Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun

Regular readers of Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun understand that I’m a pie guy. I love baking pies. Cakes and tarts, not so much, but a pie? Ooh la la creme. I started off back in the day with a lemon meringue pie recipe that I got from the back of a box of corn starch, then moved on to key lime (delicious, but squeezing those tiny buggers is a hassle), apple, and blueberry pies. For whatever reason, though, I always saw strawberry rhubarb as the granddaddy of them all. Maybe it was the mystery. After all, how come you never see any recipes for plain strawberry pie? What the hell is a rhubarb, anyway? Questions abound, and the only way to answer them was to bake one of these pies myself.

Fortunately, a coworker informed me last week that not only does he grow rhubarb in his garden, but he hates the stuff and I could have as much as I want. Ding ding ding!

This, apparently, is rhubarb

When I’m trying out a new recipe, I don’t mess around too much sifting through the toobz trying to find the best one; if there’s a problem with a recipe, I’ll fix it next time. So I wound up with the first Google result for “strawberry rhubarb pie,” from Simply Recipes.

I have no idea what makes rhubarb good or not good. It was crisp, a little stringy, and green on the inside. Is that bad? Shrug. It has a fresh, springy scent, a little reminiscent of sassafras, but no too much! When you eat it fresh, it has the vaguest essence of something that’s edible, but you certainly wouldn’t go out of your way to snack on this tough, sour stuff. It allegedly tastes good when you cook it, though. Who am I to argue?

In a delightful turn of serendipity, I happened to get the best batch of strawberries I’ve ever bought at Haymarket. These things were firm, sweet, and big. I counted my blessings as I chopped these bad boys up, glad that I wouldn’t have to blow ten bucks on strawberries at the supermarket.

My crappy webcam isn't doing these berries any justice

The recipe is pretty straightforward. (Although I ain’t never put “quick-cooking tapioca” in anything, and it was kind of weird, because the box asked me to shake it before using. Huh?) I was a little confused by the proportion of rhubarb to strawberries that it called for, so I went ahead and overdid it on the strawberries. And one cup of sugar! Sweet fancy Moses!

Precious reader, you know I’m not a boastful guy. And you also know that I would never, ever lie to you. So when I say that this strawberry rhubarb pie is the single greatest thing I’ve ever made in my entire life, you know that’s coming straight from the heart.

Mmm. Pie

It was like a flavor explosion. Like there was a party in my mouth, and not only was everyone invited, but they also brought money for beer. As can be expected, the strawberry flavor didn’t dominate, but the rhubarb definitely didn’t taste the same as the fresh stuff I had tried earlier. It was goopy, but everything had a nice, soft consistency. The pie was very sweet (it can’t be helped, what with a cup full of sugar), but the rhubarb definitely lent it a tartness that caused me to pucker up as I was finishing each bite. How dynamic! I can’t shut up about it.

And the best part is, there’s room for improvement. I didn’t peel the rhubarb, which I might next time, since there was a bit of stringiness in a few bites. I used orange zest this time, but who knows if lemon or lime would work too. The goopiness was fine, but maybe more tapioca would keep things together better next time. And I’m a notoriously lazy top-crust-on-putter, so if I actually try next time, the pie can LOOK better.

All in all, though, I couldn’t be more pleased with this effort. Of course now, I’m going to bed with a stomachache. Woops.

Tags: deliciousness, strawberry rhubarb pie

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 14th, 2009 at 10:21 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.