Among the edible wild plants of spring, Alaska's prickly wild rose, Rosa acicularis,
draws our attention with its sweet fragrance and bright pink blossoms.
The wild rose can be found throughout most of Alaska, blooming in bogs, woods,
and by roadsides. Rosa acicularis bears a five-petaled bright pink flower
with visible yellow stamens. Rosa nutkana is another variety of wild rose
growing in eastern and Southcentral Alaska. The wild prickly rose, as well as
all other roses, have many edible parts, including the petals, the roots, the leaves,
and all bearing a highly nutritious fruit known as a rose hip.
It would certainly be impossible to know who first tasted a rose, but historical
records tell us that they have been prized by humans for thousands of years.
The rose scent is one of the most loved of all flower fragrances, and rose water
is used in foods, perfumes, skin care products, and herbal medicines.
Rose petals can be dried and used for tea, steeped to extract juice for jelly and
beverages, candied to use for a special garnish for baked goods, or simply used
fresh and in salads for their delicate flavor and color.
I'm Leslie Shallcross with the University of Alaska Fairbanks
Cooperative Extension Service. This module provides guidance on culinary
uses of roses. Today we'll be talking about harvesting rose blossoms and
showing you a few ways to use these delicately perfumed blossoms to add
interest and fun to your table.
Flower blossoms should be harvested in the morning after the dew has dried.
The petals are delicate, so remove them carefully from the stem.
Pick blossoms that are young and bright pink for best flavor.
Be sure to choose a picking spot that is away from automotive exhaust or other contaminants.
You may also want to wear gloves, long pants, and closed footwear as protection from the thorns.
I've gathered about 8 cups of flower petals. This will be enough to make some
jelly, some crystallized petals, and to use some fresh. We'll head inside now
and show you how.
Plan to use the flower petals fairly soon after picking. The flower should be
washed gently in a bowl or colander to remove dust, pollen, and insects.
Pat the petals dry with clean paper towels or shake gently to remove as much water as
possible and allow them to dry naturally. Spread them out on a tray to dry if
you're not going to use them immediately. These have already been washed.
I can see there's still some moisture on these, so I'm going to give
them a little bit a little bit more towel drying.
The petals can also be preserved by drying on a dehydrator at low temperature.
After washing and blotting with a towel, place on dehydrator trays.
They'll take between 1 and 3 hours to dry fully. The petals can then be
stored in an airtight container and used to make a light, relaxing tisane, a tea made from flower petals.
You'll use about 2 teaspoons of petals per cup of boiling water to make the tisane.
If you're using a dehydrator, be sure that you use one of these nice screens that has smaller holes in it.
If you don't, the petals will fall through the regular holes on your dehydrator.
Here's how the petals will look after they've been dried.
The flavor and aroma of petals is very mild.
We'll let that steep for a minute.
I'm going to put these in the dehydrator and we'll be right back.
Rose petal juice is the base for jelly or beverages. To make the juice, firmly
pack petals in a measuring cup. You'll need about 3 cups of petals
to make 1 and 1/2 cups packed.
Place the petals in a heavy saucepan
and mash the petals with a potato masher or a glass.
Mashing them will release the pigment and the flavor oils in the petals.
Cover the petals with 2 and a 1/4 cups of water
and bring to a boil.
I'll be right back after these have boiled.
I've boiled the petals for about 5 minutes. As you can see, the petals have lost a lot of their color,
but it's been taken up by the liquid. I'm going to pour this through a colander.
And I'll just let that strain. Look at that beautiful pink color.
You can smell a sweet, spicy rose aroma.
The juice can be used to make a uniquely flavored
jelly or it can be frozen for long-term storage. A recipe for rose petal jelly
can be found in the University of Alaska Cooperative Extension's book
Collecting and Using Alaska's Wild Berries and Other Wild Products.
You'll need about 1 and 3/4 cup of juice to make a batch of jelly. Here's a batch that I just made yesterday.
I'll be back in a few moments when I finish straining the juice
with some more ideas about how to use rose petals.
Now that I have the rose juice strained and cooled, let's look at some more ideas
for how to use the juice. Rose juice can be mixed with lemonade to create a new
spring beverage. In this case I'll be mixing rose juice with rhubarb juice,
another spring plant. Both have a beautiful pink hue and make this a truly
refreshing drink using one part rose juice, one part rhubarb juice,
and one part lemonade.
We can garnish our lemonade with some petals
or for a fancy party we could put petals into ice cubes and float the ice cubes in our lemonade.
Rose blossoms are especially nice as a crystallized flower for garnishing
cookies, cakes, or candies. Using clean, dry, whole petals, brush each petal with
egg whites and sprinkle with sugar on both sides. I use the extra fine sugar --
or you may know it as baker's sugar -- for best results.
Be sure to use a pasteurized egg product like these dried salmonella-free eggs.
Spread them on parchment or plastic on a tray to dry.
This may take a few days. Here's what they look like once they're dried.
After they're dried, place them into a plastic airtight container.
They'll keep for several months. You may want to make some now for a later summer wedding.
Remarkably, these little candied petals not only look exotic but have a remarkably wonderful taste.
Blossoms from many edible flowers can be crystallized in the same manner.
Finally, roses can be used fresh either primarily as a color garnish, or if you
add enough blossoms, for the light flavor they add. A few more ideas include adding
them to softened butter or cream cheese, steeping them in honey, or chopping them
and mixing them to make a flavored sugar. They can be added to a chicken salad, to
a gelatin dessert, to a cake, or for sorbets and soups.
It's hard not to enjoy the spring in Alaska. We hope that these ideas for using rose flowers
add to your enjoyment in sampling Alaska's wild bounty.