Spring Compote with Citrus and Rhubarb for Passover

If traditional dried fruit compotes don’t do it for you, or if you’re just looking to branch out this Passover, try this fresh, seasonal variation, featuring rhubarb, raspberries, and citrus. Okay, I admit there are also a few prunes involved. But just a few.

Loyal Poppy and Prune readers will know I love rhubarb, especially at Passover; its refreshingly tart flavor and stunning pink color make it the ultimate spring ingredient. Also I am still looking to learn more about the history of rhubarb in Ashkenazi cuisine, if anyone has any knowledge or sources to share!

This recipe is loosely adapted from one of my favorite Jewish cookbooks, Jayne Cohen’s The Gefilte Variations. I first encountered it several years ago, when I was just beginning to think about starting a Jewish food history blog. I vaguely had this idea that I wanted my as-yet-imaginary blog to combine the soul of some ancient Jewish grandmother with the soft and dreamy pastel aesthetics of 101 Cookbooks, but at the time there was no roadmap for what I had in mind.

And then I read this cookbook, and it all came together. In addition to offering up quite the array of Pinterest-ready recipes (Roseberry-Rhubarb Gelato, anyone?), in her introduction Cohen provides an illuminating discussion of the way not only Jewish food, but Jewishness full stop, is so often associated with ugliness, both by outsiders and by Jews, ourselves. Part of the reason she wrote her book was to challenge those assumptions, and that’s something I want to do, too.

Clearly I don’t quite have the photo skills to pull that vision off at this point, and there’s been a lot of progress made in the five or so years since I first discovered this book, from a lot of fantastic people working in today’s Jewish food scene, but nevertheless Cohen remains a huge inspiration for me.

Back to the recipe—Jayne Cohen suggests serving the compote with macaroons, which I’m sure would be delicious. I personally recommend that you try this as a matzah brei topping (#teamsweet). I bet it would also be wonderful served alongside a Passover sponge cake, and of course you can also eat it just on its own.

Spring Compote

¾ cup sugar

1 cinnamon stick or ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 vanilla bean, split, or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 pound rhubarb, either fresh (washed and trimmed, tough strings removed, cut into 1-inch pieces, leaves discarded) or frozen

½ cup pitted prunes, halved or quartered

3 blood or navel oranges, or a combination, peeled, with pith and seeds removed

1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries

Place 2 cups of water and the sugar in a medium nonreactive saucepan, along with cinnamon stick and vanilla bean if using. Bring to a boil.

Add the rhubarb and prunes, and ground cinnamon and vanilla extract if using, and simmer over low heat until rhubarb is just tender 7-10 minutes. Don’t allow it to get too soft.

Using a slotted spoon, remove the rhubarb and prunes and transfer to a large serving bowl. Separate the oranges into segments, then slice each into thirds horizontally, and add them to the bowl, along with the raspberries.

Boil the syrup remaining in the saucepan over medium-high heat until reduced by about half. Remove the cinnamon stick and vanilla bean (which can be dried and saved for another use), if using, and pour the hot syrup over the fruit. Stir well. Let fruit cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate for several hours or up to four days.

Source: The Gefilte Variations: 200 Inspired Re-creations of Classics from the Jewish Kitchen, with Menus, Stories, and Traditions for the Holidays and Year-Round (Jayne Cohen, 2000)