Seasonal Glories: Rhubarb, 3 Ways

FOR years I had a rule when it came to rhubarb. With a small, overstuffed refrigerator that could never absorb the unwieldy stalks I lugged home from the farmers’ market, I always stewed rhubarb the day I bought it, cooking it down to fit in a quart container.
But after a major kitchen renovation that included a refrigerator so large the deliverymen had to remove my front door to get it in, I can now house two to three pounds of the ruddy stalks.

Although my old rhubarb compote recipe is speedy, convenient and addictive (simmered with brown sugar and a touch of butter, it’s like a thick rhubarb-butterscotch sauce), it is only one way to experience the bracing pleasures of the plant. This year, it was time to branch out.

My first idea was strawberry rhubarb pie — or even easier, a cobbler. But I hesitated to apply heat to the gorgeous strawberries I had also brought home. With a bitter-bordering-on-aggressive flavor when raw, rhubarb needs cooking to soften into something delicious. Farm-fresh strawberries do not.

But raspberries, which are more intense than strawberries, become more heady and perfumed when cooked.

I mixed rhubarb and raspberries with sugar and cornstarch and let them rest while I made the biscuits. Thinking about the nubby raspberry seeds, I added cornmeal to the dough to underscore that crunch, and to add a layer of flavor.

In the oven, the cobbler bubbled up into a jammy, scarlet mass with a tender corn-flavored topping. I ate it warm from the oven, smothered in heavy cream for dessert, then spooned up the leftovers cold the next morning for breakfast, topped with yogurt.

Next, I wanted to break the always-add-lots-of-sugar mold. Rhubarb is technically a vegetable, so why not treat it as such?

I had been planning to make a duck curry, based on a Madhur Jaffrey recipe that called for vinegar. With its naturally acidic flavor, rhubarb might stand in for most of the vinegar. To streamline the recipe, I used pre-ground garam masala instead of Ms. Jaffrey’s custom mix, and substituted coconut milk for cream so I could serve it to my husband, who cannot eat dairy products.

Just as I had hoped, the rhubarb melted into the sauce, thickening it and lending a deep and delightfully piquant flavor. Made again, with chicken in place of duck, the curry was nearly as good, though the sauce was slightly less rich.

With some stalks still left in the refrigerator, visions of rhubarb sorbet, bread pudding with rhubarb, rhubarb custard and rhubarb syrup floated through my mind.

But in the end, I was feeling nostalgic. Twenty minutes later, I slurped up my favorite rhubarb butterscotch sauce, stirred into ricotta.