Massachusetts · Sauce
Cape Cod Cranberry Relish
- Easy
- 25 min
- roughly 1 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with warm spice humming through the middle.
Ingredients
- 350g fresh cranberries
- 200g sugar
- 1 orange, zest and juice
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- Pinch of salt
- 2 tbsp port or water
Equipment
Grater / zester
The skills inside
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: alcohol
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Combine the cranberries, sugar, orange juice and zest, cinnamon, salt, and port in a saucepan.
- Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.
- Cook 10-12 min until most of the berries have popped and the syrup runs thick off a spoon. 12 min
- Taste and adjust: it should be sharp, not candied.
- Cool completely; it thickens as it sets. Keeps two weeks refrigerated.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Reducing a sauce 95 recipes
- A steady simmer with the surface moving, never a rolling boil that throws it up the sides and scorches what is left on the base.
- Judged by behaviour rather than the clock: it coats the back of a spoon and holds a clean line when a finger is drawn through it.
- The drop in volume is visible against the side of the pan: there is a line to see, not a guess about whether anything has happened.
- Seasoned at the end and not the beginning, because salt concentrates at exactly the rate everything else does.
- Nothing is catching underneath: a spoon drawn across the base comes up clean, with no browned film building where the heat is fiercest.
Where it goes wrong It was seasoned at the start and then reduced by half. The salt concentrated along with everything else, so the sauce reaches perfect body and is too salty to serve. And the only remedy is to dilute it and reduce it all over again.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Vermentino or Sauvignon Blanc
- Also Right
- Albariño
- From the Taps
- Witbier
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water with citrus
Lean fish, bright acid, done: coastal whites built beside the same boats; the fresher the fish, the leaner the pour.
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