Table Talk: Cranberries add color and zing to recipes

By CLAIRE HOPLEY

Published on November 09, 2007

History recounts that our Thanksgiving partners, the Native Americans, ate cranberries. Among other things they combined them with meat, because the benzoic acid in the berries helped preserve it for the winter. But how did they discover this?

Certainly cranberries looked lovely. While the jolly scarlet of strawberries announces the start of the good times of summer, and the deep, downy pink of raspberries epitomizes the lushness of the harvests of high summer and early fall, nothing quite matches the deep crimson of the cranberry.

Though they are traditionally linked to Thanksgiving, they are equally a part of Christmas, and nothing we can put on a table decorated in Christmas hues rivals them for color.

Even so, cranberries taste so sour than nobody now ever eats a fresh one until it has been cooked with sugar. The first people to eat it must have persevered for a long time before discovering the virtues of cranberries as a preservative, as a remedy for some bladder complaints, and as food.

Nowadays they are appearing in more drinks, sauces, and baked dishes than ever before. One reason for this is the development of juices that combine cranberries with other fruits. This was quite hard to achieve because natural enzymes in cranberries affect other fruits. For example, apple juice mixed with cranberry juice turns an off-putting dark color.

It took the work of food scientists at the University of Massachusetts to create a way of disabling the enzyme so the now popular cranberry-apple juices could be devised. Another development that has opened the door to wider use of cranberries was the creation of sweetened dried cranberries. They look like raisins and can be used as a substitute in many recipes, not just as a make-do when raisins are not on hand, but to give a tart zing and a crimson gleam.

In addition to these technical developments, over the last two or three years the inventiveness of cooks and bakers has been untrammelled, so recent cookbooks can be relied on to have a recipe in which cranberries play new roles.

Home cooks, too, are finding new uses. Irene Nelson of Amherst puts them in her winter-morning oatmeal. Jane Bradley, also of Amherst, says, "I put cranberries into Cumberland sauce. It's the easiest recipe: Heat a jar of red currant jelly, add cranberries, and when they start to pop, add slivers of orange and lemon peel and some port. Take it off the heat and add a tablespoon of Grand Marnier. That's it!"

Both she and Phyllis Lehrer of Amherst put them in stuffing for their holidays birds.

"I've used cranberries as an addition to an apple crisp or apple pie," said Anita Sarro, another Amherst resident. "I just increase the sugar a bit. I've even tossed a few into a vegetable curry - great color!"

In addition, she makes a quick dessert in an 8-inch square baking pan.

"It's a layer of fresh cranberries with sugar, a little nutmeg or allspice," Sarro said. "Then I pour on a recipe for cottage pudding or some other straightforward batter, sprinkle it with sugar and serve with whipped cream or ice cream."

Dolly Jolly of Amherst loves a Cranberry Chutney recipe she found in a Wampanoag cookbook years ago. "Now it's a family favorite," she said, "and we have adapted it for serving it in season at The Pub, the restaurant she and her family own in Amherst.

Naomi Assar, who recently moved to Amherst from Kansas, found several unusual cranberry dishes in her library of cookbooks, including Glazed Cranberry Pork Loin, Cranberry and Cabbage Borscht, and a Cranberry-Wine Punch that's perfect for holiday parties. The recipes for these as well as for a Pumpkin-Cranberry Bread Pudding that one of Anita Sarro's Springfield colleagues, Pamela Bourque, brought into work are featured below. It was a big hit. Sarro's word for it was "wonderful" -just like the berries that give it its pizzazz.

CRANBERRY GLAZED PORK LOIN

Naomi Assar sent this recipe, originally from the cookbook of The Kirby House, which is in in Abilene, Kansas.

3 pounds pork loin

Cranberry glaze (see below), made with whole-berry, jellied cranberry sauce

Place the pork loin in a shallow baking pan. Prepare Cranberry Glaze, but remove ¼ cup of the glaze before it is thickened. Spoon that ¼ cup glaze over the roast. Place the roast in a 375-degree oven and bake for 1½ hours or until a meat thermometer registers at least 160.

Remove roast from the oven and allow to stand 15 minutes before slicing. Heat remaining glaze until thickened (as instructed in recipe) and serve with roast.

CRANBERRY GLAZE

1 16-ounce can jellied cranberry sauce, plain or whole berry

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons orange juice, cold

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon grated orange peel

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sherry

Place the cranberry sauce and Dijon mustard in a medium-size saucepan and blend with a whisk. In a small bowl, combine cold orange juice with cornstarch to make a smooth paste. Add all the remaining ingredients to the orange juice mixture and blend with a whisk. Add this mixture to the cranberry sauce and Dijon mustard; cook on medium heat until thickened.

CRANBERRY AND CABBAGE BORSCHT

This recipe brings new life to borscht. Naomi Assar found it in "Jewish Cookery" by Leah W. Leonard.

1 cup picked-over cranberries

1 cup cold water

2 cups shredded white cabbage

3 cups water

3 tablespoons lemon juice or vinegar

4 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons white sugar

1 teaspoon salt

Cook cranberries in 1 cup water, covered, 3 to 5 minutes or until they pop. Remove from heat and put through strainer or fruit press. Add the other ingredients in the order listed and cook 8 to 10 minutes over moderate heat. Serve hot or cold with a thickening of egg yolk or sour cream.

CRANBERRY-WINE PUNCH

This good party recipe comes from "Jane Brody's "Good Food Book."

1 pound cranberries

1 quart boiling water

2 cups sugar

1 bottle dry red wine, chilled

1 6-ounce can frozen orange-juice concentrate, defrosted

1/3 cup lemon juice

Block of ice

1 28-ounce bottle seltzer or club soda, chilled

In a medium saucepan, cook the cranberries in the boiling water until the berries pop. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve (a strainer lined with cheesecloth will catch the seeds), pressing on the pulp.

Return the juice to the saucepan, add the sugar, and stir the mixture over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Chill the cranberry juice. At serving time, combine the cranberry juice with the wine, orange-juice concentrate, and lemon juice in a punch bowl. Add a block of ice and the selzer, and stir the punch.

PUMPKIN-CRANBERRY BREAD PUDDING

Anita Sarro notes that this dish is a typical bread pudding recipe, with the canned pumpkin and a handful of cranberries making it unusual and delicious. Out of cranberry season you can substitute raisins or pecans.

8 ounces French Bread pieces (5 cups)

2 cups half and half

3 large eggs

2/3 cup white sugar

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree

1 cup dried cranberries

3 tablespoons melted butter

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon nutmeg

½ teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon vanilla

cinnamon & sugar optional

Cover the bread pieces with the half and half and set aside. Combine the remaining ingredients and blend well. Pour over bread and stir to blend. Sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar if desired, then pour the mixture into a greased 11- by 7-inch dish and bake at 350 for 35-60 minutes or until set.

CRANBERRY CHUTNEY

Dolly Jolly's recipe comes from from the "Cape Cod Wampanoag Cookbook" by Earl Mills Sr.

2 Granny Smith apples

2 oranges

½ medium onion chopped

4 cups cranberries

1 cup water

¾ cup dark brown sugar

½ cup granulated sugar

¾ cup cider vinegar

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon grated ginger

½ teaspoon mace

½ teaspoon curry powder

½ cup small black raisins

Peel and dice apples. Grate rind of both oranges, creating zest. Squeeze juice from oranges. Check cranberries and wash.

Simmer the onions, water, and the sugars for 30 minutes. Stir in the vinegar, apples, seasonings and orange zest.

Boil slowly for another 30 minutes.

Stir in the orange juice, cranberries and raisins. Simmer for another 10 minutes or until the cranberries burst. Makes about one quart.