🇸🇪 Sweden
NyponsoppaSwedish rosehip soup
A sweet Swedish soup of rosehips boiled until soft, strained, sweetened and lightly thickened with potato starch, served warm or cold with almond macaroons and whipped cream or crème fraîche.
Origin and history
Rosehip soup is described as a popular Swedish winter dish, once often served as a dessert and sometimes as a starter. Rosehips were free to pick from hedgerows and valued for their vitamin C, and it is said that children were made to drink it for Sunday lunch. It is less common now, a Swedish writer notes, because of greater affluence, freezers and imported fruit.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 4 servings
- Total time
- 1 h
- Hands-on
- 20 min
Ingredients
- 600 ml2 1/2 cups dried rosehips, halved and seeds and hairs removed; use 600 g / 1.3 lb fresh rosehips, prepared the same way, for the fresh version
- 1 litre4 1/4 cups water, use 2 litres if starting from fresh rosehips
- 100 mlscant 1/2 cup sugar, about 80 g; add to taste
- 1 tbsp potato starch (potatismjöl), cornflour works too; mixed with a little cold water
- almond macaroons (mandelbiskvier), to serve
- whipped cream, crème fraîche or vanilla ice cream, to serve
- flaked almonds, optional garnish
Method
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1. If using fresh rosehips, trim the stems and blossom ends, halve them and scrape out the seeds and hairs; keep the skins.
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2. Put the rosehips in a pot with the water and simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring and crushing them against the side as they soften.
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3. Pour the soup through a fine sieve (or muslin) into a clean pot, pressing out the pulp.
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4. Stir in the sugar until dissolved.
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5. Mix the potato starch with a little cold water, stir it in and bring to a brief boil, stirring, until the soup is lightly thickened and glossy.
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6. Taste and add more sugar if wanted.
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7. Serve warm or cold, in bowls or cups, topped with whipped cream or crème fraîche and almond macaroons on the side.
Notes
- Eaten hot or cold, as a dessert, a snack or sometimes a starter. The texture should be a thin, lightly thickened liquid, not a purée: the hips are crushed while cooking and then strained out.
- With fresh rosehips, simmer the skins about 30 minutes, then boil hard 15 minutes to reduce, blend, strain through muslin, and thicken with 1 tbsp cornflour for 10 to 15 minutes.
- Roger Phillips's recipe, from a Swedish family, boils the hips about 2 hours until soft, strains, adds sugar and potato flour and decorates with almonds.
- Ready-made rosehip soup powder is sold in Sweden; homemade tastes different.
- Keeps 3 to 4 days chilled; it thickens when cold.
Adapted from The Local Sweden, This classic Swedish soup is the perfect winter warmer, Isabell Karusell (Swedish blog), Nyponsoppa, and Roger Phillips, Wild Food (1986), Nyponsoppa.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.