cooking with jasmine

The heavy fragrance of jasmine conjures elegance, romance, and tranquility. The flowers are perfect for infusing everything from water to alcohol to simple syrups, letting you fill your cooking with that intoxicating scent. As a staple of Asian groceries, jasmine tea is considered effective for stress relief and soothing the stomach.

If you love the smell of jasmine perfuming your home, try inviting it into your kitchen. You’ll be surprised to discover what it has to offer.

Is Jasmine Edible?

Jasmine is a flower famous for its fragrance. It’s little wonder — looking at its delicate white blossoms, you’d never imagine they could create such a rich fragrance. With faint muskiness and a trace of honeyed fruit just beneath a floral veil, its warm, sweet scent is enough to leave your mouth watering. Luckily, jasmine is as much at home in the kitchen as in the garden.

The Jasminum genus has more than 200 species, several of which are edible. The most common edible varieties are:

  • Jasminum officinale: The common jasmine — also called jessamine, true jasmine, or poet’s jasmine — has sweet flowers with a faint bitter undertone.
  • Jasminum sambac: This variety’s common name is Arabian jasmine. It provides the flavor for most Chinese jasmine teas and the aromatic water popular in Thai cuisine.
  • Jasminum grandiflorum: This variety goes by many names, including Spanish jasmine, royal jasmine and Catalan jasmine. Jasmine concrete and the essential oil jasmine absolute, which flavors some additives in food and tobacco, come from these flowers.

What Does Jasmine Taste Like?

While jasmine belongs to the olive family, you likely wouldn’t guess that by the taste. However, the flowers’ scent doesn’t give you the complete picture either.

Despite their heady aroma, jasmine blooms will surprise you with sour and bitter notes. The sugar content lends a sweetness to the fruity, floral flavor, but natural acids create a tartness and a hint of a spicy or herbal taste. All edible jasmine varieties also have a bitter quality, though it’s strongest in jasmine sambac.

However, the flavor differs for jasmine tea. While its name seems to suggest otherwise, this tea rarely contains any jasmine flowers by the time it reaches consumers. Instead, tea makers alternate layers of jasmine buds and green or black tea leaves to infuse the tea with jasmine fragrance. The jasmine flavor grows stronger each time the tea makers replace the blossoms with fresh ones, resulting in a sweet, floral taste based primarily on smell.

Tips for Cooking With Jasmine

The elegance of jasmine’s appearance, scent, and flavor presents an undeniable appeal, offering to elevate any dish it’s part of. As an uncommon ingredient, it can also feel a bit intimidating. Try these tips when you start using jasmine in your cooking.

  • Use the flowers as a garnish: If you love the look and smell of jasmine but aren’t so sure about the taste, consider using it as a garnish instead of an ingredient. Since the flowers are edible, they’re completely food-safe, and you’ll only need a bloom or two to deliver an exquisite aroma.
  • Impart flavor with jasmine tea: You can take things a step further by using jasmine tea to add a controlled amount of flavor to everything from seafood to desserts. Infuse baked goods by steeping the tea directly into milk or other dairy ingredients, or use brewed tea to replace the stock in a soup.
  • Know what to make with jasmine: Jasmine’s sweetness makes it an excellent pairing for citrus and berries, while its hint of bitterness complements mildly sweet pastries like macarons and palmiers. Its floral scent is also a delicious accompaniment to shellfish dishes like tom yum goong.

Preparing Jasmine Flowers

If you’re growing your own jasmine, harvesting the flowers early in the morning before the buds have opened is best. You can pick the flowers individually if you plan to use them fresh. While the blossoms will keep in the refrigerator for a few days, it’s better to use fresh flowers immediately.

For flowers you plan to dry, it’s easiest to cut branches you can hang in a cool, dry place.

Before you harvest and prepare the blooms, it’s crucial to ensure the plant is one of the edible Jasminum species. Be especially cautious of yellow jessamine or false jasmine, which has poisonous leaves, roots, and flowers and may be lethal to ingest.

3 Recipes With Jasmine

If you’re ready to start cooking with jasmine, try one of these simple recipes to fill your kitchen with its scent and flavor.

1. Jasmine Tea

jasmine tea recipe

Jasmine tea is the most common way to find jasmine in your kitchen. Instead of sifting through the dozens of options on store shelves, why not experiment with making your own?

Ingredients:

  • Loose-leaf green or black tea
  • Jasmine flowers, fully bloomed

Instructions:

  1. Fill the bottom of a wide-mouthed glass jar with a layer of tea leaves approximately ½-inch thick.
  2. Cover the tea leaves with a layer of jasmine flowers.
  3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until the jar is full or you have no more flowers.
  4. Close the jar. If the lid’s seal isn’t tight, place a weight on top to lock in the jasmine’s fragrance.
  5. Place the jar in a cool, dark place for one week.
  6. Test your tea by brewing a sample cup. If you want a stronger jasmine flavor, remove the flowers and repeat steps 1 through 5 until you reach your preferred strength.
  7. Store the tea in an airtight container. You can remove the jasmine or leave it mixed in.

Variation:

You can make a quicker version of this tea by starting with a strong brewed green tea. Steep a cup of fresh jasmine flowers into the liquid, cover and let cool for a few days, then strain and refrigerate. Serve the tea cold or reheat to serve it hot.

2. Jasmine Simple Syrup

This simple syrup is as versatile as it is easy. Use it to create custom cocktails, dress up a fruit salad, or sweeten your hot or iced tea.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup jasmine flowers, fresh
  • 2 cups filtered water
  • 2 cups sugar

Instructions:

  1. Rinse jasmine flowers. Be gentle, as the blooms will be delicate.
  2. Add filtered water to a pot and bring to a boil.
  3. Add sugar. Mix until the sugar has completely dissolved, then turn off the heat.
  4. Add jasmine flowers, cover, and steep for 2-3 hours.
  5. Strain and discard the flowers.
  6. Store the syrup in the refrigerator in an airtight bottle.

3. Jasmine Shortbread Cookies With Pressed Flowers

Bring an extra touch of elegance to tea time with these beautifully decorated shortbread cookies enhanced with jasmine green tea. Shortbread’s buttery, lightly sweet flavor is a delicious counterpoint to the tea’s floral earthiness.

Ingredients:

  • 2 sticks butter, softened
  • ½ cup powdered sugar
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1-2 teaspoons loose-leaf jasmine green tea, or 1-2 bags
  • Edible flowers, fresh
  • Powdered sugar

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
  2. In a medium mixing bowl, combine butter and powdered sugar until smooth.
  3. Add flour, salt, and tea. Mix until combined.
  4. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to ¼-inch thick.
  5. Cut out cookies. You can use a cookie cutter in any shape, but be sure you have enough surface area to fit the flowers.
  6. Place fresh flowers on top and cover with parchment paper. Use your hands or a rolling pin to press the flowers into the dough.
  7. Place cookies on a lined baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes or until the edges are brown.
  8. Dust with powdered sugar.

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