Rose Hips for Food

In my quest to find and collect a new wild food each and every weekend in September and October I've come to a little bit of an Impasse. So far I've had blackberries (link), elderberries (link), ash keys and haws.

The past few weeks have been so wet that I've not had much of an opportunity. But yesterday was a very fine day. However, guelder roses aren't quite ripe yet and the same is true of rowan berries.

That really only leaves rose hips. Now, I've nibbled on these in passing several times in the past and I really like the taste. But they do strike me as being just a bit of a faff to prepare, as you have to remove each and every seed.



But, needs must... and as there was nothing else to pick (at least not properly) I decided to harvest the rose hips instead (of course I picked more elderberries and haws as well). Admittedly it's still a little early for the rose hips to be fully ripe (the dog rose ones at least), but the wild Rosa rugosa hips were nice and dark and there were quite a few bushes growing on waste ground so I harvested those and will pick the dog rose Rosa canina hips later this month.

Having picked the rose hips I needed to find things to do with them and it's only when searching the web that I found out just how versatile this food could be. So here are a couple of recipes that I've been able to try out for myself.

First we'll start with a classic method of air drying rose hips for later use:

Dried Rose Hips

Ingredients:
600g rose hips

Like many late autumn fruit it's best to pick rose hips after the first frost when they are fully ripe. Snap off the tails of the hips as close to the fruit as possible then spread the hips out on a clean surface (I tend to spread newspaper on a table and spread them out there). Allow to dry partially (when the skins begin to wrinkle) then split the hips and remove all the seeds with a small spoon or a pointed knife (be certain to remove all the seeds, as these can catch in the throat).

Return the hips to your drying surface and allow to dry our completely (they must be completely dry, or they will not store) then either freeze in bags (they will keep indefinitely) or place in a clean jar and store in the refrigerator (they will keep for several months).

As well as being used as replacement for fruit you can add these to trail mixes, eat them as snacks or use as toppings for salads. Rose hips are very high in vitamin C and make an excellent winter supplement.

Of course, one of the classic ways of using rose hips is to make rose hip soup. There are classic recipes for this from Sweden (Nyponsoppa) and Germany (Hagebuttem Soup) but the recipe given below is a classic British recipe:

Rose Hip Soup

Ingredients:
1l rose hip purée (or rose hip juice)
3 tbsp honey
3 tbsp freshly-squeezed lemon juice
1 tbsp cornflour
2 tbsp water
6 tbsp Greek-style yoghurt

Method:
Combine the rose hip purée, honey and lemon juice in a pan. Bring to a simmer then whisk together the cornflour and water to a slurry. Add to the soup and whisk to combine. Continue cooking until the soup thickens then ladle into warmed soup bowls, garnish with a spoonful of yoghurt and serve.

(This recipe is reproduced, with thanks, from the Celtnet British Recipes collection.)


If you want many more rose hip recipes then check out the Rose hips recipes collecton.

For all the wild food recipes on this blog, see the wild food recipes page.

Time for Haws (Hawthorn Berries)

Haws are the bright red fruit of the hawthorn tree and they're just coming into season right now. Many people just walk past these bright red berries, thinking them only fit for birds. But the truth is that they can be very tasty and you can make a whole range of foods from them, ranging from pies through jams to sauces. They're also extremely high in vitamin C and well worth collecting. They also freeze well and will keep until needed.

This past weekend I saw that haws were just coming into their own and the first truly ripe ones were not available. I will collect lots over the next few weeks, but the weekend's bounty allowed me to collect some fresh fruit and mix these with fresh wild blackberries and a few late season wild raspberries to make a very delicious winter fruit crumble, detailed below:

Haw, Wild Balckberry and Wild Raspberry Oatmeal Crumble

Ingredients:

For the Fruit:
250g ripe haws, washed and drained
30g brown sugar
6 tbsp water

200g wild blackberries, washed and drained
100g wild raspberries, washed and drained
30g brown sugar
4 tbsp water
squeeze of lemon
1 tsp cornflour (cornstarch)

For the Crumble:
60g plain flour
30g coarse oatmeal
60g brown sugar
60g butter

Method:
Combine the haws, brown sugar and water in a pan and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer then cover and cook gently for 25 minutes until the haws have burst and are soft. Take off the heat, allow to cool until you can handle then pass through a fine-meshed sieve. Press the pulp down with the back of a spoon to extract as much haw juice as possible.

In a clean pan combine the haw juice, blackberries, wild raspberries, brown sugar, water and lemon juice. Bring this mixture just to a boil then reduce to a simmer and cook gently until the mixture has thickened and the fruit are just soft (but still firm), about 8 minutes' cooking time.

Turn the fruit into the base of an oven-proof dish and scatter the cornflour over the top. Meanwhile, mix together the flour and oatmeal then cube the butter and add to this mixture. Rub the butter into the flour and oatmeal mix with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Stir in the brown sugar then, using your hands, sprinkle the topping evenly over the fruit. Tamp the oatmeal crumble mix down slightly then transfer to an oven pre-heated to 200°C. Bake for between 25 and 30 minutes, or until the fruit is hot and bubbling and the top of the dish is a nice golden brown in colour.

Serve hot with milk, cream, ice cream or custard.

If you would like more ideas for recipes using haws as a main ingredient, why not visit the Celtnet haw recipes pages. You can also find more information about hawthorn berries and the use of haws as a wild food on the Celtnet Recipes Hawthorn information page with recipes.

For all the wild food recipes on this blog, see the wild food recipes page.