Rhubarb 2: Savoury on the Cheap

I decided to give the rhubarb another try tonight for dinner. My plant is enormous, plenty there for more experimentation.

I find that I am drawn to Nigel Slater's recipes on BBC Food more often than some of the other food writers. He seems to revel in simple comfort food.

I was reading his crazily easy notes for roasting rhubarb and I honed in on his closing statement "Use in sweet or savoury dishes...such as ... fried mackerel fillets".

I'm not a big fan of mackerel, and most seafood is out of my budget these days, but I did have a can of tuna in the pantry. Savoury rhubarb and tuna, here we come!

I followed his directions for prepping and roasting the rhubarb, and after I popped it in the oven, I thinly sliced half a sweet onion and put it in a skillet with some olive oil, basil, dried ginger, and a generous amount of salt. Once that began to gently cook, I started half a cup of rice.

When it was done, I added the rhubarb (sliced down to about 2" per piece) to the onion, a tablespoon more of brown sugar, and then a drained can of tuna. I let this mess simmer to boil off extra liquid. The rhubarb began to break down a little and while the original chunky texture was lost, the mixture of flavours made up for it.

I served the rhubarb-tuna-onion mixture over the rice. It was simple, fresh, delicious--and cheap.