Rhubarb Cordial

A bumper crop

© Daniel Carruthers

This year has been a good year for rhubarb insofar as there’s a glut of it in the garden. We always stew a few batches to enjoy for breakfast with a little natural yoghurt. There’s usually more than enough to make a hearty rhubarb crumble but this years there’s a bumper crop so there’s opportunity to experiment a little. I think Bunny Guinness was recently marvelling about the delights of rhubarb cordial on gardeners question time. So here’s a recipe that you might enjoy too. Remove the rhubarb leaves and throw them on the compost heap (you’d be surprised at how much household and garden waste can go on the compost heap).

Ingredients for rhubarb cordial

I’m not exacting when it comes to recipes, preferring to go with quantities that I feel are right rather than getting the scales out. I appreciate however that some idea of quantities will help so here goes :

For every kilo of skinned and chopped rhubarb use :

250g of sugar (ideally Castor)

1 litre of water

2 cloves (optional)

Zest and juice of half a lemon (home grown is best and most satisfying – here’s my lemon tree)

The process is simple. Skin and chop the rhubarb and put in heavy bottomed pan. Add sugar then pour the water over the sugar. Bring to boil and let simmer until the rhubarb goes soft (30 minutes). Should you have the other ingredients above you can add these with the sugar. You may choose to leave simmering for longer depending on how sweet you like your cordial. I left mine for 90 minutes. The longer it simmers the more concentrated the flavour. Once you are happy with the flavour strain the cordial, ideally through a muslin, but a sieve will do. Leave to cool. Once cool it can be enjoyed neat, with ice or used to mix with other drinks, perhaps Champagne. Yummy. If you like this recipe then why not check out some of our other recipes from the garden.

Great with champagne !