Rose-Water
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the roses
Gather fresh roses in the morning after sunrise, in dry weather.
Remove the leaves from the roses.
Weigh the roses.
Add ½ pint of water for every pound of roses.
Place the roses in a pan with a handful of coarse sea salt.
Let the mixture steep for 24 hours.
Distill
Fill the alembic two-thirds full.
Place a bed of straw at the bottom of the alembic to prevent sticking.
Distill the mixture; the first four pints will be the best.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Fresh pale single roses
- Supply the floral aroma compounds that the distillate carries.
- Water
- Carries the rose aroma into the steam during distillation.
The step that matters
Fill the alembic two-thirds full. Leaving headspace stops the boiling mixture from foaming or surging over into the condenser, which would spoil the distillate and can cause loss of product.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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