How to make Gulkand?
_____________________________There are only 2 ingredients needed to make Gulkand.
Rose petals and sugar.
The quantity of rose petals and sugar is equal by weight so sugar helps preserve the rose petals along with their essential oils.
We need the heirloom (desi) variety of rose known as Damask rose. This variety has very soft delicate petals and a lingering fragrance. The flowers can be multi-whorled or single whorled depending on where they are growing, pruning pattern, sun exposure and climate.
In the states of Uttarakhand and lower Himalayas the Damask rose grows wild by the roadsides and comes in huge bunches. The rosehips from those roses are the best.
Deep pink variety of Damask rose is preferred over the light pink rose to make Gulkand or rose petal jam.
Once you have the roses, better get them from a chemical free source, I collected them over a week when my garden was benevolent a couple of years ago, just separate the petals and rinse them lightly under running water. Spread the petals over a muslin cloth in shade so the water evaporates.
The older method warrants crushing of rose petals in mortar and pestle slowly but I use a mixie blender whenever I have a good quantity of rose petals to preserve. It takes just a couple of seconds for a batch and the mixture doesn't get heated. Heating the mix would result in the loss of the aroma.
To make fresh gulkand from a couple of roses within a day I just crush them along with sugar, keep in a glass jar and expose to sun for a day.
Here is how it looks when rose petals and sugar are crushed lightly in a mixie blender. You can use a food processor and even a chopper.
After crushing them together coarsely, just transfer to a sterile (clean and dry) glass jar with a tight fitting lid and keep indoors at room temperature, away from sun to preserve the colour.
The gulkand stays well for years but the colour gets darker as you can see from the pictures of freshly made gulkand above and the 2 year old batch in the picture with Gulkand phirni.
And don't worry about the high sugar content of gulkand. It is never used as a jam spread but always as a rose flavour to be added to desserts so the sugar gets balanced.
Damask roses traveled from Persia to Europe, the name of the rose comes from Damascus Syria. I am not sure how these roses came to India but now they are called as Indian desi gulab. It might have come to India via older trade routes as there has been a considerable exchange of such commodities between the middle east and India.
I will update this post if I get any information about how Damask roses came to India. Please share if you know anything about that.
Till then, make some Gulkand whenever you get a few Damask roses or desi gulab. You will be hooked to make this rose petal jam that doesn't need any cooking.
And the gulkand phirni will be a preferred dessert at home I must tell you. The real ingredients have the taste, the chemical essences just fool our senses and sometime kill them too. Please don't let that happen.
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