Hawthorn

[FeralSheryl]

Ok, I've tried Hawthorn leaves in a green salad - very nice and Hawthorn blossom petals in a light fruit salad and that was really rather good too. I haven't used the berries in anything yet. Has anyone any Hawthorn recipies they want to share?

I'd love to learn more recipies, I mean, cummon, salads seem a little too obvious

 

[Ed]

I haven't used the berries in anything yet

You can make a marmalade / preserve out of the ripe fruits (freshly collected, not dried).

Ed

 

[Tantalus]

anyone seen the new richard maybey food for free?

he suggests hawthorn and beetroot salad, the green leaves and red beets look a stunning mixture

Tant

 

[Ed]

I knew I had a recipie somewhere

Hawthorn Tart Jelly

You will need
- Hawthorn berries (fruit)
- Water
- Sugar

1. Clean the berries and place in a pan. Cover with water and cook (simmer) till soft.
2. Mash the berries into the juice (a potato masher will work great) and strain the mixture through some muslin to get rid of all the bits.
3. For each cup of this strained juice add 1 cup of sugar and bring to the boil.... stirring all the time till the sugar is desolved..... then Boil vigorously until the setting point is reached.
4.Pour into sterilized jars and seal


Ed

 

[Tantalus]

i did a quick trawl of the web for recipes containing haws and was quite surprised

some americans calll rosehips haws

so for the sake of clarity a hawthorn plant is a "crategus"

and a rose plant is a "rosa"

Tant

 

[Fallow Way]

technically they are not berries,, they are drupes, but thats me being awkward


i like to use them in savoury breads and sometimes with meats. take a few and crush them (having `popped` the seed out beforehand) it makes a nice tasting garnish or if you do enough of them, almost like a heavy but light flavoured apple sauce you could say

 

[Ed]

technically they are not berries,, they are drupes,

Well you learn something new everyday


Ed

 

[FeralSheryl]

Drupes, eh? I'd never heard of that before. Nice one, I do like little bits of info like that, cheers Fallow Way.

When I looked it up on Wikipedia just now I discovered "...In an aggregate fruit composed of individual small drupes, each individual is called a drupelet". A blackberry then, is composed of lots of little drupelets Tee hee, that really tickles me for some reason. OK, I'm being silly and I'm in danger of going of topic again too I'll behave.

Thanks for the recipies guys. I'll definitely try them out later this year. If you have any more please do continue to post them.

There's a nice Hawthorn and Beetroot salad is in Roger Phillips 'Wild Food' book too. I wonder if it's the same one in the Richard Maybe book you mentioned Tant?

 

[Tantalus]

oops probably

i bought them both at the same time from amazon cos they offered me a "money off a second purchse" deal and that bumped it up to free postage with the 2

no wonder i get confused

drupelets huh ? and four of them would be quad drupelets maybe?

Tant

edit/ i just checked, its in Richard Mabeys book as well but without a pic

 

[Moonraker]

technically they are not berries,, they are drupes, but thats me being awkward

Actually, technically, I believe it is not a Berry or a Drupe, but a Pome making it a Pomaceous Fruit

The 'haw' of the Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) is not an actual fruit but a 'simple accesory fruit', as it does not form directly from the ovary.

Pome
A Pome is a fleshy fruit with a thin skin, not formed from the ovary but from another part of the plant. These are sometimes called Accessory Fruits. The seeds are contained in chambers in the centre of the fruit.

This is an Apple (Malus domestica). Other fruits of this type are: Firethorn (Pyracantha), Hawthorn (Crataegus), Medlar (Mespilus germanica), Pear (Pyrus communis), Quince (Cydonia oblonga).

Nicely illustrated site which explains the differences here:

Fruits

 

[FeralSheryl]

Ooh, I really am confused, who'd have thought fruit (can I still say that now ) could be so complicated!
What a beautifully illustrated link though. Thanks for that. I have it bookmarked to peruse at leisure later

"Quad drupelets", Tant? Arf - very good. Glad I'm not the only silly one

 

[Graywolf]

I've got one in the garden so I'm gonna try some of what has been suggested,Maybe this bushcraft is gonna be quiet a experience.
Cheers Clayton

 

[Ajali]

Hehe, you thought that frutis were confusing, try vegetables - check out this guys site!
http://www.steve.gb.com/vegetable_empire/you_are_what_you_eat.html
This guy is obviously a lover of the plant world! Check out his other planty stuff too, like the Joy of Pain which includes the original recipe for hot choclate, and his weirdly humourous 'The Dark Side'....strange, strange but cool!

Yours,
Ajali.


Xocoatl
The original drinking chocolate. Heat 500 ml of milk or water with one sliced chilli until it is suitably hot and infused. Melt 200 g of the bitterest chocolate you can find into the mixture with one split vanilla pod and two tablespoons of honey. Strain out the bits, and whisk.

 

[FeralSheryl]

Nice link Ajali. Had a quick peek but Bowdie's folks are coming over this morning so I've bookmarked it for later.

 

[FeralSheryl]

Just noticed the Hawthorn around these parts have whatever you want to call them, but they're red and edible, on them. Time to get cooking!

 

[Toddy]

I bought a kind of little sweetie in a Chinese supermarket last week. Little thin flat discs about the size of a 50p coin and all they were made from was Hawthorn berries and sugar. Very nice, simple and tasty. Kind of like a stewed apples flavour.
My mum used to make a kind of boiled fruit juice and sugar paste that was poured out onto the marble pastry slab and allowed to cool. It was cut into strips and rolled up and used later to decorate cakes, etc. I'm wondering if I tried it with the boiled pulp from the Hawthorn berries if I could get something that would be stable enough to cut into pieces to add to home made trail mix.
Anyone else tried this?

Cheers,
Toddy

 

[FeralSheryl]

That sounds really nice. Let us know how you get on.

 

[match]

Two things I've done with hawthorn berries before:

1) Fruit leather (this works for any fruit actually):

Cook hard fruits (apples, pears etc) until soft. Peel/stone etc the fruti and blend into a puree. Add a few tablespoons of sugar if desired to sweeten and a few teaspoons of lemon juice if the fruit is likely to go brown (apples etc).

Cover a baking sheet in aluminium foil, spread the puree 1/4 inch thick over it, and cook in the oven on its lowest setting for 4-6 hours until the fruit is no longer sticky and has let into a 'leather'.

Cut into strips and roll up to store.

2) Hawthorn Liqueur:

Will post this recipe on my HomeMade Liqueurs post.

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/community/showthread.php?t=7598

 

[whitebeam]

Ok, I've tried Hawthorn leaves in a green salad - very nice and Hawthorn blossom petals in a light fruit salad and that was really rather good too. I haven't used the berries in anything yet. Has anyone any Hawthorn recipies they want to share?

I'd love to learn more recipies, I mean, cummon, salads seem a little too obvious

carpe diem