The first spring recipes find their way from our kitchen to your screen, and then hopefully, they will end up in your kitchen as well. What could be better than a beautiful pink rhubarb syrup to start with? You don’t need a lot of ingredients or a lot of time – but: you have the ultimate pleasure preserved in a bottle and always at hand when winter tries to creep in again, as this is currently happening here in Switzerland.

Veggies for syrup – go go go.
Ha – caught you. I guess your puzzled look says everything now. But yes, actually, you read it correctly. Rhubarb is a vegetable and originally comes from the Himalayas. Interesting, eh? But it is important that you only enjoy the stems of the rhubarb, because the leaves are inedible due to the high content of oxalic acid, which is poisonous. The stems also contain these, but not in such high quantities that this would be harmful. The only thing is that they should always be boiled before being consumed.

Sour makes you healthy. And funny.
The pretty rhubarb stems are not only a treat for the eyes, they also know how to impress with their ingredients. They contain a lot of potassium, iron and magnesium. Last but not least, it is very low in calories if it is not boiled down to a syrup with a lot of sugar. But maybe it still applies, who knows…
The puristic or more artistic approach?
You can either enjoy it in a super puristic way: just add still or sparkling water. If you wanna have it a bit more artistic, just create a sparkly light spring drink with it: mix syrup, prosecco, some ice cubes and fresh mint. Kind of Hugo, only better, promised.


Rhubarb-vanilla syrup with tonka bean
Ingredients
- 600 ml water
- 450 g fresh rhubarb
- 330 g raw cane sugar
- 1 lemon
- 1 vanilla pod
- 1 Msp. finely grated tonka bean
Instructions
- Place three 250ml bottles in the oven at 115 ° C and sterilize for the duration of the syrup preparation.
- Wash the rhubarb and cut into small pieces. Halve the vanilla pod lengthways.
- Cook the rhubarb together with the water, the tonka bean and the sliced vanilla pod for about 20 minutes over medium heat.
- Finally add the juice of one lemon.
- Pour the hot syrup through a sieve and mix the filtered liquid with the sugar. Bring to a boil again for 5 minutes.
- Take the bottles out of the oven and pour in the hot syrup and immediately seal them airtight. Shelf life: if you worked sterile, it will last for at least 2 months (if you are disciplined enough to hold yourself back)Optionally, you can now add vanilla pods to each bottle, then the taste becomes even more intense and it looks pretty.
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