Every now and then over the past two days I’ve pressed the pause button and sat down outside to savor the still-blooming patio flowers and the slowly changing colors of the yarden. But in between pauses and work I’ve focused on a fun and labor intensive project: Jelly.
Not just any jelly… not just rosehip jelly, either, though it did require a bowlful of those. These wild rosehips are small and seedy, not much flesh or juice, so I knew it would take a lot of them. And they’re not easy to harvest; even the rosehips themselves have pickers on them, so I took kitchen snippers out to clip them off by ones and twos, invariably snipping plenty of leaves. I picked out the leaves as I dumped the fruits into a bowl of cold water with a splash of vinegar.
Then onto the crabapples! My gorgeous tree produces the tiniest crabapples I’ve ever seen. The rosehips are small, but the crabapples are no bigger than the rosehips! I plucked them from the tree by ones and twos and threes, reaching overhead for most of them and dropping plenty on the ground. It took awhile, but I refilled the bowl, picked out the leaves, and dumped the crabapples into another bowl of cold water and vinegar wash.
It took an hour to rinse the rosehips and pick off blossom ends and residual stems, but at least the prickers had softened during the soak. I put them in a pot, covered them with water, and simmered for well over an hour, mashing them some about halfway through to release even more rosy essence, adding water a couple times to keep them submerged.
When they were sufficiently softened I scooped the mash into the ancestral chinois cone strainer that my sister from another mister gave me a few years ago, which had belonged to her mother. I let it drip for about five hours, squeezing out more pulp a few times with the elegant wooden pestle that you swirl around the edge simply using the palm of your hand on the smooth handle.
Once I’d extracted all the goodness I could from the rosehips, I put the crabapples on to boil, again keeping them just covered with water, and mashing halfway through cooking. They were just as hard to prepare because I had to pull off each stem using small pliers. I cooked them for only around 45 minutes, as I’d read that if you overcook them you ruin the pectin.
This mash strained for a couple hours before bedtime, with a couple of pressings, and then I left that in the strainer overnight, covered with a mesh tent to keep out the one or two pesky houseflies remaining inside.
In the morning I pulled the rosehip juice from the fridge, swirled the two bowls full together, and dumped them into a larger saucepan with an equal volume of sugar.
I brought this to a rolling boil, then reduced the heat and simmered until the jelly had reduced to the proper thickness. Or maybe just a bit longer. I used the “wrinkle test” to determine when to stop cooking: put a couple of small plates in the freezer, and when you think it’s close, pull one out and drop a spoonful of jelly onto the cold plate, let it sit for two minutes, then draw your finger through it. If it wrinkles on top it’s ready; if not, cook a bit longer. Pretty sure I could have called it good after the first test despite not getting the wrinkle but I let it cook another five minutes until the next test wrinkled.
I knew I wouldn’t get much jelly out of all this effort, but volume wasn’t the point. Some kind of crazy satisfaction from the process was the point, and a few mouthfuls of powerful flavor. I optimistically sterilized six 4-ounce jars, and was delighted to fill five of them. While they processed in the hot water bath for twenty minutes, I scraped the saucepan clean and slathered a piece of buttered toast.
I slowly savored every single tart, sweet, slightly flowery mouthful.
Twenty-four hours and uncounted steps later, the labor intensive fun resulted in five tiny jelly jars full. How I wish I had enough to give some to everyone I want to share it with! Oh well. That’s why they say “Mashed potatoes are so everyone can have enough.”
There are still tons of even smaller rosehips on the bush… will I decide to spend another day harvesting and processing another batch? Maybe… but most of the crabapples left are out of reach so it would be purely rosehip jelly if I do it again. Who knows how the wind blows? Who knows where the time goes?
Meanwhile, as I labored away, the lazy little animals just sat around enjoying the gorgeous fall days. Ok, well, I did sit with them some of the time, grateful for the time to sit, and grateful for those bright hours making such extravagant jelly.
