A soup for spring

A few times in the last few weeks H has mentioned the rhubarb soup of his childhood, in that almost-wistful tone of voice that tells you he wouldn't mind, no not really, if you were to try and duplicate it. Frankly the whole thing initially sounded strange to me -- fruit with dumplings? Until I realised that in the Philippines we have rough equivalents. Think sticky-sweet camote or camoteng-kahoy slices boiled and steeped in sugar syrup. Now imagine adding to that some palitao balls (a Philippine dessert made of ground sticky-rice flour formed into patties and cooked by being dropped in boiling water, before being dusted with sugar, grated coconut and toasted sesame seeds). Marrying fruit to flour is after all an alchemy I've often done with crumbles and crisps, pies and cakes.

So tonight, since a bunch of rhubarb stalks was languishing in the fridge, I decided to finally make the soup with some advice from H's mum and a bit of research on the Internet. After some mixing and testing and improvising, the result was judged quite tasty: a hot, sweet-sour brothy dessert with the clean vegetal tartness of rhubarb, hints of citrus and the warm floury comfort of the dumplings. Dessert spoons were clinking until 11ish around the house....

All the following ingredients are approximations - it's a pretty forgiving recipe.

Rhubarb soup with dumplings

For the soup
Four of five stalks of rhubarb, chopped into half-inch thick slices
1 cup of water
1 cup of granulated sugar
a teaspoon of orange zest
1 teaspoon of orange juice
1 tsp of vanilla

For the dumplings
1.5 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
half stick of butter, cut into cubes
3/4 cup buttermilk or yogurt

In a large pot, bring first six ingredients to a boil. Reduce heat to a gentle simmer and stir occasionally and gently.

In another bowl, stir together the flour, salt and baking soda. Cut in the butter using the tines of a fork or your fingers until it forms pea-sized pieces. Add the yogurt or buttermilk until the dough comes together. You can add a bit more yogurt if the mixture is too stiff. Form into balls not more than 1 inch in diameter.

Drop the dumplings one at a time into the boiling rhubarb soup, cover and simmer. After around 5 minutes, flip the dumplings over. Cover again and simmer gently for another 10 minutes or so. Remove from the heat and let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!