At the time, I was in the cranberry-jelly-from-a-can camp, while others wanted homemade cranberry relish. I must have been mesmerized by the jiggling, translucent jelly that still showed the lines from the can. Kids. Later in life, I came to appreciate cranberry relish, and during a visit to my Aunt Frances' house a few years back, I had the chance to go through her recipe box and make copies of whatever interested me. Things like hermits, haymaker switchel, and the family cranberry relish recipe. I've made a few minor enhancements of my own because, well, that's either one of my most charming traits or annoying ones. I bet you can figure out what they are, the enhancements and the traits.
Every two or three years, I take a trip Downeast to Lynch Hill Farms in Harrington. It's quite an adventure, but no one ever wants to go with me. Must be those annoying traits. Anyway, because it's such a long drive, it seems silly to leave with less than a 10 pound bag. Of course, a 10 pound bag makes 9 or 10 quarts of the ruby red deliciousness pictured below. I freeze nearly all the relish, saving some for use in the traditional manner, as a partner to what Ben Franklin thought should be America's national bird, but using much of it to make cranberry-rhubarb jams, which I think is pretty much the best jam I've eaten. So because I buy a 10 pound bag, the recipe below takes a 10 pound bag. I'll leave it to you to cut the recipe to suit your needs.
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| Cranberry Relish |
Cranberry Relish
10 c water
16 c sugar
1/2 c triple sec
3 tbls. ginger powder
10 lbs. clean cranberries
10 navel oranges, sectioned, with thick ends removed, but not the peel.
10 navel oranges, sectioned, with thick ends removed, but not the peel.
Bring the water, sugar, triple sec and ginger to a boil. Add the cranberries, stirring to submerge them as best as you can till they come back to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer. Continue stirring until most of the berries have popped (cracked). You'll hear this clearly. This might take very little time, or it might take 5 or 10 minutes. I'd guess the quickness with which they pop depends on how fresh they are, and mine, coming straight from the farm, are mostly popped by the time they get to an even boil.
Next, stir in the orange pieces. They need to cook in the sauce for 5 minutes at 120 degrees Fahrenheit to kill certain enzymes. If the oranges aren't very cold, the temperature of the mixture may not drop down to 120 degrees, so your job might be just to make sure it all heats evenly and stays at or above 120 for the requisite time. Remove the pot from the heat and cool the relish a bit before processing to avoid any painful burns or heat-related spatters.
In batches, run the mixture through a meat grinder at a coarse setting if you have one, the meat grinder's coarse setting, not yours. Then process the relish in jars like you would jam or put it in freezer bags. That's what I do. Of course, if you make a small batch, you can simply cover it and keep it in the refrigerator. My guess is it'll keep for a week or two depending.
If you don't have a meat grinder, you can use a food processor, but if you do that, separate the orange sections first and process them separately before adding and processing the rest of the relish. This helps to ensure a more consistent texture. If you put it all in together, by the time the oranges are well processed, the rest of it might be over-pureed, and some chunks of cranberry are a must!
Of course, this goes with turkey and pork, but it can be used by itself on toast, in oatmeal, or with certain cheeses. Uncertain cheeses should be avoided, as they are of dubious moral character.
