218. Spicy Cranberry Relish (p. 903)

Every year at Thanksgiving, I'm responsible for two things: pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce. If you've read my last post, you know that my attempt at mixing it up with the pumpkin pie was a bit of a bust. I wasn't taking any chances with the cranberry sauce, though. I decided to make this recipe as "something new," but I also made a batch of traditional whole-berry sauce using the recipe from the back of the Ocean Spray package.

This recipe is very easy. I pulsed some red onion, raw cranberries and a whole serrano chile together in the food processor with some lime zest and juice and a bit of sugar. The result is a tasty relish that is lively, fresh and spicy-but-not-too-spicy. It's not really the ideal match for a traditional thanksgiving meal, though. The lime flavor is pretty bold and a bit out of place with mashed potatoes and gravy. It's great spread on a sandwich of leftover turkey, though.

Date Cooked: November 24, 2010
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B

154. Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti (p. 685)

Before I made this recipe* from Italian baking authority Carol Field, I didn't know that the word biscotti was descriptive of the cooking method for these popular Italian cookies.

You see, biscotti comes from the Latin word biscoctum, meaning "twice-baked," and wouldn't you know, that's just how these cookies are made. For the first bake, the cookie dough is formed into a log and baked. For the second bake, the log is sliced into pieces and baked again until crisp and browned.

I started by soaking some dried cranberries in some boiling water to soften them a bit. Meanwhile, I buttered and floured a large baking sheet. To make the dough, I whisked some flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Then I beat in some eggs and vanila extract. Finally, I mixed in the cranberries and some shelled pistachios. I missed the part of the recipe that said to pat the cranberries dry after draining them. They were still pretty wet when I added them to the dough. It gave the dough an odd, wet, sticky texture. I was worried that I had ruined it, but it all worked out OK in the end. The Book says to turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead. But because of the dough's stickiness (and my impatience) I just kneaded it right in the bowl.

I divided the dough in half and formed it into two logs. I brushed the logs and baked them until golden. I let them cool a bit and, with a serrated knife, cut the loaves into half-inch slices. I arranged the slices on a baking sheet and put them back in the oven for the second bake.

These biscotti were very good. Just the thing to go with an afternoon cup of coffee. The dominant flavor was the vanilla, which really came through. I would have liked even more cranberries and pistachios to make them even more flavorful. The texture was nice, but I agree with Teena that the second baking could have been longer, since these biscotti were not as crunchy as others I've had. All in all, these were delicious and easy to make. I would definitely make these again.

The Book says that the biscotti keep in an airtight container at room temparature for up to a week. According to Wikipedia, Pliny the Elder said that biscotti would last for centuries. I think that the reality is somewhere in between. I took a few of these biscotti with me to work every day for almost two weeks, and the last one was just as tasty as the first.

Date Cooked: May 17, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

*This recipe is not on epicurous.com.

91. Cranberry Coffee Cake (p. 643)

This is the last of the posts about "things I cooked when my family came over for a holiday brunch."

This recipe* is a basic sweet, tender cake with a surprise inside. Rather than distributing whole cranberries throughout the batter as you might expect, this cake has two layers of sweetend chopped cranberries in between layers of cake batter.

First, I put some fresh cranberries and sugar in the food processor and whizzed it until the berries were very finely chopped (but not pureed). I put the berries in a sieve to drain while I made the cake batter. Then I spread about a third of the batter into a loaf pan, next I spread half of the cranberries on top of that, followed by another layer of batter, berries and more batter.

I baked the cake for the full cooking time and tested it with a toothpick, which came out clean. I suppose that I should know better by now, but, I believed that it was fully cooked. I let it cool and sliced it. Darn! The middle layer of batter was totally uncooked. The same thing happened to Teena when she made this coffee cake. She suspected that the frozen cranberries she used gave off too much liquid, preventing the center from cooking. Well, I used fresh berries and got the same result. Maybe the cranberries make a heat-proof zone in the center of the cake. Kind of like a Bermuda Triangle of temperature?

Well, I served the coffee cake to my family anyway. They have to love me even if I serve them raw coffee cake, right? The cooked part was delicious: the cake was light and sweet and the cranberries were tart and bright. It was really pretty, too. The bright red stripes in the center of the cake and the covering of powdered sugar "snow" gave it a really nice holiday look.

Date Cooked: December 13, 2008
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: B-

* This recipe isn't on epicurious.com.

71. Jellied Cranberry Sauce (p. 903)

I love cranberry sauce. It's one of my favorite parts of the Thanksgiving meal. I love the interplay of the intense tartness and sweetness, and the gorgeous jewel-like color stands out in the otherwise brown and white Thanksgiving plate.

For years, my contribution to the Thanksgiving meal has been pumpkin pie and whole-berry cranberry sauce. For both of these dishes, I usually go no further than the package for the recipe. This year, I decided to give this recipe* from The Book a try. Next year, I'll go back to the recipe on the Ocean Spray package. (Sorry, they can't all be winners.)

Before I go any further, I want to comment on an odd quirk that I've discovered as I cook my way through The Book. I don't know what kind of funky pots and pans they have in the Gourmet test kitchens, but more than a couple of times, The Book calls for an impossibly small pot or pan in the preparation of some of its recipes. For example, in this recipe, The Book says to cook 12 cups of cranberries, 3 cups of sugar and 3 1/4 cups of water (18 1/4 cups of ingredients in all) in a 3 quart pan. Now, I know I was an English major, but I even I know that the laws of physics won't allow 18 1/4 cups of ingredients to fit into a 12 cup pot. The photo to the left shows the cranberries alone overflowing from my 3 1/2 quart pot. So, I used a stockpot to make this recipe, and the cranberries had plenty of elbow room.

I made the sauce by simmering the berries, water and sugar for about fifteen minutes until all of the berries burst. Then I strained the mixture through a cheesecloth-lined colander into a large glass bowl. After about fifteen minutes, I had a little bit more than three cups of beautiful, syrupy garnet colored cranberry juice, and a colander full of chunky cranberry solids. The Book says to discard this, but my wife (who I think lived through the Great Depression in a past life) wouldn't let me throw away all of that cranberry goodness. I took the solids, and the extra juice and mixed it all up an put it in the 'fridge, and I'm glad that I did. This made a delicious, chunky cranberry relish that was just a little bit thicker than the whole berry sauce that I usually make, and as I'll explain in a minute, it was better than the jellied cranberry sauce that is the object of this recipe.

To make the jellied sauce, mix together one cup of the cranberry juice, heated, with some plain gelatin that's been softened in some water. Once the gelatin is fully dissolved, the mixture is combined with the remaining two cups of juice and the whole thing is poured into a mold. I used a Christmas pudding mold that I have. I chilled it in the 'fridge overnight.

On Thanksgiving day, just before we ate, I ran hot water around the sides of the mold to loosen the jellied sauce. It took a little bit of patience, but eventually, the sauce slid out of the mold and onto the serving plate. The picture at the top of this post doesn't do the sauce justice. It was actually a much brighter, jewel-like red color, and it had a beautiful, glittering sheen. The taste, however, wasn't as great. The texture was a lot firmer than the canned stuff that we're all used to. It was a lot like cranberry Jell-O. The flavor wasn't as intense as I would have liked it either.

I was really more impressed with the chunky cranberry relish that I made from the by-products of the recipe that I was supposed to throw away. It's like that old saying, waste not, want not.

UPDATE: We had a lot of the whole berry cranberry sauce leftover, and so I made this recipe from the Ocean Spray website for Quick Cranberry Nut Bread. It was great! Next year, I'm going to make extra cranberry sauce to be sure that I have enough leftover to make this quick bread again.

Date Cooked: November 26, 2008
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: Jellied Cranberry Sauce C; Whole Berry Sauce made from leftovers B+

* The recipe on epicurious is almost identical to the one in The Book, but it uses a bit more water and gelatin.