Karen Wright: Rhubarb Festival recipes

It's finally here, our very own iconic Rhubarb Festival!
Karen cooking up a rhubarb delightKaren cooking up a rhubarb delight
Karen cooking up a rhubarb delight

Setting up the festival must be a real challenge, much plotting and planning to bring everything together. I have been plotting and planning in my kitchen, trying to choose recipes to cook in the marquee this weekend. I have two slots on Sunday, the first is 11am-noon and then 1.30-2.30pm.

I have finally made my choices and the first slot is going to be a rhubarb soup and a rhubarb frangipane tart. I know a rhubarb soup sounds a bit peculiar but I wanted something a bit different. I took the recipe from a little book that I bought in the Hepworth Gallery shop called Rhubarbia, it has got some great old-fashioned recipes in it. The soup is very easy to make and is tangy but at the same time soft. The other main ingredient is parsnip which is a good balance to the sourness of the rhubarb. I will be offering little tasting samples at the festival. The frangipane is a bit more traditional as it is a proper baked pudding, the almonds are another great match with rhubarb. I will be bringing along 'one I made earlier' for sampling.

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In my second slot I will use the rhubarb syllabub that I featured in my column last week. It is truly delicious and the simplest thing to put together. The extra flavour within it is ginger, again a great match with rhubarb, plus a splash of Luddenden Wine rhubarb wine. The last dish is a rhubarb curry! Who ever heard of such a thing? Well the Twisted Curry Company did. They are a small husband and wife set-up from over at Wetwang in the Wolds. They contacted me to see if I could feature the spice blend that they have put together to complement rhubarb, they call its Ruby’s Revenge. I was happy to develop a recipe around it, I opted for a vegan one using chickpeas, potatoes and spinach, again samples will be available. Both the Luddenden Wine and the Twisted Curry are exhibiting at the festival this year.

On Sunday I was over at BBC Radio Leeds chatting with presenter Tim Crowther. I go over about once a month and spend an hour chatting live about this, that, and the other. This week as you might have guessed it was rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb! I like radio, I think I have the face for it! Of course, I still do a show for Five Towns Radio each week from The Hut in Airedale, Tuesdays noon-2pm. To listen in go online to http://www.ukonlineradio/5-towns-radio.Finally, this Tuesday I am working at the NEC for the Caravan and Motorhome Club. I have been commissioned to make another feature cake. Next week I will talk more about that and see if we can get a photo of it in my column. All I can say is I really enjoyed the challenge of making this one. I will be hosting a forum with Matt Allwright off the telly. So, for me, very, very exciting, full report next week!

Well readers, that is my round up once again. Very much hoping to see lots of you at the festival on Sunday so I can say hello face-to-face.

Until then, take care and keep waggling your rhubarb!

For more tips and recipes go to https://www.karenwrightbakes.co.uk/

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