Cranberry Orange Relish

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I refuse to come to Thanksgiving empty handed, so when I found out that my step-mother-in-law usually does canned cranberry sauce, I volunteered to take on the task of making some from scratch. I’ve made a similar recipe before, but decided to give the one on Epicurious.com a try. I decided on this one, as it had the fewest steps, and didn’t include chopping the berries.

 

Ingredients:

• 2 oranges
  
• 1 cup sugar
  
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
  
• 2 teaspoons fresh ginger, cut in fine julienne
  
• 1 bag (12 ounces) fresh or frozen cranberries
  
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
  

 

Directions:

1. Peel 1 orange and cut the zest (orange part only) into a very fine julienne, as thin as possible; set aside. Squeeze both oranges for juice; set aside.
   
2. Combine sugar and lemon juice in a small sauté pan. Heat up slowly and continue cooking until the sugar begins to caramelize. If necessary, wash down the sides of the pan by brushing with a little water to keep the sugar from burning.
   
3. When the sugar is caramel colored, add the julienned ginger and orange zest. Cook for about 1 minute, then add the cranberries, orange juice and pepper. Continue to cook on medium-high heat, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes or until the cranberries are slightly broken but not mushy (frozen cranberries will take about 7 minutes). Remove from the heat and let cool.