Rosehip Syrup

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large heavy-bottomed saucepan or preserving pan
• •Food processor or a heavy knife and board
• •Fine sieve
• •Double layer of muslin or a clean jelly bag
• •Large bowl for straining
• •Funnel
• •Sterilised glass bottles with tight-fitting lids

Instructions

1. 1

   Gather and sort

   Pick through the rosehips, pulling off any stalks and the little blackened tufts at the base. Discard anything mouldy or shrivelled. You want fruit that's deep red, soft to the touch, and gives slightly when you press a thumb against it. If you gathered them before the frost, bag them up and leave them in the freezer for a couple of days first. The cold breaks down the flesh and does the work the weather should have done.

   Don't strip a single bush. Take a handful here, a handful there. The birds need them through the winter and the hedgerow has a longer memory than you do.
2. 2

   Chop the hips

   Pulse the rosehips in a food processor until they're roughly chopped, or work them over in batches with a heavy knife on a board. You're not making a paste. You're breaking them open so the hot water can get inside. A rough, uneven chop is exactly right.

3. 3

   First simmer

   Bring 1.5 litres of the water to a rolling boil in a large pan. Tip in the chopped rosehips all at once, bring it back to the boil, then take it off the heat and let it stand for fifteen minutes. The kitchen will start to smell faintly of stewed apples and something older, something wilder. That's the rosehips giving themselves up.

4. 4

   First straining

   Line a sieve with a double layer of muslin or a clean jelly bag and set it over a large bowl. Pour the rosehip mixture in and let it drip through on its own time. Don't press it, don't squeeze it. Just let gravity do the work. Twenty minutes or so, until the dripping slows to almost nothing. This first straining is important: it catches the fine hairs inside the hips that will itch your throat if you let them through.

   The hairs inside rosehips are the reason for all this straining business. They're a classic schoolyard itching powder. Worth the extra effort to keep them out of your syrup.
5. 5

   Second simmer

   Return the pulp left in the muslin to the pan. Add the remaining 500ml of water, bring to the boil again, take it off the heat and leave it to stand for another ten minutes. You're extracting everything the hips have left to give. Nothing wasted.

6. 6

   Second straining

   Strain the second batch through a fresh piece of muslin, or rinse the first one well and use it again. Let it drip through without pressing. Combine both lots of strained liquid in a clean pan. You should have somewhere around a litre and a half of clear, deep coral-coloured juice. If there's any cloudiness or sediment, run it through the muslin one more time.

7. 7

   Reduce and sweeten

   Bring the rosehip liquid back to the boil and let it reduce by about a third. You want it slightly thicker, slightly more concentrated, the colour deepening as the water goes. Add the sugar and stir until completely dissolved. Let it boil for another five minutes, no more. Taste it. It should be sweet but still carry that soft, tart, floral-fruity note underneath. Add the lemon juice if you want to sharpen it up.

8. 8

   Bottle while hot

   Have your bottles ready: sterilised in a low oven or run through a hot dishwasher cycle. Pour the hot syrup carefully into the bottles using a funnel, right up to the neck, and seal immediately. Label them with the date. Store in a cool, dark cupboard. Once a bottle is opened, keep it in the fridge and use it within a few weeks. Unopened, it will see you comfortably through the winter and into spring.

   Smaller bottles are better than one big one. Once opened, the syrup doesn't keep indefinitely, and a 250ml bottle used up in a fortnight is more cheerful than a litre going slowly tired at the back of the fridge.

Chef Tips

• •Foraging rule of thumb: pick only from hedges well away from busy roads and never from fields that might have been sprayed. A quiet lane, a footpath through woodland, an old cottage garden gone a bit wild. Those are your places.
• •If the weather hasn't obliged with a frost yet and you're impatient, a couple of days in the freezer does the same job. The cold ruptures the cell walls and the fruit softens exactly as it would outside. Nobody has to know.
• •Don't skip the muslin. A fine sieve isn't enough. The hairs inside the hips are the whole reason for all this straining business, and they're not something you want to discover halfway through a mug of something meant to soothe a sore throat.
• •Save the pulp left after the second straining. Spread it on a tray, dry it slowly in a very low oven, and it makes a fragrant addition to winter teas and infusions. Nothing from the rosehip needs to be wasted.
• •If you want a slightly thicker, more conserve-like syrup, boil it a little longer at the sugar stage. If you prefer it looser and more pourable, pull it off sooner. A recipe is a conversation, not a contract.

Advance Preparation

• •Rosehips can be gathered a few days before you plan to make the syrup and kept in the freezer. This also helps soften them if they were picked before a frost.
• •Sealed sterilised bottles of rosehip syrup keep in a cool, dark cupboard for up to a year. Once opened, transfer to the fridge and use within three to four weeks.
• •For longer storage and peace of mind, the filled bottles can be processed in a hot water bath for ten minutes, which gives them a reliable year on the shelf.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 20g)