This is probably the simplest, most delicious cranberry stuff I’ve ever had. I do a little bit of fussing with the orange, but that’s my personal preference.
You need:
- 1 bag of cranberries (I think 12 or 16 oz?)
- 1 large orange
- sugar
You also need:
- A bowl
- A food processor
Place the cranberries in the food processor. Cut the orange up into chunks, remove any seeds, and put the whole thing in there too. Push go, and let the processor run until you have a finely chunked, red and orange bowl of amazing. You’re going for seed-bead sized chunks, not puree (but it’s not an exact science). Stir in some sugar – I usually end up wanting about 3/4 cup, but I’ve seen recipes for this that call for anywhere from 1/2 to 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar. 3/4 cup is usually just about right for the sweet/tangy balance for me.
Refrigerate until serving.
The Orange Trick: The white pith of an orange can be kind of bitter, so I do the following to my orange:
- Using a paring knife, cut the zest – just the orange part, not any of the white part – off the orange in big strips.
- Using a serrated knife, slice away the rest of the rind, get all the white pithy part off.
- Cut the orange open and remove any seeds
- Toss the zest and the orange pulp into the food processor in chunks
- Proceed with the rest of the instructions
This gets the bitter pithy part out of the relish, and leaves a prettier result (no white stuff). I’m fussy like that!
Oooh, that trick with the zest is pretty snazzy! Nice!
What does one DO with cranberry relish?
Tami » One eats it? It’s basically a replacement for a can of cranberry jelly sauce stuff, so it’s definitely good with turkey (or good on a turkey sandwich), but it’s also just yummy as a cool side salad thing on its own. I love it with stuffing too (just like regular cranberry sauce).
I never actually ate any of the cranberry jelly stuff. (I was that crazy kid who put ketchup on everything and avoided anything that looked like it had a flavor)
So I’d use it sort of as a sauce/jelly to go with turkey and whatnot. Gotcha. It sounds glorious (I love orange). OOOH I’ll bet this would be lovely atop some wild rice pilaf!