Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp.

I’ve got a short piece up on Georgia Tech infielder Derek Dietrich, who’ll be a consideration for the first round next year..

My recipes are usually precise based on multiple attempts to make a dish, but this one is an exception, since I threw it together based in part on what I had left of ten pounds of strawberries and about a pound of rhubarb. The amounts in the fruit base are approximate, and the quantity of sugar you use is going to depend on how sweet your strawberries are. The result was a huge hit, and I thought it was better than the damn good strawberry-rhubarb pie I made on Thursday morning. Next time I do this, I’ll weigh the topping ingredients and I’ll revise it.

Fruit base:
1 pound strawberries, hulled and sliced in half
1/3-1/2 pound rhubarb, chopped into inch-long pieces
Roughly 1/2 cup sugar, depending on the sweetness of your strawberries
1 Tbsp rum, preferably black or dark
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tsp fresh lemon juice
3-4 tsp arrowroot or corn starch
Pinch salt

Crisp topping:
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter, softened
3/4 cups flour
3/4 cups dark brown sugar, packed*
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp rolled oats
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
Pinch freshly ground cloves
1 1/2 Tbsp vegetable/canola oil**
1/4 tsp salt

* I used half muscovado, a natural dark brown sugar that has a pronounced molasses taste, and half standard brown sugar.
** Anything that’s neutral in flavor would work here. Ergo, not olive oil.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

1. Toss all fruit base ingredients together in a large bowl or directly in the baking dish and set aside for 10-15 minutes. This is really a pie filling, although most strawberry-rhubarb pies go for a 1:1 ratio of fruits, while I prefer a 3:1 ratio here, so that the strawberries are the star and the rhubarb is justa backup player.

2. Cut the butter into 1/2″ pieces and combine all crisp topping ingredients together in a large bowl. With your fingertips – or, if you’re a complete wuss, a pastry-cutter or two knives – work the butter into the remaining ingredients until it’s combined but not homogenous, with large clumps of dry ingredients around pieces of butter.

3. Move the fruit mixture into the baking dish of your choice – I used an 11x9x2 corningware dish – and top with the crumb mixture, covering the entire surface. (The fruit mixture will bubble through and submerge parts of the topping, creating a pan-dowdy-like effect.) Bake for about 30 minutes and check the dish. You’re looking for a nicely browned top and thick juices bubbling up from the fruit mixture. If you don’t have those two things happening, drop the temperature to 325 degrees and bake until it’s done. (Mine was done at 30 minutes.) Allow to cool to room temperature or close to it so that the starch/liquid mixture can set, after which you can reheat it if you want to eat it warm.