This year's cooking experiment

[ksmith]

I received a postcard the other day from the Subaru dealer. I thought it was another plea for me to trade in Kuro, but it turned out to be a Happy Holidays card complete with a recipe for a Cranberry Pear relish. Now, I *love* pears, and store-bought cranberry relishes always disappoint me. So, I decided to take the plunge and give this a try.

4c (about 1 lb) cranberries (picked over, whatever that means),
2 cups sugar,
1 cup orange juice,
1 tbsp orange zest, and
2 Anjou or Bosc pears (slightly under ripe, peeled, and diced).

(If I had some Grand Marnier or Cointreau in the house, I'd add a splash, but that's just me)

Combine it all in a heavy saucepan, place over medium heat , and boil until
the berries pop open (10-15 minutes). Skim the foam (with a metal spoon)
and let it cool. It's supposed to keep for 2 months in the fridge.

Comments

[juliabk.livejournal.com]

This looks great! I've got a pot of cranberry/orange relish cooling on the stove right now. I put the whole orange (sans peel, smart alec ;-) in. As for the 'picked over', they just want you to take out the odd stems and icky ones. I find fewer to remove in the Ocean Spray (and the berries are much bigger). I had some Dole, too, this year. More stems, more ick and tiny berries.

Oh, consider tossing in some slivered almonds. I think that would go great with the pears. I put pecans in mine.

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

The Ocean Spray berries are normal-sized. There are some Masschusetts farms that grow cranberries more than double the standard size, those berries are in some of the local supermarkets.

I've made orange-cranberry relish running them through a food processor sort of device, and sometimes including ginger. I don't cook it.

I don't recally having ever seen stems and such in Ocean Spray or local supermarket brand cranberries (but then again, I'm in Masschusetts, and though the midwest these days is outproducing Massachusetts in cranberry production, there is still a lot of cranberry production in Massachusetts, and Ocean Spray's headquarters is still here.)

[juliabk.livejournal.com]

It was the Dole that were loaded with stems and things and were tiny berries. I've never seen any larger than the Ocean Spray. Are they sweeter or more tart?

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

The big berries I recall taste about the same as the standard size. The local supermarkerts and Trader Joe's local area stores have them.

[juliabk.livejournal.com]

Course, down here in Houston we're happy to have the Ocean Spray. :-)

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

My berries were Ocean Spray, and I didn't find any stems or ick.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Oooo! I'm making this for Christmas!

It would make a great gift if stored in pretty jars, too.

[juliabk.livejournal.com]

Cranberry sauce cans very easily, btw. While a water bath canner is useful, for small batches a decent dutch oven would do the job.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Canning would have been a good thing here, because for reasons I won't go into, I wound up making 2x the amount. I have enough cranberry-pear relish to see me the end of January.

It's lovely stuff, ruby red and thick. I'm betting it tastes better as time goes on.

[juliabk.livejournal.com]

You might see if you can freeze some. Might be useful to know. As for too much, I always have to make extra so my family can take some home.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Do things thickened with pectin freeze without lumping? I read somewhere that it's the pectin in the cranberries that acts as the thickener.

[juliabk.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's the natural pectin working with the sugar that thickens the sauce. I don't know that it would be a problem, but it might be worth seeing if it works. I wonder how easily you could reheat cranberry sauce if it did lump up too badly. Um....

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

Canning would have been a good thing here, because for reasons I won't go into, I wound up making 2x the amount

And she's cranburied in an overage...

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<i>Canning would have been a good thing here, because for reasons I won't go into, I wound up making 2x the amount </i>

And she's cranburied in an overage...

<rvvvf...>

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

At least the stuff cooked down some...

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Let me know what you think of it.