What could mean Thanksgiving more than homemade cranberry sauce? Okay, it could be the turkey, or the pumpkin pie, or the family drama and people screaming at each other. But for the sake of my sanity, let's say that it's the cranberry sauce.
The world can be divided into two types of people: those who like whole berries in their sauce, and those who prefer the homogenized stuff that can be sliced into beet-like pucks. I suppose there's a third camp of people who like neither, but those people probably aren't reading this, and therefore I will lump them in with the Amish as people who will never read this blog post. This does not mean, of course, that the Amish don't like whole berry sauce, which I assume they do.
Making your own cranberry sauce is a family tradition at my house; specifically, it's my job every year. I claimed this years ago when I discovered how easy it was and how excellent the results can be. And what's more, it's essentially fool-proof, which I will explain at the end. Top that off with the fact that it's only got seven ingredients, and I think we have a winner that should be on every table each Thanksgiving. You can even show up at someone's house with this and tell them how difficult it was to make, earning extra mileage for your easy task.
 |
| I'll put the bottom line up-front: this sauce is awesome, and incredibly easy. |
This recipe comes from a faded old magazine insert of my mom's from somewhere between the silent film era and the disco era, called "Epicure's Wild Gamesmanship". It's faded and taped together, and you're always worried about it not surviving through the next holiday but it seems to anyway. I'll include a picture just for kicks.
 |
| Look at how old this thing is! I'm not even sure turkeys had been domesticated when they printed this |
Homemade Cranberry Sauce
from "Epicure's Wild Gamesmanship"
- 1 quart fresh cranberries, washed and cleaned (we just use 1 standard bag)
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup water
- 1/4 tsp powdered cloves
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon (we use Vietnamese for extra kick)
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice (if you use the stuff from a bottle I will come find you - don't do it!)
Put all ingredients into a medium pot, bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the berries pop. Don't keep it at a rolling boil, or else you'll end up with a mess to deal with on the stovetop, and this stuff can be like napalm since it's so sticky. Instead, go for a gentle simmer, stirring to get a feel for how the berries have popped. Be gentle if you want to have some body to the sauce when you're done; this year I didn't push on the berries to force them to pop. Only the ones that were ready to go after 15 minutes ended up bursting fully, so we will have more berry consistency when we eat tomorrow.
 |
| This is all you need (plus water) |
 |
| Kind of looks like Christmas, doesn't it? |
 |
| This is what the berries look like when they start splitting open. Cook for a few more minutes to let the pectin from the berries get out and swim around in the cooking liquid. |
When the berries have popped, that means they have released their pectin into the sauce. Pectin is one of the wonders of the culinary world, used in pie making as a thickener much like flour is used to thicken a gravy. You'll find that if you chilled this down right now, it would be pretty close to the correct consistency. But there's another step.
 |
| Remove the berries with a slotted spoon, so you can reduce the liquid without overcooking the berries |
Remove the berries with a skimmer (gently), and continue cooking the liquid over low heat until it is the consistency of thick syrup. You might not know when this occurs because it's hot and things are more viscous then, so here's how you can tell - take a wooden spoon, coat the back, and run a finger down the spoon. Now hold it vertically and see if the liquid drips down where you had your finger. If it stays put, you're done. Pour the liquid over the berries and chill for at least 4 hours. Serve with your favorite fowl.
 |
| Sauce not reduced enough - see the drip over the line? Give it another minute or two. |
 |
| That's better - the sauce stays put after you swipe across it and burn your finger. |
Now, I mentioned that this is a pretty forgiving recipe, right? Well, let me list all of the ways you can screw this up and have it still come out great:
1. You only have frozen cranberries. No matter, throw them in frozen! In fact, this is even better - you can buy a bunch of bags around Thanksgiving, then save them for the rest of the year to make this on demand.
2. You overcooked the berries before removing them. Don't worry, just throw the whole thing in a bowl and call it a day, skipping the strain and reduce steps.
3. You squished all the berries while it was boiling, and they're not as "whole" anymore. So what?
No comments:
Post a Comment