Holiday Scratch Cooking...

Making Cranberry Sauce from Scratch

As you can tell from the title, I am still way behind on my posting. I hope you all stay patient with me as I continue to catch up. Cheers!

I absolutely love Thanksgiving. It is probably my favorite holiday of the year because the only thing that matters on that day is food, friends, and family. I usually go to my mom’s house the day before for one turkey dinner, and then my whole family comes to my aunt and uncle’s house on Thursday for our Thanksgiving meal. This year I was going to make a dessert with my girlfriend, but my aunt said that we had too many desserts. I had always wanted to make my own cranberry sauce because I think the stuff that comes out of the can is complete crap, and that is all that we have ever had at my house. I found a recipe from Bobby Flay that I liked, and I doctored it up a bit to make it my own, and away we went.

I had gotten the idea of a bourbon cranberry sauce from watching Iron Chefs Michael Symon and Bobby Flay beat Iron Chefs Masaharu Morimoto and Cat Cora in the replay of last year’s Thanksgiving battle on the Food Network. I love bourbon, so I decided to try it, and it worked out amazingly! Everyone that tried it loved it, and I will definitely be making it in a much bigger batch next year, so we can get rid of the canned garbage and just use the homemade stuff!

This recipe is super simple. I have pasted it at the bottom of this post with my special additions included. It does not require much mess or fuss, so feel free to try it and let me know what you think. Cheers!

Total Time: 25 min

Prep: 10 min

Cook:15 min

Makes about 12 servings

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 tablespoon grated ginger
• 1 large shallot, finely diced
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• ¼ cup bourbon (or to taste)
• Juice of two oranges
• Zest of 1 orange
• ¼ tablespoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• Pinch kosher salt
• 1 pound fresh or frozen cranberries

Directions

Heat the canola oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the ginger and shallots and cook, stirring, until soft and fragrant, about 3 minutes. Stir in the brown sugar, honey, orange juice, orange zest, bourbon, cinnamon, 1/4 cup granulated sugar, and salt. Cook, stirring, until sugar dissolves and mixture is nice and bubbly.

Add half the cranberries and cook, stirring occasionally, until the cranberries pop and the mixture thickens, about 5 minutes. Add the remaining cranberries and cook another 5 minutes or so. Depending if you want your cranberry sauce broken down more, you can crush the cranberries with your spoon, or you can leave them whole. They are soft regardless so it really doesn’t make much difference.