Rhubarb cordial a la Camilla Plum

It is rhubarb season and it is my favourite vegetable !!!! Up to this week-end I received several rhubarb from a work colleague as well in my weekly vegetable box, so I decided to test two different recipes on rhubarb cordial, one by Camilla Plum from her cooking book "Mormor Mad" and the other from the newsletter from Årstiderne. Today I shared the Camilla Plum recipe with you, and tomorrow I will share Årstiderns' recipe with you.

Like everyone else keeps saying I will say the same: always remember to use the "foot" of the rhubarb, as it contains a big part of the wonderful rhubarb flavour. Honestly I have no idea, if it true or not, as I have always been using the rhubarb foot in my cooking.

As I had mainly had green coloured rhubarbs, the colour of the final cordial is not bright red.

You can use this cordial for mixing with plain or sparkling water. You can also use it as flavour addition to white wine or sparkling wine as wonderful tasting aperitif. And this I am planning do in coming week-end in connection with some birthday parties. I will share this recipe later on with you.

A ratio of 600 g sugar to 1 liter unsweetened rhubarb cordial is giving a full-bodied sweet rhubarb cordial. If you have a preference for less sweet cordial I will recommend you to reduce the sugar level from 600 g to 400 g sugar per 1 liter unsweetened rhubarb cordial.


Rhubarb cordial a la Camilla Plum:

• 1 kg rinsed rhubarb (fresh or frozen)
• 1 liter water
• 600 g sugar per liter cordial

1. Cut the rhubarb into pieces of 2 cm.
2. Add water and rhubarb into a the cooking pot.
3. Cook it up and left it cook for 5 minutes.
4. I prefer to keep the lid on the cooking pot on as much as possible in order to keep the  volatile part of the rhubarb flavour inside the cordial instead of loosing to the air.
5. Remove the cooking pot and place it away from the stove, let it rest for 1 hour
6. Remove the rhubarb pieces from the cordial part using a sieve.
7. Weigh the amount of rhubarb cordial, using 600 g sugar per 1 liter unsweetened cordial. Do not use more sugar than this, as you risk to create a gel instead of.
8. Dissolve the sugar into the unsweetened rhubarb cordial, stir until dissolved.
9. Pour the rhubarb cordial into bottles, which have been standing with boiling water for 5-10 minutes.
10. Store the rhubarb cordial in the refrigerator or freeze, as it no anti-microbial have been added.
11. The rhubarb pieces in the sieve can be turned into a rhubarb compote, which I decided to do, as I have plans about using it for both mixing with plain/natural yogurt as well as a dessert - rhubarb tiramisu.
12. Also this rhubarb compote need to have added some sugar. I had enough rhubarb compote to make two different version of this rhubarb compote. In the first portion I used a rough ratio of 300 g unsweetened rhubarb compote with 200 g sugar, as I am having a sweet tooth. In the second version I used 300 g unsweetened rhubarb compote with 150 g sugar and 50 g home-made vanilla sugar.