Crème Brûlée à La Rhubarbe Food

CRèME BRûLéE à LA RHUBARBE

Steps:

• First stew your rhubarb. Take the rhubarb and put in in a pan with the grenadine. Heat gently until all the pieces of fruit are soft and and can be cut with a spoon. Chill.
• Make a custard the usual way: Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until pale. Gently heat the cream, with the vanilla seeds and pod (or paste) included, in a large saucepan until it just boils and climbs sides of the pan. If you used a pod, fish it out and discard. Add half of the cream to the egg yolks and whisk up. Add the egg and cream mixture back to the pan with the rest of the cream. Whisk continuously while increasing the temperature to 80˚C (it helps to use a digital thermometer). Take off the heat, cool to just above room temperature, and crack some prosecco. You just made custard.
• Share the cooled rhubarb between four ramekins, and share the cooled custard in the same way. You may have some materials left over - you can churn the custard to make ice cream, and even add leftover stewed rhubarb and make rhubarb ice cream.
• Chill the creams in the fridge for at least 6 hours, but preferably overnight.
• When ready to serve, dust the creams with quite a good coating of icing sugar from a shaker.
• Use a blowtorch to gently caramelise the sugar to create the classic crispy top. You cannot do this bit the day before or the caramel will lose its crisp. Sorry.
• Cool a little and serve.

RHUBARB & GINGER CRèME BRûLéE

Steps:

• Put the rhubarb in a pan with the sugar and chopped ginger. Cook over a low heat for 10 mins or until the rhubarb has softened and begun to break down. Mix a little of the rhubarb juice with the cornflour in a small bowl, then pour into the pan and stir until thickened. Pour into the base of a round roughly 20cm dish. Leave to cool completely.
• For the custard, pour the double cream, sugar and vanilla pod (as well as the scraped-out seeds) into a pan and bring to a simmer. Scoop out the pod and discard. Whisk the eggs in a bowl and gradually pour over the simmering cream, whisking continuously. Pour the mixture back into the pan. Cook over a low heat, continuously stirring, for around 10 mins until it reaches 86C on a cooking thermometer, or is thickened. Pour over the cooled rhubarb, smooth to an even layer and chill overnight.
• Sprinkle the demerara sugar over the top and caramelise using a blowtorch until deep golden brown. Serve.