Vanilla rhubarb compote – a delicious springtime treat #25/75

Recipe – Rhubarb compote

Ingredients: (about 1000 grams)

500 grams of fresh rhubarb
500 grams of white sugar
1 or 2 vanilla beans

Instructions:

Prepare the rhubarb by cleaning it thoroughly by scrubbing it and by cutting off its leaves and root.
The cleaned rhubarbs are subsequently cut in 6-millimeter slices.
Coat the bottom of a stainless-steel pot with white sugar say 100 grams and drop about 100 grams of cleaned and cut rhubarb on top. Then pour some sugar on top of that and apply another layer of cut and cleaned rhubarb. Keep doing that until you have used all your cut rhubarb and sugar. The idea is to cover all of the rhubarb with sugar so the osmosis process can start draining the rhubarb of its water.
Let the sugar-rhubarb pot sit in the refrigerator overnight to let it do its thing (osmosis) draining the water out of the rhubarb.
Next day heat the pot up to 80 degrees Celsius or 176 degrees Fahrenheit before turning the heat off.
Pour the hot rhubarb compote in airtight glasses for long-term storage. The heat of the rhubarb compote will sterilize the glasses and their lids so no need to use chemicals for conservation. The high sugar content (over 50%) will also help conserve the compote.

Important observations:

In Denmark (my country) all supermarkets will sell fresh rhubarb from late April to the end of May. This is the time of year I make rhubarb compote, but you can store it for all of the year in airtight glasses as shown in the video.

I have seen many YouTube videos on making rhubarb compote that bring the rhubarb compote to a boil at 100 degrees Celsius or 212 degrees Fahrenheit. That temperature will make the rhubarb dissolve into a soup like texture that in my opinion looks horrible and also do not have as delicious a taste as the rhubarb compote you make by stopping the heating at 80 degrees Celsius or 176 degrees Fahrenheit. However, taste and look are subjective so an idea is to try out both processes and be your own judge for what you prefer.

I strongly recommend using real vanilla beans for making rhubarb compote. However, natural vanilla is expensive and cost more than the rhubarb for this treat so artificial vanilla essence is an alternative I have used with acceptable results when a few years back the price of vanilla shot up to 10-20 USD for 1 vanilla bean because of a bad global harvest. Now the price is far more reasonable at 2-3 USD per vanilla bean the same cost as 500 grams of rhubarb at least here in Denmark.

Serving suggestions:

Rhubarb compote should be served refrigerated and can be eaten with a spoon together with roasted white bread with butter. Rhubarb compote has a very delicious and intense sweet-sour taste and if you crave for some sugar this is a great treat for that.

I will have a video up soon about making white bread to eat with rhubarb compote so stay tuned for that.

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