Islay
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Can you use ordinary rosehips from the garden for recipes?We've got a rosebush in the garden, and it's produced some bright red hips (it's a blousy yellow rose of some description, not sure what). Are they remotely interesting to use in the same way as dog rose/rosa rugosa or are they a bit boring? Anyone know?
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gz
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Yes 
When nice and ripe of course!
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gil
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Yes, garden rosehips can be used as well as the wild ones.
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Islay
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Fabulous, thank you! Now I'll just go stand over them and wait for them to finish ripening...
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gil
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Unless you have lots of flowers on the roses, you'll probably need to supplement the amount by foraging wild ones as well. But that's a pleasant way to spend an autumn afternoon ISTR sloes grow very well on chalk downland. The ones near Eastbourne were massive.
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cqueenie
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So rosa rugosa is good for using the hips, have lots of them in my garden but they don't all ripen at the same time. Can you pick them when they are ripe and store them till you have a big enough collection to use?
And how exactly do you know when they are ripe?
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Tavascarow
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| cqueenie wrote: | So rosa rugosa is good for using the hips, have lots of them in my garden but they don't all ripen at the same time. Can you pick them when they are ripe and store them till you have a big enough collection to use?
And how exactly do you know when they are ripe? |
Rosa rugosa are excellent & you get a lot more hip for your money (time).
I stopped picking wild rose hips years ago & only pick rugosa now.
They are ripe when the birds start eating them.
You can freeze them till you have enough for wine but not sure about other uses.
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gil
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You can freeze them til you have enough for jelly too. They are such poor setters that you will need to mix them at least 50:50 with apple to get a decent set jelly.
Also save and freeze for rosehip syrup, which doesn't need to set. Again, an apple in the mix will help, so that you don't overboil.
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Minamoo
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Ooh! I just realised that my steam juice extractor would be absolutely perfect for doing rosehips cos of all of those irritating little hairs! If the hips are whole, then just the juice minus the hairs will come through the little pipe. Woohoo!
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gil
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| Minamoo wrote: | | Ooh! I just realised that my steam juice extractor would be absolutely perfect for doing rosehips cos of all of those irritating little hairs! If the hips are whole, then just the juice minus the hairs will come through the little pipe. Woohoo! |
Juice ? What juice ? Very little in a rosehip, even rosa rugosa, I find.
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cqueenie
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Well the ripe rosehips have been turned into rosehip jelly, yep didn't set to well but got a lovely looking semi runny jelly!
When can i eat it?? is it better if its kept?
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gil
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| cqueenie wrote: | | When can i eat it?? is it better if its kept? |
Now ! (if you like). Jelly/jam isn't something that matures with keeping, unlike chutney [better to leave 3 months for flavours to blend], or wine.
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Minamoo
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| gil wrote: | | Minamoo wrote: | | Ooh! I just realised that my steam juice extractor would be absolutely perfect for doing rosehips cos of all of those irritating little hairs! If the hips are whole, then just the juice minus the hairs will come through the little pipe. Woohoo! |
Juice ? What juice ? Very little in a rosehip, even rosa rugosa, I find. |
When you make rose hip syrup you boil the hips with water but then have to put them through a jelly bag to catch the hairs, or if you like to make the syrup more fruity, you need to remove the hairs and seeds before you start and then push the whole lot through a sieve. With the steam juice extractor, you put the fruit in the top container thingy and the water in the bottom and the juice collects in the middle layer. Basically.......it'll make making rose hip syrup a lot easier. That's what I meant
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gil
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Ah, I see. I know nothing about steam juice extractors - thought they extracted juice by steam power, or summat....
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