Fresh Cranberry Sauce

I absolutely love cranberry sauce. If I could, I would have it all year round. It’s such a delicious chutney and so versatile. I use it for so many things, not just as a side dish. I make drinks with it, I infuse my tea with it, I make tarts with it. And it’s a quintessential dish for our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Make it once, enjoy it in many ways.

The Ingredients

Six ingredients are all you need to make this super delicious chutney.

The Ingredients List:

• 2 cups fresh cranberries
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large fresh orange
• 1 cinnamon stick (or 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon)
• 2 star anise
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup of water

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The Cooking Process:

Making cranberry chutney is such a simple task. It’s a matter of putting everything in a pan and letting it boil. Well, almost. Properly wash the cranberries and discard any that might be too soft. You want to use the plump ones for your sauce. If the berries are soft, it means they are starting to go bad and you don’t want to use them.

Add the washed berries to a medium sized pan. Add your water, sugar, cinnamon stick, star anise, and salt to the pan as well. Using a nutmeg grater or any small grater, grate the rind of the entire orange into the pan. Cut the orange and squeeze all of the juice into the pan. Now we are ready to cook it. I tend to throw the skin of the orange into the pan too. It has a lot of flavour and I prefer not to discard it. The oils from the skin old a lof of flavour.

The Thickening Process:

We need to cook the cranberries. The cranberries have natural pectin that helps the sauce to thicken as the berries cook. The idea is to cook them till they just start to pop. This takes about 10 or so minutes. Allow them to boil just once and then turn the heat off. I remove the orange skin at this time and discard it. It should have done its job by now.

Allow the sauce to cool down completely before enjoying it as a condiment with your turkey dinner. As the sauce cools, it thickens. If you prefer to, you can smash the cranberries with a fork or a hand blender and even strain them using a sieve. I prefer to enjoy the sauce as is. I like the taste of the tart berries popping in my mouth.

Uses for Cranberry Sauce:

I love this versatile sauce:

• Enjoy it with your Christmas or Thanksgiving turkey dinner.
• Make tarts or pies out of it. Check out my Custard Tart here.
• I love my Leftover Sauce Buns. Check out my recipe here.
• Try using it as a spread on Biscuits or Toast.
• Infuse your Herbal Teas with it.
• Add a couple of spoonfuls to your Granola.
• Add a dollop to your Oatmeal and see how delicious it turns out to be.

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Check out other dressings and dips recipes here.

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