Get your favorite Two Medium Sized Ladies apron on because we're headed to the kitchen for an American classic! With a homemade simple syrup, whole cranberries and a dash of lemon zest, our Quick Homemade Cranberry Sauce with Whole Cranberries will make you into a star chef on your first try - and will delight all your holiday guests with its wonderful well-balanced flavor.
This recipe is a fast, easy and aromatic update to the classic homemade whole cranberry sauce. This thick sauce has the sweetness we all crave and body and balance with whole portions of these wonderful native berries. Sweetness always needs a companion to elevate the flavor and here we've added lemon. The lemon gives this sauce a delightful scent and high note that is very complementary to the Thanksgiving and Christmas table.
Cranberries have a long history in North America, and have been recorded as used by Native Americans for centuries for food and dyes. There is also an account in James Rosier's book The Land of Virginia of Europeans being met with Native Americans bearing bark cups full of cranberries. It is also believed by several historians that cranberries were present at the First Thanksgiving, so perhaps this is one of our oldest food traditions that is still served today.
Cranberries are a cousin to the blueberry. They can be found on low creeping shrubs that can be 7 feet in length but only 2 to 8 inches high. They have thin, wiry stems and small evergreen leaves and grow well in acidic, marshy areas. The flowers are dark pink and the fruit is the cranberry. Cranberries usually start green like grapes, then turn red when ripe - but the fruit itself is very bitter if eaten raw.
So how did the idea of making sauces and jellies occur?
The creation of cranberry sauce in North America is credited to cranberry growers Marcus Urann and Elizabeth Lee in 1912 in Hanson, Massachusetts when they concocted the sauce by boiling bruised berries. However we believe from historical records it has a much earlier arrival.
Many early American foods had medicinal uses. The uses for the cranberry were not any different - they were made into a sauce for digestion, flavor and health.
In the 1672 book New England Rarities Discovered author John Josselyn described cranberries, writing:
Sauce for the Pilgrims, cranberry or bearberry, is a small trayling plant that grows in salt marshes that are overgrown with moss. The berries are of a pale yellow color, afterwards red, as big as a cherry, some perfectly round, others oval, all of them hollow with sower astringent taste; they are ripe in August and September. They are excellent against the Scurvy. They are also good to allay the fervor of hoof diseases. The Indians and English use them mush, boyling them with sugar for sauce to eat with their meat; and it is a delicate sauce, especially with roasted mutton. Some make tarts with them as with gooseberries.
Fast forward to 2017, and over 98% of cranberries are still mostly produced in three places in the world - Canada, the United States and Chile. Most of the berries are processed into jellies, jams, canned sauce and dried cranberries, but a portion left is bagged and sold fresh.
You may have seen these two pound bags of fresh cranberries that pop up during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays at your local grocery store and wondered what to do with them. This is your chance to take a fresh product and create your own historical dish!
Use this sauce as a side dish, or as an accompaniment to your roasted meats to add flavor and depth to your meal. After all, it's an American tradition!
Makes 4 Servings of about 1/2 C each
Total time to make: 15 minutes on the stove, 2-3 hours to cool completely
RECIPE: Quick Homemade Cranberry Sauce with Whole Cranberries
Ingredients:
3 Cups Whole Fresh Cranberries
1 C sugar
1 C water
Zest from 1/2 small lemon
Method:
In a medium saucepan on the stove, bring water and sugar to a boil. (TIP: equal parts of sugar and water creates a simple syrup, which can be used as a base for many recipes!).
Add the cranberries and return to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and boil gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the zest at any time during this step.
Pour into a heat proof bowl, cover and cool completely at room temperature. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Will keep for at least one week.