‘Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways’
William Butler Yeats
The rose hips’ red and orange are part of the magical explosion and fading of colours in late summer and early autumn.
Rosehips are one of our favourite ingredients at the Dysart; it’s a food that has been praised for generations, is redolent of times past and more simple, of a different rhythm of life and is used in many ancient recipes.
The Celts would have taken advantage of a wealth of foraged edible weeds, berries, nettle leaves, chickweed, burdock, white water lily, yarrow. They held rosehips in great esteem, using them to make a wine that would be kept to laugh off the cold and bring cheer to them on the first days of spring. They are best picked when the first frost hits them, as this helps break down the outer cell walls on the fruit. Once cooked, they then release the maximum nutrients and flavours.
They are a wonderful food source for the body, containing bioflavonoid-rich antioxidants that help strengthen our heart and blood vessels, and prevent degeneration of tissue cells. It was often used to soothe coughs and colds, not too long ago.
We use them in various ways, including for syrups, sorbets using the syrup, a fruit tea infused direct from the rosehips and to make natural, concentrated oils, for use in dressings. They go wonderfully, as a glancing touch of syrup, with cold cured meats such as duck. During these months nature tells us what works in harmony together; we use wild crab apples, bitter spear-leaved orache with our vanilla spiced cured duck. Rosehips add a wonderful tartness, together with underling floral notes which give the dish a wonderful aesthetic of autumn with its expression of deep ruby colours.
It also makes delicious drinks; we make a rosehip Royale with Crémant d’Alsace,bringing together the complex, toasty nose with citrus and mature apples of this sparkling wine, with the rich, atmospheric, autumnal flavours and colours of the rosehip syrup, creating a lovely balance. It’s also a great bedfellow with our Snow Queen Vodka, a wheat vodka which is 5 times distilled, or as a non-alcoholic rosehip Collins, of fresh lime and fever tree soda.
Petersham rosehip cordial
1kg Rosehips
3L water
200g Liquid glucose
500g Caster sugar
Wash the rosehips and remove any stalks. If you have a strong blender then blend for 3 minutes to break, add 1L of the water to the blender as well. If you do not have a blender then break the rosehips with a rolling pin.
Once you have created a rosehip pulp boil with another litre of water, sugar and glucose.
The glucose which is made by the hydrolysis of starch is not essential, but it gives the syrup a better consistency without extra sweetness or loss of flavour due to further reduction that would be needed in its absence. If you cannot get it then you can use 200g of extra caster sugar. Boil the syrup for 8 minutes and then leave it to rest, off the stove, for 20 minutes to infuse. Pass through a double layer of muslin cloth. The pulp should be put back in a pot and the remaining 1 L of water added to the pulp and brought to the boil and passed once more over the muslin cloth. This is to get as much of the flavour and goodness from the rosehips as possible. Then reduce the liquid for a further 6 minutes.
Place in sanitised kilner jars where it can keep for up to a month refrigerated. The syrup will have a concentrated flavour, so only a small quantity is needed to season the dishes.
