Star Anise Rhubarb with Raspberries
Rhubarb simmered soft in spiced syrup, dried berries, and walnuts toasted hard in sugar. Dessert from a dry bag.
- calories
- 420
- weight
- 3.2 oz
- cal / oz
- 131
- protein
- 5 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 15 min
- total time
- 20 min
- water
- 300 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dessert
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Dried rhubarb | 1 cup | sliced thin and dried at home, or bought |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar | 1/3 cup | for the syrup |
| Star anise | 1 pod | |
| Vanilla | 1/4 tsp extract or a split half-pod | powder works and weighs nothing |
| Freeze-dried raspberries | 1/2 cup | |
| Walnuts | 1/3 cup | roughly chopped |
| Sugar for the nuts | 2 tbsp | |
| Salt | a pinch |
Method
- Toast the walnuts dry in the pot over a low flame, stirring, until they smell like walnuts. Two or three minutes.
- Add the 2 tbsp of sugar and the salt. Keep stirring. The sugar will clump, then go liquid, then coat the nuts. Pull them out onto a spare bag or a rock before they burn. They set hard as they cool.
- Wipe the pot. Bring 300 ml of water, the 1/3 cup sugar, the star anise, and the vanilla to a boil and stir until the sugar is gone.
- Drop in the dried rhubarb. Simmer five minutes, then kill the heat and let it sit covered for ten more. It should be soft and slumped, not mush.
- Fish out the star anise. Scatter the freeze-dried raspberries on top so they stay whole, then break the walnut brittle over everything.
Rhubarb is mostly water, which makes it a good candidate for drying and a bad one for carrying fresh. Dried, it rehydrates back into fruit in about fifteen minutes, and simmering it in sugar syrup rather than plain water does two things: the sugar keeps the slices intact instead of collapsing, and it gives you a real syrup at the bottom of the pot. Star anise and vanilla carry the sour end of it.
The original serves this with fresh raspberries and vanilla quark. Neither travels, so the berries are freeze-dried and added at the end where they will not turn to sludge, and the dairy is gone. The caramelized walnuts are the one step that needs attention — sugar goes from melted to burnt fast on a canister stove, and there is no second chance once it does.
Packing
Rhubarb, star anise, and syrup sugar in one bag. Walnuts and their sugar in a second — they cannot get damp before they hit the pot. Raspberries in a third, and treat that one gently or you will be carrying powder.
Variations
- Skip the brittle step and just eat the nuts plain if fuel is short. Saves five minutes and a scrubbing.
- A spoon of coconut milk powder stirred into the hot syrup gets you close to the vanilla cream the original leans on.
- Dried apple slices simmer the same way if rhubarb is out of season.
https://meny.no/oppskrifter/dessert/syltet-rabarbra-med-bringebar