I had some cranberries lying around for a while now so I thought I’d best use them before they go in the bin (as usual). Funny thing is I have been meaning to make homemade cranberry sauce for the longest time, but I’ve never got round to it. Trust me to put things off until the holiday seasons are well and trully over. Doh! Lucky for me tho, I am featuring this sauce alongside my Super Bowl Oven Baked Chicken Balls, so the cranberries finally got used.
Personally, I’d classify this as more of a jam than a sauce … but whatever. Po-tei-toe. Po-tah-toe. Doesn’t really matter so long as it is delicious, right? I kinda stole this idea from chef John of Foodwishes.com (brilliant man who taught me how to cook … true story!) but I personalized this one a little by using a rather unusual ginger and orange marmalade. I don’t use this on toast; I use it to make glazes for my spiced cakes. It already has ginger pieces and fine orange peel in it so I didn’t bother zesting an orange for this recipe. The original recipe uses freshly squeezed OJ + fresh orange zest.
So to begin. get yourself a pot and to this you’d dump your sugar, ground cinnamon, and a single star anise.
Then chuck in the orange and ginger jam, a splash of water and the cranberries. Discard any old and damaged ones. Now whack it on the stove, high heat, until everything comes to a boil. Then reduce the heat and simmer away. Please be aware that the fruit will pop and burst like popcorn as it cooks, so don’t be putting your face right over the pot. Safety first!
Continue cooking for about 15 minutes. Smoosh any whole fruit with the back of a wooden spoon to render it into pulp. Shut off the heat and taste for sugar, ginger and cinnamon. Adjust as necessary. Personally, I like mine with a stronger ginger flavour, which my jam lacked initially, so I spooned in about a half tablespoon of pureed candied ginger. I use this stuff also for baking spiced cakes … it’s good stuff.
Allow jam to cool entirely to room temperature before serving with meal of choice. You can also store the jam in mason jars and give it away as a gift … nifty idea that is. I think the jam goes really well with chicken and turkey so you might want to store up a couple of jars right round the Thanksgiving / Christmas season. Or perhaps you can serve it on buttery toast as part of your Christmas Day brunch menu.
Ingredients :
- 1 cup sugar
- 300 g fresh cranberries
- 1 star anise
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 tbsp ginger and orange marmalade
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/2 tbsp candied ginger puree
Well I hope you give this a try coz it’s certainly a terrific jam. I have never made a jam before and this was easy as pie. Also, do check out my Super Bowl post, which is the reason why I made this jam in the first place.
~ Enjoy! ~
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