Friday 12 September 2008

Cooking with rosehips - rosehip and apple jam




Life, it is said, is too short to stuff a mushroom. I believe it is too short to core a rosehip! I discovered this on Sunday just gone when I set out to make rosehip and apple jam.

My plan had been to use equal weight of rosehips (with seeds removed) and apples, using some from the batch of apples we picked wild recently. It took me 2 hours to get to half a kilo of rosehips with seeds removed. And during that time I was able to rethink the recipe.

So, here is the recipe I came up with for rosehip and apple jam.

Half kg in weight of large, firm rosehips with seeds removed.
One and a half kg of soft rosehips still with seeds.
One and a half kg of apples cored and skinned.
2 kg of sugar.

Put the soft rosehips in a pan and cover with water. Bring to boil and keep simmering for about half an hour.

Mash the boiled rosehips and continue to simmer for another half hour.

Add the rosehips from which you have just spent ages removing seeds (the firm ones are easier to handle) and the apple to a jam pan. (Don't throw away the apples cores or skins. Put them in a freezer along with other apple waste and citruis fruit skins to make jelly - more on that at a later date).

Strain the boiled rosehips and add the liquid to the jam pan.

Squeeze the rosehip pulp through a sieve and add the paste that comes through to the jam pan.

Heat the apple and rosehips until it boils and beings to pulp down.

Add the sugar.

Bring to the boil to reach and when it has reached its setting point, put into jars. The quantities used made 8 jars.

I have to add this is quite an unusual chunky jam but nevertheless, the hips give it a pleasant taste.

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