How to Make Rosewater

Roses are beauty and fragrance workhorses.  They grace views, fill vases extravagantly, add to the memorable quality of time spent in the garden because of their fabulous scent, and if that heavy duty was not enough, they offer an edible aspect with their hips and petals.

Rose bouquet doing its colourful, fragrant act on a cloudy day

When checking how my twenty or so rose bushes are doing each day during their blooming season, I make various cutting decisions:  for buds beginning to open, I cut those for bouquets, for flowers that have opened but still are mostly fresh--a few outer raggedy petals can be removed--I use for rosewater making, and for the ones that are close to dropping their petals, the compost awaits for them along with the faded bouquets. In late summer, I let some go to seed so I can harvest their fruits--vitamin C rich hips for jam and tea.

Observing my patio shenanigans, Dayo perches on a sous sol window sill

ROSEWATER RECIPE

1)  Choose the most fragrant roses of which the petals need to be separated from their stems and then washed.  Red and deep pink petals will give nice colour to the rosewater.  Use only roses not sprayed with chemicals.  If you have no rose bushes of your own, you may find a neighbour or two that will let you have some of theirs.  Gift them with some of your rosewater as a thank you.

Petals from my most fragrant roses

Well washed petals resting in their strainer

2) Put petals in a large non-aluminium metal, ceramic, or glass bowl, add boiling water to cover, and let steep overnight covered in the fridge.

3) Next morning, strain the rosewater into a large bowl.  Then with well washed hands, grab a large fistful of petals from the strainer, squeezing them as dry as possible over the bowl holding the strained rosewater.  Repeat until all petals have been hand-squeezed.  Then re-squeeze to make sure to get the last precious drop.

Note the spent petals on the right

4)  Pour the rosewater into ice-cube trays, freeze, separate cubes, and place in a freezer bag.  Take out desired amount when needed for cooking and the bath.  When using rosewater in recipes, gradually add a few drops and always test taste as too much will make the dish tasting like perfume.  The right amount  however is sublime.

Tough day?  Plop a couple of these in your bath.

Culinary uses for rosewater abound.  It can be added to the cooking water for rice and to cake/cookie batters.  There are many wonderful recipes on the web.  I wanted a simple, fairly low caloric recipe that uses my garden's present abundance of strawberries, so I devised the recipe below adding in another favourite fruit flavour of mine, raspberry.

Luscious Gariguettes fresh from the garden

GLAZED FRESH STRAWBERRY PASTRY-FREE TARTELETTES

For each tartelette:

• Fresh, ripe, flavourful strawberries, about 15 medium strawberries
• Raspberry jam, several tablespoons
• Rosewater, a few drops

1)  In a small pot, heat the raspberry jam till fairly liquid and add  rosewater by drops to taste, then strain.  If you use fruit jelly instead, there is no need for straining.  Red currant jelly is often used for glazing strawberry tarts.  If your strawberries are lacking flavour, a good strawberry jam could be used.  Don't hesitate to experiment with various fruit jams/jellies

2) If buying, get the very best in terms of freshness and flavour.  Sort strawberries--some for slicing and some to leave whole.  If your strawberries are not small enough to be used whole for the top layer, slice off their tips.  Layer slices in small ramekins or teacups up to about an inch from the top, keeping the layers fairly level.  Pour some of the glaze on them, then place the tips or small whole strawberries on top with their bottoms sliced flat, and lay one large berry on its side in the middle, and re-glaze.

A dollop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream would look nice, with maybe a dribble of the glaze.  If a fancier look is wanted, then pipe the whipped cream around the centre strawberry, ending with a solitary rosette on that strawberry.

When watching calories, think flavour!

I enjoy making lemonade with my home-made rosewater syrup.  This syrup can be used in place of regular syrup in most cases. I top pancakes/French toast and sweeten coffee/herbal teas, plain yogurt, and cereal with it.

ROSEWATER SYRUP RECIPE

• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup rosewater
• 1/2 cup water

Put water and rosewater into pot, bring to boil, add sugar, stirring until dissolved and syrup becomes clear, usually around five minutes--much longer and you will be making candy.  Cool and pour into a covered container.  It will keep at least a week in the fridge.  I know that because we always eat ours within a week!

The light pinkish, violet-coloured water suddenly turned a stunning deep amethyst.

Rosewater syrup and Flastaff, one of the fragrant roses used

On to making the lemonade.  Squeeze some lemons, about one lemon for each glass.

Add cold water and rosewater syrup to taste--lemonade suddenly turns a bashful pink--and decorate with a lemon slice and a strawberry.

Pink lemonade!  It actually is a colour closer to the nearby rose.

As you can see rosewater is as adaptable as it is lovely, fragrant, and delicious.  If you do buy it for cooking, make sure it is marked for culinary use.

Michelle's Astuce

If whole fresh lemons are placed in hot water for a few minutes, then squeezed, not only is much more juice produced, they are easier to squeeze.

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Rose portraits

DIY Garden Project: Easey-peasey plant labels, pots, and cloches

Lush, enveloping, bountiful summer has arrived.

Apple tree, green pea bed, and Queen Elizabeth hedge rose

Front garden with its spiraea, lavender, roses, peonies, and plum tree

Though a garden can be fragrant in any season, the summer garden ramps up the scent level because of the heat.  The twenty or so rose bushes contribute greatly to the garden's perfume.

L'etoile de Holland, a robust climber, has dark-red, velvety blooms emitting a wonderful damask fragrance

Bourbon rose:  fragrant, stripped Ferdinand Pichard

Suspect this is Chicago Peace, taken close to twilight

David Austin English Rose:   climbing, quartered, magenta, velvety, fragrant Falstaff

This mystery rose is a glowing salmon pink, very fragrant--opening from urn-shaped buds to trusses of double blooms

Fancy flowers are show stoppers for sure, but the simpler forms can wow just as much as this single-petal white rose with its delicate yellow stamens.

Daisies are magnificent in their cheerful and unassuming simplicity.

Adding to the garden's fragrance are Lily of the Valley, cottage pinks, honeysuckle, and soon, lovely lavender.   The Calm One suggested the photo below to be captioned:  This is not the Eiffel Tower.  I would be lost without his daily dose of wit.

Remember to pick bouquets to keep fragrance nearby:  sage, daisies, Lily of the Valley, cottage pinks

Honeysuckle with Bartlett pear tree in the background

Not only flowers, but fruit also is part of the scent experience.  There are strawberries, then there are gariquettes!   When I first saw gariquettes here in France, I thought the conical strawberries  looked odd.  One taste, and I was hooked. Their fragrance is also tremendously alluring.

Yes!  June-bearing gariquette strawberries

The swollen stem end can be easily sliced off, no gouging required for de-stemming

Vegetables add to the medley of scents also with their earthy aromas. The spinach planted at the beginning of March is coming in nicely.

A nice supper recipe is a vegetarian version of an hot, open-faced sandwich:  sauté well washed and chopped spinach with garlic and red pepper flakes in olive oil till tender, mix in your favourite grated cheese, and top slices of your favourite bread with the cheesy spinach, making sure the bread is moistened with the flavourful liquid from the pan.   I suspect only spinach lovers would want to try this one.

Gobbling peas in the garden is a vice, especially if one needs to accumulate enough for a fresh pea soup or a stir fried rice.

Freshly picked peas are a delight--green candy

Not only do tomato seedlings give off a mouth-watering fragrance which makes my stomach growl when tending them, they are also a tactile delight with their fuzzy stems.  I had wondered if my thirty plants would be able to bound back after being light deprived for about two weeks because of unusually drab and cool weather as I keep them on window sills.  Happily, new growth is bursting with chlorophyll once again.  The lower pale leaves can be removed and the stem buried right up to the new, green growth.  Tomato stems will sprout roots when planted, unlike many other plants whose stems would just rot.

Ah yes, the DIY project.  You probably thought I forgot about that!  So many used materials come in handy in a garden.  Three needed items are labels, cloches, and pots.  Recycled plastic  bottles/jugs are perfect from which to make all three items.  Opaque cloches can be used for blanching and for protecting plants against overnight frost.  Transparent/translucent ones are good for protecting against slugs and continuing frost. 

MATERIALS: 

• Coloured/clear/opaque soda, water, and milk plastic bottles
• Awl for making drainage holes for pots
• Matt knife for cutting the bottoms off for pots
• Scissors for cutting various sized labels
• Water-proof markers for writing on labels
• Bottle caps to regulate temperature, too hot, remove cap, too cold keep cap on.

Three large labels can be made from a quart-sized bottle.  The bottom becomes a small pot.

The large label can be reduced to generate a few small ones and one medium-sized label

Large label goes pointed end down into the soil

Translucent plastic cloche protecting baby lettuce from slugs.  Bottom part becomes a pot.  Awl is used for making drainage holes

Off to prepare some beds for white/kidney beans and flageolets!  See you next week.

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Starting tomato seedling indoors

Transplanting strawberries

Doing the Rhubarb Crumble!

A small part of our garden is kept a bit wild to shelter insect-eating friends like hedgehogs and lizards.

Pleasingly unkempt back corner, with weedy grass, bluebells and ivy.

Dayo appreciates the camouflage as he does a good job of catching Asiatic wasps hatching from the ground which is a serious problem in our region.

Dayo keeps his paw over the emerging wasp until I can squash it.  We make a great team.

The peas sown in mid February are merrily putting out flowers and in a couple of weeks there will be les petits pois to harvest.

The nodding heads of pea flowers

The hard-neck garlic will probably be ready for scape harvesting in a couple of weeks.

Cosily mulched under oak leaves

The delectable method of baking fruit under a buttery crumb topping is called crisp for Americans, crumble for the British. This approach towards flour and butter is a very clever way of getting much of the delights of a pastry crust without the bother.  Rhubarb is a splendid looking plant, about three-feet high and just as wide, quite bold in contour, sporting large, crinkled leaves.  Being a perennial, it comes back year after year.

Handsome rhubarb lends itself well to an edible landscape--a few are in my front garden

However, it is a moisture lover, so I do have to keep it well watered during our long, hot growing season.  Since rhubarb lasts for about 15 years, good preparation at planting time needs to be done--a deeply dug hole with lots of incorporated compost is essential.  Rhubarb grows well in full sun or part-shade; a few can be placed in the smaller bays between larger shrubs as long as the area is pesticide and herbicide free.

It is one of the perennials popping out in early spring, with its delightful, large, pinkish, egg-shaped ball of leaves ready to unfurl.  Though there are named varieties, I was just able to get from my nursery what they call red rhubarb.   Both green and red rhubarb taste the same, but I like how the red looks in cooking.  If green is only available, a few strawberries which are usually available at the same time, can be tossed into a recipe for colour.

Since the leaves are poisonous, it is important to carefully remove them when preparing rhubarb for cooking.  Though the huge flower buds are edible and supposedly taste like broccoli, I forgo eating them because they are tightly wrapped in young leaves.  However, the leaves and buds can be safely composted.  There are some varieties of ornamental rhubarb that are grown for flowers, but in general, for food-producing plants, flowering suddenly becomes very undesired and is referred to as bolting.  All energy needs to be channelled into the edible parts.  So, off with their heads!

I try to remove the buds as soon as I can see them as they get as big as broccoli with very thick stalks

No harvest is recommended the first spring after their planting, a limited one for the second spring, but for the third, a full harvest of about six to eight stalks can be done several times in a season.  Our plants are entering their third spring so we are very pleased as we both adore rhubarb.  The Calm One has loved rhubarb since childhood, while I reluctantly at first ate it, and then fell passionately in love with its no-holds-bar, in-your-face zing.  The punchy taste of rhubarb begs for the taming influence of butter, flour, and cream.

If using garden-fresh rhubarb, it is best not to harvest stalks by cutting them off at soil level because any remaining stalk under the soil will rot, possibly causing disease.  Pull upward with a slight twist from the bottom of the stalk.  Sometimes, I need to use both hands for the more sturdy stalks.

Just pulled rhubarb stalks gracing a sous sol window sill

I like putting leeks and rhubarb in this little glass pitcher, don't ask me why.

Rhubarb Crumble Recipe
(Makes nine generous servings, recipe can be halved)

• Rhubarb, washed, peeled, and sliced, 1 kg or about 15 medium stalks
• Sugar, 620 gms
• Flour, 320 gms
• Butter, cold, 160 gms
• Cream for serving

Fresh rhubarb needs to be peeled of its fibrous outer layer (See addendum below).

When preparing food, I keep a container close by to collect vegetable matter for composting.

Pretty rhubarb ribbons

Put rhubarb in an oven dish and mix with 300 grams of sugar and place in an oven preheated to 400 degrees F for 25 to 30 minutes until rhubarb is completely tender.

Remove approximately 1/3rd cup of rhubarb liquid otherwise the topping does not stand a chance of retaining its integrity and will just dissolve during baking.  The remaining rhubarb should appear slushy and not drowning in liquid.

Meanwhile, make the topping.  Mix the flour and rest of sugar in a large bowl.  Cut the butter into small pieces and add to the bowl. Mix in food processor or by hand, until resembling coarse sand.  It takes around thirty to sixty seconds with a processor and about five to seven minutes by hand.

Mixed by hand

Spread topping on rhubarb filling in all edges.

Note the golden pink hue of the extra rhubarb juice on the left.

Bake till topping is crusty and golden, about 30 minutes.

Serve with cream or with whipped cream

This gooey, fragrant, carmelized, and succulent crumble can be served warm or cold.  Chez nous, after our eating the first servings, the Calm One is under direct orders--no one can expect me to do this task since I am the resident hedonist, oh excuse me, gourmet--to portion out and freeze the rest so they can not be so accessible for non-stop gorging.  In other words, calorie input can be regulated through the wonders of freezing.  With few exceptions, most food can be frozen with little change in its goodness.  Freezing is my prepared method of food preservation.

Bon appétit!

Michelle's Astuce:

Though I just drink the extra rhubarb juice as a fortitude-boosting elixir enabling my continuing in my baking endeavour, it is conceivable that a lovely coulis could be made and then served with the crumble.  In that case, just strain the syrup of the little bits of rhubarb and add cream or the coulis can be dribbled over whipped cream.

ADDENDUM:

Apparently there is a great peel-or-not-peel rhubarb debate raging on the web! Sarah had commented at this post that she is one of the non-peelers.  For my next crumble, I forwent peeling and the Calm One preferred it to the previous with peeled stalks.  He found it way more rhubarby.  Also it was less juicy, with way more body,  therefore, I did not need to take out some liquid to prevent the topping from dissolving.  Perhaps for very big and old rhubarb stalks, peeling may be necessary.  In any case, feel free to experiment for yourself.