The rhubarb experiments continue

I tried another rhubarb pie variation yesterday: rhubarb and pineapple. This time I will actually provide the recipe, which is from a sometime-in-the-1970's issue of a women's magazine. I clipped a whole bunch of rhubarb recipes back then -- Rhubarb Crunch, Rhubarb Betty, Rhubarb Flummery, Rhubarb-Apricot Soup, and many, many others -- and until now don't think I'd ever tried making any of them. Anyway, The Recipe:

Rhubarb-Pineapple Pie

Ingredients: 

All-purpose flour

Sugar

Grated rind of 1/2 lemon

Butter of margarineCo

1 egg yolk, slightly beaten

1 20 ounce can unsweetened sliced pineapple

1 pound rhubarb, cut in 1/2" pieces (3 cups)

To make pastry: Put 1-1/2 cups flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, and the lemon rind in a bowl. cut in 3/4 cup butter. Mix in egg yolk and work pastry together quickly using hands. Chill.

To make filling: Drain pineapple, reserving liquid, and cut pineapple into 1/2-inch pieces. In large saucepan, mix 1/3 cup flour and 1 cup sugar. Add 1/3 cup pineapple liquid. Cook over low heat, stirring, 3 to 4 minutes. Add rhubarb and cook gently 2 to 3 minutes, or until rhubarb is soft but still holds its shape. (Do not overcook.) Add pineapple and mix lightly; cool. Roll about two-thirds of pastry dough on lightly floured board. Fit in 9-inch pie pan, trim edges and press to edge of pan with thumb. Prick with fork dipped in flour. Bake in moderate over (375) about 12 minutes; cool. Pour in filling and dot with two tablespoons butter. Roll remaining pastry and cut in 3/4-inch strips. Adjust on pie to form a lattice. Press a strip of pastry around the edge. Back 15 to 20 minutes, or until lattice is golden brown. Serve slightly warm.  

Confession time: I did not make the crust as directed. There was no way I was going to make a crust that rich when the verdict was still out on the filling. What if the rhubarb-pineapple combination tasted like crap? I'd have wasted a stick and a half of perfectly good butter and an egg on a pie neither of us wanted to eat. So the pastry crust was a perfectly ordinary pastry crust (flour, shortening, and enough water to hold it all together), sort of. I did substitute lemon juice for some of the water I mixed it with. I didn't actually think the rhubarb-pineapple mixture would be inedible (we do have rhubarb-pineapple jam sitting in the pantry; we like it), but you never know.

So what was the verdict? Maybe it's because it had never occurred to us that rhubarb and pineapple could be combined in a pie, but the conclusion was, "This is odd." It tasted okay, it's definitely edible, and we will finish the pie -- but I'm never going to make it again.

Next up in Adventures with Rhubarb? I'm thinking about trying the Rhubarb Flummery, if only because "flummery" is kind of a nifty name for a food. You never hear anyone talk about making a flummery; it sounds like something out of a Jane Austen novel. Which may be why it sounds slightly more edible than the rhubarb-apricot soup even though going by the ingredients and instructions, they're the same type of food: a type of pudding that uses cornstarch as a thickener.