About two weeks ago I commented on @riverflows ' post, where they went on a bike ride and harvested the motherload of rosehips on the way. Actually I was more psyched about the oxymel she was going to make out of them, but in the end I felt what I was missing most was the season she's in. After all, @riverflows lives in Australia, where it's fall right now, so the perfect time for harvesting all kinds of delicious things growing everywhere. Since I was looking out at a cold gloomy Berlin at the time, I wished how nice some rosehips would be right now.
As it turns out, someone was listening to my wishes, because I happened to come across precisely that the other day. I had just found a room to rent at the edge of the city, which is in an an actual house I'd be sharing with a nice group of people. After finding the place decent, the landlord pleasant and relatable, and the housemates, who had also just moved in, cheerful and good company, I went to check out the garden. There it stood, a rose bush, with the fruit still hanging on its branches. Clearly, they had been there all Winter, but that didn't diminish their quality... at least in most cases.
Thinking about my inspiring Australian friend, I went ahead and harvested them all. I had never made oxymel before, but I was certain I would find a recipe online. The bush was not too big, and many rosehips did not pass my personal quality test (black and tasteless went into the compost), however by the time I was done with the bush I had more rosehips than I had expected. Would I need this much for oxymel? Couldn't I make some jam too out of them?
After washing them I started removing the ends, cut them in half, and scraped out the seeds. This was also important, since some of them had gone moldy. Not too many, actually, but by this time I knew I was going for the jam.
In the end it took way more work than I had wanted to spend on this, but I kept pushing on. Eventually I filled up the smallest pot in the house. I poured some of the water mixed with lime-juice I was drinking over it, and set it on the stove. After bringing it to a boil I set it down to simmer, and kept stirring it occasionally. It didn't take too long to make a nice paste.
The taste was very tart, so I added a bit of sugar, poured some more of my lemon-water on it, kept stirring and simmering, and eventually I poured it into a jar. By now the taste was a perfect sweet-and-sour and the consistency nice and jam like. I didn't bother with pectin or heating the jar for proper preservation. This bit of jam will be eaten up pretty quickly, I'm sure.
