Rosehip Jelly

This Sunday funday, we are spotlighting wild foods, and hosted by Camilla.  I chose rosehips, that beautiful jewel of a fall fruit that most people probably wouldn't think of as anything other than bird food.  But they have been used in recipes for centuries.  In WWII, rosehip syrup was used to supplement vitamin C when citrus was not available!  And another little bit of trivia: did you know that itching powder is made from the hairs in rosehips (among other plant fibers)?  So yeah, there is some prep involved in these, they are not immediately edible right off the plant.  Just like you take the choke out of artichoke hearts, you have to remove or bypass the hairs.  You can steep them whole for tea, or scrape and rinse out the hairs.  Or, you can buy them dried, pre-cut, rinsed, and sifted and avoid that whole process.  I won't tell.  I grew up with a Nat Geo book on roses, part of a large set of gardening books, that had lots of recipes, both culinary and not, using various parts of roses.  It had some fresh rosehip recipes as I recall, and a picture of a mutated rosehip where the seeds had developed on the outside of the hip.  I haven't seen it in decades, mom might have given those all away.  But I remember very well, the instructions for creating a perfume extractor with copper tubing, essentially a homemade distillation apparatus, and instructions for properly drying roses with desiccant, among other creations.

This batch was a little soft set due to the age of my pectin.  Oops.

The nice thing about dried rosehips is that you can harvest and dry as they mature, and keep them safely stored for later.  I find the aroma very similar to hibiscus.  It also reminded me strongly of the old jars of dried commercial orange peel we had in the spice cabinet as a child; old enough to have lost that bright citrus zing, but still maintaining a strong, fruity aroma.  The fresh hips are tart, somewhat sour with a very subtle underlying sweetness, and slightly astringent.  The dried hips have a deeper, richer, and more full-bodied fruity flavor.  They smell like nostalgia, if that's possible.

Depending on the freshness of the dried hips, the color of the jelly will be a dark wine red, or contain some orange/brown or terracotta notes from the eventual oxidation of the product.  Rosehips range from red to orange in color.  But the flavor will remain delightful.  Mountain rose herbs says this jelly is fantastic in thumbprint cookies and I completely understand why that is so.  I made this small batch since I have bulk pectin and tend to be the only one that uses jam or jelly in my household.  You can double it back to the original size for a full box of pectin.

Dried Rosehip Jelly
Makes about 3 half-pint jars

~3 oz. (by weight) fresh unpeeled organic orange
½ lb dried organic rosehips, picked over for sticks or detritus
4 cups water + more if necessary
1¾ sugar
¼ cup lemon juice
½ package of dry pectin or 3 tbsp bulk pectin*
¼ tsp butter (optional)

Cut orange with peel into several pieces. Combine orange chunks with rosehips and 4 cups water in a stainless steel or other non-reactive pot (not cast iron or aluminum).
    
Cover pot, bring to a boil over medium heat.  Lower heat and simmer 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until very soft.
    
Mash mixture a bit with a potato masher to break up oranges. Cover again and set aside to steep for 30 minutes.
    
Strain through a fine mesh sieve or a jelly bag, using a rubber spatula to turn the pulp as necessary to encourage draining. Juice thickens as it cools, so may take 30 minutes or more to fully drain. You ultimately want 1½ cups of juice. If necessary, dump pulp back in the pot, pour in ½ cup water, cover and bring back to a simmer for 10 minutes, remove from heat and set aside to steep for another 15 minutes, then strain again.  (I was only missing a couple tbsp and made up the difference with orange juice rather than recook the pulp.)  The resulting cooled juice will have a noticeable viscosity to it.

While the juice is simmering, prepare 3 half-pint jelly jars and lids.  Keep the jars ready in a pot of barely simmering hot water, along with the lids.  The rings should be sterilized and then may be set aside until ready to seal.

Measure the sugar into one bowl and set aside.

To make the jelly:

In a large pot, whisk together the rosehip juice, lemon juice, butter (if using) and pectin.  Make sure there are no lumps of pectin.  Bring to a rolling boil, (one that doesn’t stop bubbling when stirred.)

Add the sugar all at once.  Whisk until dissolved and cover pot, bringing back to a rolling boil.

Remove the lid and let the mixture boil while stirring for exactly 1 minute.  (Set a timer.)

Remove from heat.  Skim any foam and discard.  (It was too good to discard, I ate it with a spoon.  There was just a little bit!)  Immediately pour or ladle the mixture into jars, leaving ½-inch of head space.

Wipe the rims of jars with a dampened towel to remove any spills.

Remove the lids one at a time from the pan of water, shake them to remove excess water, and place on the filled and wiped jars.  Carefully screw on ring bands.  (You will need a towel to hold the hot jars unless you have asbestos hands like my friend.)

Process the jars immediately after filling and capping, in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.  Let them sit overnight at room temperature to gel.  Next day, the processed jars may be stored on a pantry shelf (without refrigeration) for up to one year.

Jelly may also be jarred and kept in the refrigerator if not processing via water bath canning.  Place the filled and capped jars on a clean towel set out of the way so the jelly can set.
 
When opened, canned jelly will keep for up to 6 months in refrigerator.

* PSA - bulk pectin has an expiration date and will steadily lose gelling efficiency beyond that point, even if kept sealed and dry.  Just keep that in mind so you don't have to re-batch any failed jams or jellies!

 

Fruity and tart and delicious.

Be sure to check out the rest of our wild food options:

• Chive Blossom Salt: Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Dandelion Salad with Warm Bacon Vinaigrette: Food Lust People Love
• Porcini Risotto: Culinary Cam
• Rosehip Jelly: A Messy Kitchen
• Thel Ghosalyachi Bhaji: Sneha's Recipe
• Wild Mushroom Frittata: A Day in the Life on the Farm