Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Crumble

When in Namibia, we used to travel occasionally from ever-sunny Ombalantu to the capital, Windhoek. It was, I guess, seven, eight hours of driving along basically straight, flat, featureless road. But Windhoek was the bright lights, and always fun to be there. We used to stay with an hospitable Kiwi couple and I remember one night, Julie whipped up an apple crumble for dessert. I was SO impressed. What a gift, I thought, what a sign of a perfect guest. And it was that night that I learned the desirability of having a few recipes up your sleeve when staying with friends.

 I was reminded of that when we returned from the Sunday market with a couple of bundles of rhubarb stalks in our bag. And deciding to make rhubarb crumble for dessert. Five stalks of rhubarb chopped into short lengths and one peeled apple sliced, gently simmered in a pot for maybe 15 minutes with ½ cup sugar and ¼ cup water. Maybe a bit of cinnamon, a dash of vanilla essence.

Then, transfer to a shallow baking dish and top with … well, this is probably my favourite topping … Combine:

½ cup soft brown sugar

½ cup flour

½ cup coconut

¼ cup melted butter

1 tspn cinnamon

And bake in a moderate oven for maybe 30 minutes. So the top browns and the liquid bubbles. Divine when it starts to caramelize! And served with whipped cream.

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