TMc's Cranberry Cherry Sauce
While this sauce is delicious with poultry of all kinds, it really comes into its own as an accompaniment for DMc's Smoked Boneless Pork Loin or a nice ham. Although it's mighty fine on a nice roll with some turkey, mayo, and lettuce. I have also been known to pull out a cuplet of this in mid-summer, warm it up in the nuker, then pour it over BlueBell Home Made Vanilla ice cream. Makes a nice mix on an almond butter sammich too. It's a multi-tasker!
Servings 6 Cups
Ingredients
- 24 Ounces Fresh Cranberries
- 1-1/2 C Dried Cherries
- 1 C White Granulated Sugar
- 1 C Pure Maple Syrup
- 1 C Orange Juice
- 1 C Unsweetened Cranberry Juice
- 2 Whole Cinnamon Sticks
- 1/2 tsp Ground Allspice
- 1/4 tsp Ground Cardamom
- 2 TBSP Ginger Liqueur
Instructions
- Rinse your cranberries thoroughly, and pick out and toss any that look poorly
- Put sugar, syrup, juices, and spices into a 4-quart or larger pot (deeper if you hate getting popped by hot liquid)
- Over medium heat, cook and stir until sugar is dissolved
- Add dried cherries, cook for 5 minutes
- Add rinsed cranberries, cook for 10-12 minutes, or until the cranberries have mostly "popped" and are starting to soften
- Turn heat down to low, add liqueur, stir
- Cook on low for 10-15 minutes more, stirring occasionally
- Decant into the container you will be cooling this in overnight or at least until it gels enough to work with easily - then pull out your cinnamon sticks
- Cool and refrigerate - this is best if you can make it a day before for the flavors to gel overnight
Notes
- First and foremost: if you like sweeter cranberry sauce, definitely increase the sweetener(s). I specifically developed this recipe for my personal year-round consumption because I find all standard canned sauces to be revoltingly sweet.
- This base recipe calls for 24 ounces of fresh cranberries (usually 2 of the smaller bags available during the season at most grocery stores); however, you could easily scale up and down as desired.
- You can leave the cherries out if you prefer, and add another 12-ounce bag of fresh cranberries to the pot; basically, ensure you are making up the volume difference or things will come out overly runny.
- This freezes very well - particularly in smaller servings - I use 4-oz disposable cups with lids, then stack those into a gallon freezer bag for storage.
- If you don't have a ginger-based liqueur (I use King's Ginger), I would probably use either an orange or raspberry liqueur, or maybe just some plain brandy.