I brought some lovely home-grown rhubarb back from Finland last time I visited a few weeks ago. I do realize you can buy completely adequate rhubarb in the UK, but this is lovingly grown by my parents in their organic veg garden helped along by some horse buns from my late grandfather’s home farm where the current heiress, my second cousin still keeps some beautiful horses, so that she can ride around the grounds, the skinny bitch. Anyway, we get some of the horse shit, so that’s something I suppose.

Husband doesn’t like rhubarb particularly, it’s too sour for his highly strung taste buds, so I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I was googling for some recipes and then found this blog post about a rhubarb sangria made with a homemade rhubarb and ginger syrup. I’ve always loved a bit of sangria. I love pretty much anything if it's got wine in it.

I decided to invite a fellow Scandi friend over for an afternoon BBQ and fix us a refreshing pitcher of sangria using the lovely rhubarb. We had two pitchers in the end. Only because it was such a hot day and we couldn't risk dehydration. The sangria was sweet but fresh and not very strong, so we maintained our ladylike manners.

My slightly Nordic inspired menu for the afternoon included some dips, one with smoked salmon and the other with mushroom, sundried tomato and goat cheese. I made some herby pitta crisps and rye crisps out of some sourdough rye bread I’d also brought from Finland. For the main course I barbecued us prawns, salmon, halloumi and veg and served it all with some dill cucumber and a new potato and artichoke heart salad.  

1 cup of rhubarb and ginger syrup (see recipe below)

1 bottle of dry white wine

2 cups of strawberry cider (I had Rekorderlik strawberry and lime)

1 cup of sprite (or sparkling lemonade)

1 cup of sparkling water

Strawberries

Lime

Lemon

Ice

Mix all the ingredients. If you like a sweeter drink use more syrup. Check taste and adjust by either adding sparkling water if too sweet or syrup if not sweet enough. Add lots of ice and decorate with slices of strawberry, lime and lemon.

Rhubarb and ginger syrup (makes appr. 1 cup)

600g of rhubarb

1/3 cup water

Thumbsize piece of ginger

½ cup of sugar (depends on the amound of liquid that you get)

Wash and chop the rhubarb into half and inch slices. Slice the ginger thinly – no need to peel. Place in a sauce pan with the water. Bring to a gentle boil stirring the rhubarb. Let it simmer until the rhubarb is all soft and mushy – about 20-30 minutes stirring occasionally. Pour liquid through a sieve pressing the rhubarb against the sieve with a wooden spoon to get all the juice out. Measure the amount of juice and use about 50ml of sugar per 100 ml of juice.

Put the juice and sugar into a saucepan and bring to boil, let it bubble for about 5 minutes until it’s a syrupy consistency.