Even fully ripe cranberries that ripen between September and November in North America (ripe color range is from bright to dark red–actual colors depend upon the variety) in and of themselves are not naturally sweet. In reality, they are quite bitter, and unripe pale ones are especially bitter and shouldn’t be eaten. To prepare a tasty relish or sauce with them, you need to add something more.
Cranberry Relish or Jellied Sauce
Luckily, cranberries contain pectin (which when cooked enables a mixture with it to thicken), so they can be used when making cooked commercially prepared jellied sauces or you can make jellied sauces at home using your cooktop and then just use a serving dish. Unless you go with a recipe that has added pectin or gelatin, it is unlikely you would be able to use a fancy mold for the jellied sauce shape.
Most recipes for a cooked relish will start off with 1-12 oz bag (~ 3 cups) of cranberries and build from there. They’ll have you make a simple syrup that will thicken (thus include 1 cup of liquid and the equivalent of 1 cup of sugar sweetening power (think about how marmalade and jelly is made). Although water is typically mentioned as the liquid, as long as the liquid will not interfere with creating the syrup and having it gel a bit upon cooling, then many liquids can be considered for inclusion, even liqueurs and wines as part or all of the required liquid.
If you like to have cranberry relish simmering in a covered pot on the cooktop (remember if whole berries are used they will pop!), you can easily use fresh or frozen cranberries, choose from a variety of liquids to cook them in, along with also adding in some type of sweetener that reacts well to heat (some non-nutritive sweeteners are not that heat stabile and are not good candidates for cooking applications) and likely a hint of perhaps another fruit.
Good choices for adding compatible ingredients can include a hint of orange either through zesting one (1 tsp at least of orange zest) or perhaps even adding some bits of the inner flesh of a nice sweet orange, or even segments of a mandarin orange including say the clementine variety, blood orange, or even a tangelo to provide some extra perkiness in the relish and a counterpoint to the cranberry itself.
When you add other elements, the relish or sauce will change in terms of its flavor notes. Some people enjoy trying recipes that include a tsp. of lemon zest or lemon juice, and or some fresh ginger root in a fine julienne, or even mixing in a tiny bit of very fine fresh ground white pepper as well.
When you add more of another naturally sweet fruit to the relish or sauce recipe, you then need less proportionally of another sweetener to be added for flavor purposes, although for texture, cooking the sugar and a liquid to create a simple syrup provides the smooth mouth feel most people love in a small side dish on their holiday plate.
Relishes have texture, while most cranberry sauces will be smooth, although whole berry sauce with some texture is also sold in cans. Cranberry sauce made at home can vary in texture and might last up to a week under refrigeration, and up to almost double that length of time if it has some alcohol content.
A cold relish can also be prepared if you prefer–the amount of liquid will be a lot less (about 1/4th the amount for cooked recipe) and an electric food processor will make preparing the recipe ahead of time a snap to do. A basic relish might be for each 12 oz of cranberries, add chopped segments of one peeled and sectioned navel orange along with its zest (but no white pith!), possibly the chopped fruit of up to 2 apples, and 1/2 c of sugar, and if desired, 2-4 Tbsp of compatible liqueur or wine–mix it up in a food processor and then put the mixture into a covered container to sit in the refrigerator and allow the flavors to mingle as the sugar macerates the fruit.
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