Rhubarb your salad the Uzbek way with this second offering from Silk Roads, A Flavor Odyssey with Recipes from Baku to Beijing (DK, 2025) by Anna Ansari, with photography by Laura Edwards, a nourishing book that makes you travel through food.
ROVOCH SALAT
Uzbek Rhubarb & Radish Salad
Serves 4–6 as a side
I associate rhubarb with my maternal grandfather, Grandpa Carl Carter, and his patch of rhubarb down by the creek in LaSalle, Michigan. A snippet of early childhood summertime and a slice of Americana pulled straight from the ground and eaten with a grimace and pride. Even as a little kid, I relished the puckering challenge of the bright pink, sweet-tart petiole.
I still love raw rhubarb. And I love the fact that rhubarb is an ancient Asian plant, the first written mention of which was by the 1st-century ce Greek pharmacologist Pedanius Dioscorides. The ancient Greeks called rhubarb rha barbarum, in recognition of the fact that the plant’s origins lay far enough beyond the Bosphorus to belong to foreigners, to barbarians. They just didn’t realize quite how far. By the 10th century, however, the trade of rhubarb from China to Western Asia (and the Mediterranean) was well established and the fruit well known. Marco Polo noted rhubarb’s abundance in the mountains of China’s Gansu Province, while de Clavijo included rhubarb in his list of the “best of all merchandise coming to Samarkand … from China”.
This salad comes not from China, but from Uzbekistan, by way of my London kitchen and childhood love of raw rhubarb. You might be put off by the ingredients list, but I urge you to trust me on this one. If you do, you will be richly rewarded – and, if you’re anything like my friend Greg, you’ll find yourself licking your plate while repeatedly remarking on your incredulity that the combination of these ingredients comes together so magnificently.
Ingredients:
300g (10oz) rhubarb, cut into 1cm (1⁄2in) pieces
200g (7oz) radishes, thinly sliced
300g (10oz) cucumber, either cut into 1cm
(1⁄2in) slices or thinly sliced – or a combination of the two
11⁄2 tsp fine sea salt
4 tbsp crème fraîche
zest of 2 lemons
8 spring onions, thinly sliced
2 tbsp pistachio nibs (or flaked almonds), to serve
freshly ground black pepper
Directions:
Combine the rhubarb, radishes, and cucumber in a medium bowl. Sprinkle with the sea salt, then stir to mix and set aside for 10 minutes.
Now add the crème fraîche, lemon zest, and spring onions. Stir to mix well.
When you’re ready to serve, top your salad with the pistachio nibs (or almonds) and a good grind of black pepper.
Previous recipe shared from this book was Spinach & Tofu Baozi (November 14, 2025)
(“Excerpted from Silk Roads reprinted by permission of DK, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © Anna Ansari 2025″, Photography: Laura Edwards)
Recent Comments