custard is a little bit of a manufacturing. So I made a decision to go French and make a mousse as a substitute. The ethical of this story? Subsequent spring my daughter should board the Eurostar and go to Penny’s for a really particular April idiot.
Joyful cooking.
