Emila Yusof

Roselle & 1000th post!

July 3, 2009 gardening

I am keeping this post moderated for a special surprise. But to know what it is, keep on reading.

My mom planted this Roselle end of last year. It has been producing fruits after 6 weeks and been continuing doing so until now. Yesterday we harvested the fruits for the second time and made two bottles of juice!

Have you ever heard about Roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa) fruits before? Roselle is a common home garden crop and is native from India to Malaysia. Roselle has high contents of vitamin C and anthocyanins. You can eat the raw young leaves as salad and made juice out of its calyces; you can make food coloring as well if you want. The seeds are great to feed the chicken but for me I planted the seeds all around my house! Wait for a month or so and I have a house full of Roselle plants! Will try to make fruit jam next time!

Roselle has often been mistaken with Ribena as they taste similar. Ribena came from blackcurrant juice; of which the name Ribena came from the scientific name Ribes Negrum.

Ok here is how to make the juice:

Separate the calyces from the seeds. Wash and put the calyces in a pot of water. I’m not to sure what to do with the young seeds but I had to throw it away. I’m still researching on how to harvest this fruit and I have the feeling that I should wait till the seeds are good to be planted again.

Ok, I’m not too sure about the measurement as I forgot to count the fruits! Lol! But give and take I say, we picked around 70-80 fruits so I’m giving you a measurement for this amount, ok. Add 2 liters of water in a pot and boil for 10 minutes or until the water turns red. Add 500gm of sugar and stir until sugar is dissolved (this way we don’t need to mix with sugar again. Just pour and add ice!) Filter out the dross and set aside until the juice is cold. If you have old juice bottles, don’t throw it away, you can recycle and keep your own Roselle  juice in the bottles instead.

I will try to be more specific and give proper exact measurement next time but until then, let’s quench our thirst!

With this post, I marked my 100oth POST!! For that, I am giving away a pack of Roselle  for the commenter of the 10th comment!

I’ll keep the comment box moderated until I get the lucky one!

UPDATE: I have the winner already: RARA!!! Rara please e-mail me your home address to emila@emilayusof.com.

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