3 September 2014

Making rhubarb cordial

As I am sure you are all aware, having followed Rhubarb & Ginger for a while, we very often have a complete glut of our very favourite fruit - rhubarb.  I dare say you even know all about Ruby and her daughter Rubytwo who reside in ground planters either side of our patio.

Well, over the course of the summer Ruby and Rubytwo have been busy growing like triffids and supplying us with the most beautifully textured and flavoured fruit.  However, as mentioned above, it does tend to come in enormous great instalments.  We give it away to neighbours and cook with it - of course.

Now in the last few months, hubby has become interested in making rhubarb cordial.  We get through a lot of cordial (or squash, as we know it here), mixing it with sparkling mineral water for a refreshing and "better for you than commercially produced fizzy drinks" kind of drink.  How better, then, to use a cultivar whose name is "Champagne" rhubarb!

Following some research, hubby established that there are two main methods that folk use for making rhubarb cordial.  The one is where the fruit is cooked - much in the way of jam production - and the juice is then separated.  The other is where the raw fruit is broken down by the use of a blender, the juice extracted and then cooked to separate out the impurities.  It seemed as though both tendered good results, so we resolved to give them both a go.

He started with the cooked variety, which certainly didn't offer much in the way of difficulty and definitely resulted in a very palatable, sweet and fruity - if a tad cloudy - cordial.

The second - raw, let's call it - variety however, really has taken the biscuit where results are concerned.  As such, this is our recommended version and hubby has kindly written up the recipe, which you'll find below.

Raw version on the left, cooked on the right - amazing difference!
The raw version has given a beautifully clear, pale pink elixir that is by a factor of some 50% stronger than the cooked version, much to our surprise.  The flavour is just incomparable, however.  There is certainly no missing the fact that it is rhubarb cordial!

We saved a little of the first, cooked, batch so as to be able to give a proper comparison.  My gosh but the difference is certainly apparent, even from just the look of the thing.  I thought that the first, cooked, batch was good - but this second version transcends good into sublime on both looks and flavour.

Hard to imagine that the paler of the two is the stronger in flavour!
So - if you're lucky enough to be parent to a rhubarb plant (or two!) or maybe you know someone with a rhubarb plant who always has too much rhubarb, why not have a go at making cordial.  You will need a little bit of specialist equipment - a collection of jam bags (cheesecloth is good) and a jam or jelly stand (which saves rigging up somewhere to hang the jam bag as the juice drains).  Both of these are available from Amazon - as that's where we got ours!

RHUBARB CORDIAL    (makes 1.5 litres)

Ingredients :

2 - 3 lbs
rhubarb stalks, washed very thoroughly
700g sugar
juice of 1 lemon, that has been passed through muslin to remove any solids.


Method :

1.  Take a liquidiser (or blender) with a 1 litre capacity jug and keep feeding it raw, washed rhubarb until the puree fills the jug to the 1 litre mark.

 
2.  Place a jam straining bag, or a piece of muslin in a sieve, over a large bowl and pour the puree into the bag or muslin.


3.  Cover the whole lot with a clean pillowcase or some other contrivance to keep the dust out and allow the puree to drain for at least 12 hours, in a cool place. 


4.  When fully drained, discard the rhubarb pulp or use it to make fruit leather or some such.  Pour the raw rhubarb juice into a large pan, add the sugar and bring the mixture to a slow rolling boil, skimming off any impurities.


5.  Boil for 3 - 4 minutes, by which time you should have finished skimming, which should leave a crystal clear pink syrup in the pan.


6.  Cool the syrup by placing the pan in a sink with enough cold water to come halfway up the outside of the pan.  Stir regularly until the correct temperature has been reached.

7.  When cooled enough, to about the temperature you'd have washing up water, add the lemon juice, stir well and decant into sterilised bottles.

As we've discovered, the resulting syrup is very sweet and very strong.  Dilute at about 10:1 and see how you get on!


Printable version

 

20 comments:

  1. what a gorgeous idea!... I love rhubarb, this is like distilling summer in a bottle x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What a lovely way of describing it! Perfect. :)

      Delete
  2. I have plans to embellish this recipe. There are a few additions I'd like to try, such as ginger or elderflower or perhaps some mulling spices for a Christmas (it's coming you know!) cordial. Happily our rhubarbs have a really long fruiting season, so there should be plenty of opportunity for experimentation.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This ^^^ is hubby speaking (in case anyone was wondering!). LOL

      Delete
  3. I'm going to give this a go as my rhubarb is still doing well. I've got some in the freezer from earlier in the year and wondered if you thought it would work with that? Also, you said it was sweet and as I'm not massively keen on too sweet things do you think I could just reduce the amount of sugar or do you think that will change the syrup properties too much?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hubby says : Frozen rhubarb should be fine once defrosted, although I will say that we have yet to try this technique. I made my second batch of this cordial today (using the raw technique) and reduced the sugar level to 500g per litre of raw juice. I also added the juice of one lemon for its antioxidant properties but I suspect that the reduction in sugar will result in a shortening of shelf life. I keep the cordial in the fridge anyway and I suspect it will last far longer in there than the week or so it takes to be consumed. :) Hope that helps!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Rhubarb cordial is really delicious, I must make some again this year. Thanks for joining us for the Great British Rhubarb Recipe Round-Up, it wouldn't have been right if you hadn't contributed!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are welcome, Janice! :) How could I resist? :D

      Delete
  6. how long does this last in a pantry?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have no idea, for sure, because it never lasted very long in our house! However, I would imagine that in a cool pantry and unopened it would last for around 3 months. Opened, you would want to have it finished within two weeks or so. Of course, once opened, it won't need to last that long. *wink*

      Delete
    2. I made some two years ago, poured the hot cordial into sterilised, screwtop bottles and left it to form a vacuum. I am just about to start my last bottle. It has been fine, unopened in a cool place, although once opened, I store it in the fridge. Going out to pick some rhubarb now, so I can replenish my stocks.

      Delete
    3. Thanks for that, Red! We still haven't managed to make a bottle last long enough to tell how long it will go for without opening! lol

      Delete
  7. Jenny, do you think it's too late in the season to make this? The rhubarb is going strong but thicker stems than in spring, just wondered if you'd tried it later in summer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Blooming Blogger won't let me reply on my own blog! LOL Right, third go - hopefully this time, the comment will get through.

      No, I don't think its too late at all. When we made our first batch it was at the beginning of September and we had such a glut that we were looking for something that would use up a lot in one go! I do think that the older, thicker, more acidic stems are better at giving the cordial a tart zing that the younger, thinner stems do. Make sure to pick a percentage of pink stems too, so that you get a good colour. :)

      Delete
    2. Brill, I'll have a go then, thanks.

      Delete
  8. cool thanks for that

    ReplyDelete
  9. Roughly how many rubarb stems are you guys using. I'm not one for scales n don't want to pick too much thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh gosh, that is so difficult to quantify as our rhubarb is incredibly huge and one stem equates to four of the supermarket type! All I can say is to think of something that weighs 2-3 pounds (a bag of sugar, here, is 2 pounds) and estimate it from there.

      Delete
  10. Just made some today using the last of last year's frozen rhubarb. It doesn't look quite as clear as yours (but probably clearer than the BBC Good Food recipe), but tastes good (the rhubarb is not overpowered by the ginger than the BBD recipe uses). Just wanted to check on quantities though - I used 1 litre of rhubarb puree, as per the recipe, but I don't see how that will turn into 1.5 litres of cordial - I ended up with about 1 litre. Am I missing something?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, you're not missing anything. LOL I suppose I should have made the yield an approximate rather than an actual, but I guess it all depends on the action of the sugar with the rhubarb, which serves to increase the quantity. All I can report is that our 1 litre of pulp turned into 1.5 litres of cordial at the end!

      Delete

I love to receive messages from you all, so if you can spare the time, comment away!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...