Rose Jam Kyiv Style

Thursday, September 8, 2022

 

Rose Jam Kyiv Style

If I had to select a few ingredients that define Ukrainian cooking for me, it would be tomatoes, pork and roses. Tomatoes are essential for borsch, stuffed peppers, ragouts and salads. Pork is eaten in all guises, from lightly salted belly fat to roasted ham and garlicky sausages. Roses, on the other hand, are all about sweetness. Almost every yard in our small village near Poltava has a shrub of the so-called jam roses, usually the rosa damascena variety. Rose jam fills the Christmas pampushky, sweet doughnuts, strudels, crescents and crepes. Best of all, it’s eaten alongside a cup of black tea, a taste of Ukrainian summer at its most opulent. (Despite the common stereotypes, Ukraine is not covered with snow for most of the year. Not only is it large enough to contain different climatic zones, the summers are long, hot and bountiful.)

Ever since I’ve revived my great-grandmother’s roses, I’ve been trying different rose jam recipes, such as this delight I shared two years ago. This summer’s experiment is the Kyiv style rose jam, a variety of preserve made without a drop of water. Raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, gooseberries and cherries are the most common fruits used in Kyivske varennia, Kyiv style jam. The fruit is cooked in syrup and then drained and rolled in fine sugar. The result is more of a sweetmeat than the usual runny conserve. The rose jam Kyiv style is different, however. The rose petals are crushed with sugar and no cooking is required.

This recipe also comes from my great-grandmother Olena’s cookbook. “200g of sugar for every 100g of petals; use it to stuff sugar dough crescents,” she writes. The instructions are simple–trim the white part of the petals, pound into paste with sugar and add a spoonful of lemon juice to preserve color.

The roses used for jam can be any fragrant variety with thin, delicate petals. Since you don’t wash them before making jam, be sure that your roses are unsprayed. Pick them in the morning after the drew has dried and after trimming the corollas, shake the petals to remove any bits of stamens and leaves.

At home I probably would have whirred the whole thing in a blender, but at my grandmother’s place there was only a wooden pestle, so the old-fashioned method it was. I didn’t miss any of the conveniences, however, because making this jam is such a heady and fragrant activity that I didn’t need to rush it. If the aroma of fresh roses was intense, pounding the petals with sugar crystals amplified it to the point that it felt like a tangible presence–honeyed, sweet, with a touch of clove and raspberries.

I store the jam in the fridge. It’s uncooked, but the high proportion of sugar should prevent spoilage. If you’re making larger quantities, freeze them. I eat rose jam over yogurt, mixed into kefir or milk for a sweet shake or simply dissolved in a glass of mineral water for a cooling summer drink. You can use it as filling for Ukrainian walnut crescents. You can also add a layer of rose jam when making solozhenyk, millefeuille crepe cake. The color keeps well, and the flavor becomes more intense with maceration.

Olena also notes that Kyiv style rose jam is “a great cure for colds and winter pallor.” As if one could doubt it.

Kyiv Style Rose Jam (Київське Трояндове Варення)

From my great-grandmother’s Olena’s cookbook

The proportion of petals to sugar is 1:2 by weight, but some varieties are slightly bitter, so you might want to increase the sugar proportion slightly.

Do yourself a favor; use a pestle. I didn’t even have the mortar, so I pounded the jam in a heavy bowl. Sugar makes it easy to crush the petals. Pound as if you want to crush each petal into pulp, and soon enough you will have a dark fuchsia colored pomade.

Makes 1 one pint jar

125 g (1/4 pound) fresh, unsprayed and fragrant rose petals (after cleaning, see below)
250-300 g (2 1/4 – 2 1/2 cups) sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon

The jam is uncooked, so make sure that all of the implements you use for making it–mortar, pestle, bowls, spoons are cleaned in hot water with baking soda and then rinsed with boiled water.

If you’re picking roses yourself, gather whole flowers in the late morning when their perfume is at its strongest. Spread them out on a towel. Holding each flower upside down, snip the petals around the heart of the flower using scissors. Shake the petals in a colander to remove stamens and weigh them. You should have 125g.

Mix with sugar and process with a blender or use a mortar and pestle to reduce petals to thick, perfumed paste. For this quantity of petals, it would take about 15 minutes. Add lemon juice and mix well.

Spoon jam into sterilized jars (how to sterilize jars). Seal immediately by closing the lid of the jars tightly. Store in a refrigerator. If you’re making larger quantities, consider freezing them.

Photography by Bois de Jasmin

Candied Orange Peel (Pierre Herme Recipe) : Star Anise and Vanilla

Candied Orange Peel (Pierre Herme Recipe) : Star Anise and Vanilla

 

The Sugar Plum Fairy bade Marie and Nutcracker sit down while a feast was brought before them: teas, cakes and the rarest of fruits. The food was the feast, first for the eyes, then for the palate… Marie hardly had time to nibble at her sweetmeats before the next diversion was presented: the music abruptly changed to an adagio tempo. Arabian dancers dressed in gauzy veils garnished with gold medallions and jewels swayed hypnotically past… The rich aroma of coffee drifted past.  –from E.T.A Hoffman’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.

The last days of each year are invariably orange hued for me: an evening spent peeling the stubborn orange peel with orange stained fingers and tossing the curls into the fire; the delicious icy chill of mandarins brought home from an outdoor winter market; the vanilla-orange sweetness of vin d’orange and slender orangettes dipped in chocolate. As I set the ingredients to make candied orange peel, I am once again a little girl watching her grandmother making this confection. To prevent me getting near the boiling sugar syrup, I would be given a large illustrated volume of E.T.A Hoffman’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. To this day, the scent of oranges conjures visions of fairy kingdoms, groves made of candied fruit and coffee scented dancers.

Even though I make candied oranges often, the process of transforming fresh fruit into a crystalline morsel has not lost its magic for me. As the peel softens, absorbs sugar and becomes more and more jewel-like, its scent likewise deepens. Smell the oranges when you peel them—the perfume is floral and bright, with a bitter, metallic-waxy note. As the peels are blanched, the bitter notes vanish, while the orange blossom accent becomes more pronounced. The fragrance is no longer bright, but rather flat. Yet, as the peels are cooked in sugar, their aroma is once again revived. At the end of the preparation, the transparent, golden strips smell of honey, caramel and orange liqueur.

There are numerous recipes for making candied citrus peel, and the method is fairly straightforward—first, the peel is either soaked in water for several days or boiled to remove bitterness; then it is cooked in sugar syrup till transparent. My grandmother favored the soaking method over the course of several days, but I find that it tends to accentuate the waxy, metallic facets of orange perfume. Moreover, most commercial orange varieties today are not nearly so bitter as to necessitate a long soaking. My favorite recipe takes only two hours of work and an overnight maceration in syrup, which results in fragrant, fresh tasting peel.

The below recipe comes from the renowned French pastry chef Pierre Hermé. It was published in almost all of his books, including Le Larousse des Desserts. The vanilla and spices lend a brilliant twist to the citrus aroma, and as long as you do not add more spices than the recipe requires, they will not overwhelm the delicate floral caramel perfume of candied fruit. Another successful variation I discovered is to use 1/8 teaspoon saffron and ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom.

Pierre Hermé’s Spiced Candied Orange Peel

Orange peel can be used in baking or on their own as a candy. One of my favorite ways to eat candied oranges is to slice them in tiny cubes and scatter them over my morning yogurt. I cannot imagine a better or more fragrant start to my day.

If you want to make orangettes, slice the peel in slender strips and once they are dry, dip them in melted chocolate.

Peel of 4 grapefruits or 5 oranges or 6 lemons

For spiced syrup:
4 cups water (1L)
2   1/4 cups (about 450g) sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
10 black peppercorns
1/2 star anise
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean, slit lengthwise

Thickly slice off the peel from the fruit. It can be left in large pieces or cut into thin strips. Cover with water and bring to boil. Simmer for 3 minutes, drain and rinse under running water for 2 minutes. Repeat two more times. This process softens the peel and removes bitterness. I do not mind a hint of bitterness, but especially if you are using grapefruit peel, taste it after the third rinsing and decide if you want to repeat the boiling.

Drain the peel well and absorb excess water with paper towels. In the meantime, mix the ingredients for the syrup, except for the spices. Bring to boil, skim and let the sugar dissolve completely. Add spices and peels. The syrup should cover the peels completely, and it is best to err on the side of having too much, rather than too little. Cover the pot and leave it to simmer on low flame for 1.5 hours. At the end of 1.5 hours, the peels will be transparent and the syrup thick. Turn off the fire and leave the pot at room temperature for 12-24hours.

Next day, remove the peel from the syrup and drain on a rack. Once the peels are dry, even if somewhat sticky, they can be tossed in fine sugar and stored in an air tight container. I usually skip the sugaring and simply layer them between sheets of wax paper. Best stored in the fridge.

The syrup used to poach the peel is fragrant and delicious. It usually gels nicely and can be used as jam on toast or over ice cream. Try diluting it with sparkling water for a delicious lemonade. It also makes a fantastic glaze for lamb or chicken: mix 1 tablespoon of syrup with olive oil and crushed garlic and brush over the meat towards the end of grilling.

I often do candied kumquats and feel very inspired by your spicy syrup!

May I suggest an additional use for the syrup?
Pour some on a really fresh and good ricotta cheese.
You can arrange individual portions in tiny transparent glasses – the end result looks great and tastes delicious (and is rather low calorie, too)!
You may also add dark chocolate chips or a leaf of mint to the presentation. 

French Fig Jam

 

French Fig Jam

Jam has become such an industrial, mass-produced product that it might be hard to imagine making it at home. This is not the case in France–or much of Europe, for that matter. When I visited my friend on her farm in Burgundy, we drove around for hours only to discover that all of the stores were out of preserving supplies. We ended up ordering a case of jars from an online shop, because the figs were ripening fast.

My friend follows a recipe that has been in her family for several generations. We cut figs into quarters and weigh them to determine the amount of sugar. It’s 2 parts fruit to 1 part sugar. Figs are sweet, so we add lemon juice. As their juices melt into sugar, the syrup becomes pink, then purple, then burgundy, like the famous wines of the region. The green perfume of figs transforms as they cook. The fragrance of natural coumarin in their peel, the aromatic that smells of toasted almonds and cherries, becomes more pronounced and richer. The lemon zest gives the fig jam a twist reminiscent of Shalimar.

Homemade jam is so much better than even the artisanal brands that I can’t recommend making it highly enough. I’ve already posted several jam recipes, and as I mentioned previously, make a small amount and see what I mean about perfume and taste. Back in Brussels, for instance, I only have access to expensive, imported figs, so I make only a jar or two of jam. Yet, it’s such a sumptuous treat with cheese, bread or yogurt that it’s worth the effort.

The effort, at any rate, is not extensive, since you can break up the work. You macerate figs with sugar and lemon juice in the evening, bring the mixture to a boil in the morning, and then the next day, bring it to a final boil and it’s done. Autumn has been bottled.

Confiture de Figues à l’Ancienne

You can use any type of fig you want for this recipe. Black figs make for a beautiful burgundy jam, while yellow ones cook down to a warm beige hue. Some recipe call for removing the lemon peel once the jam is cooked, but I like its sharp flavor, so I leave it in.

Of course, this jam can be canned and stored in your pantry, but since I make only a jar or two, I keep it in the fridge.

500g (1lb) fresh figs
250g (1 1/4 c) granulated white sugar
1 lemon

Squeeze juice out of the lemon. Remove the yellow zest in strips from one half.

Wash the figs, dry thoroughly and remove the hard stems. Cut into quarters. Cover with sugar, add lemon zest and juice and leave to macerate overnight. Bring the mixture to a boil the next morning over low heat and once the sugar starts dissolving stir gently with a wooden spoon to encourage the rest of the sugar to dissolve. Remove from the heat and leave till the evening or the next day. (Once the mixture is cool, you can cover the pan).

The next day, bring the mixture to boil once again and simmer it over low heat till the fig quarters begin to look translucent and the syrup thickens. (To test the thickness, pour a drop of syrup on a plate and see if it forms a wrinkle when you touch it with your finger. It occurs at 220F/105C.) It should take around 10 minutes, but the time depends on the water content of your fruit. Remove jam from the heat, remove the lemon peel, if you wish, transfer into clean jars and once it cools down, store in the fridge. (Or you can look for the canning instructions online.) Refrigerated, the jam will keep for 5-6 months.

I prepare the jars by washing them with baking soda, drying and then heating them in the oven at low temperature (225F/130C) for 20-30 min.

Photography by Bois de Jasmin

Reader's Comment

Muriel: Hey Victoria, so I went and bought some figs and followed your recipe and while it was cooking, the wonderful smell made me think of something I’d read in school. It’s taken from Fables de Mon Jardin by Georges Duhamel, and it is all about the smell of the jams : “Ici, monsieur, lui dis-je, nous faisons nos confitures uniquement pour le parfum. Le reste n’a pas d’importance. Quand les confitures sont faites, eh bien! Monsieur, nous les jetons.

J’ai dit cela dans un grand mouvement lyrique et pour éblouir le savant. Ce n’est pas tout à fait vrai. Nous mangeons nos confitures, en souvenir de leur parfum.”