Rhubarb wine

This is my favourite home-made wine as it makes a very drinkable white wine which is not too sweet, unlike many fruit wines.  Rhubarb is also usually so bountiful if you grow it yourself, and you can usually cadge some off a neighbour if you don't.   It's very easy to propagate by digging up and replanting part of the plant.  This wine was a great hit at the summer fruit evening last year and I'm glad I made 20 litres of it.

Here's my recipe:

3 pounds rhubarb
3 pounds white sugar
1 gallon hot water (doesn't have to be boiling)
wine yeast

or for a larger metric quantity:

4 kilos rhubarb
4 kilos of sugar
13.5 litres water
wine yeast.

Method:

Pick the rhubarb and then chop it up and put in the freezer in plastic bags for a few days.  This breaks down the cells and releases the juice when the wine is made.  It's an essential step so don't miss it out. 
Put the rhubarb in a primary fementor (large bucket) and cover with the sugar.  Leave for 24 hours.
Add the hot water (doesn't need to be boiling) and mix.  Then strain out the rhubarb and put the liquid back into the primary fermentor and when it is luke warm add the yeast.  Cover and leave for 3 - 4 days, then syphon the liquid into demi-johns with air locks.  Leave to ferment.  Rack it into new demi-johns after around a month as there will be a lot of sediment.
Bottle up around 6 months, and then it's best to drink after about a year.  
The two year old wine that we are drinking at the moment is also good.

 

Rhubarb Kulfi

Serves 6
250ml evaporated milk
250ml condensed milk
250ml double cream
4 cardamom pods, crushed slightly
1.5cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely sliced
150g roasted rhubarb, strained

Pour the evaporated milk, condensed milk and cream into a pan and whist together until well combined: add the cardamom pods and ginger.  Bring to a bare simmer over a low heat and stir for 5 minutes.  Remove from the heat and leave to cool and infuse for at least 2 hours.  Strain the mixture into a bowl: discard the ginger and cardamom.
Blitz the rhubarb in a food processor or with a stick blender, or pass it through a fine-meshed plastic sieve, to make a very fine pulp.  Whisk the rhubarb into the infused cream until very well combined and ladle into dariole mould or ramekin dishes.  Frezze for at least 4 hours or overnight.

To make the kulfi easier to unmould, briefly dip each mould into a bowl of very hot water before turning out into a bowl.

Asparagus soup

This was a cheap soup as I used only onions, veg stock and the woody stalks of the home-grown asparagus. I then liquidised and sieved. It made a very light but tasty soup which was perfect for this evening as it is so hot! Served with home-made bread.

Asparagus

Loads of lovely asparagus has shot up in the last two days in the heat wave. It is amazing how it grows centimetres in a day. We ate it in a stir fry this evening.