Cranberries Provide Tart Satisfaction

Cranberries, the blueberry and the Concord grape are the only fruits native to the U.S. and Canada. While historically fascinating, cranberries can be a puzzle to cook. Unlike most fruits, their tart flavor precludes them from being eaten raw. The original cranberry cooks, the Indians, dealt with the tartness by adding maple syrup. We still need to add some sweetener to make cranberries appealing.

Determining ripeness is also a problem. Cranberries do not get soft or aromatic when ripe and their color can vary from light red to deep scarlet. The answer is to throw a cranberry on a hard floor - if it bounces, it's ripe.

Our ancestors must have sensed how healthy cranberries are as they were first commercially planted in 1816. Cranberries are packed with Vitamin C and the juice is always suggested for urinary tract infections. But somehow cranberries became defined as a holiday food, and only intense, recent marketing has made them a year round fruit. They are certainly worth getting to know.

You can buy cranberries in four forms, including juiced. Canned cranberry sauce, whether as whole berries or jellied, used to be available only at Thanksgiving and/or Christmas. But fresh cranberries have become available during the last several years. They are packaged whole and are in the markets after harvest, which occurs between Labor Day and Halloween. And, most recently, the year-around sale of dried cranberries has exploded. All told, some 558 million pounds of cranberries were sold in 2001.

Canned cranberries, while good, do not lend themselves to the variety of options that the fresh and dried forms do. In fact, it's so fast and easy to make a fresh, adaptable cranberry relish that purchasing canned cranberries isn't necessary. When they're available, buy one or more bags of whole cranberries, and throw them in the freezer. They'll stay there for a year. Like blueberries, they should be used still frozen.

When you're ready to make the relish, empty a 12-ounce bag of fresh cranberries, still frozen, into a food processor. Cut up a naval orange into chunks, leaving the peel on, and add to the cranberries. Add sugar, starting with ½ cup, and process to blend. Taste and add more sugar as necessary.

Once made, the relish can be easily adapted to a variety of tastes. The base relish will happily sit in the refrigerator for several months since cranberries contain a natural preservative called benzoic acid. Add additional flavors to coordinate with the main course. For example, if you're serving the relish with duck, add Grand Marnier or any orange flavored liqueur. If you're serving the relish with chicken, add crystallized ginger pieces. For pork, add red wine or port. To make cranberry syrup for pancakes or waffles, add light corn syrup and warm the relish. For a great winter dessert, see below where I've used homemade cranberry relish to make an upside down cake that comes with a beautiful and healthy topping.

When making anything with chopped apples, oranges, pears, or dried apricots, think of substituting whole fresh cranberries for some of the fruit. You may need to adjust the sugar and increase the seasonings  - cinnamon and cloves go especially well with cranberries - but the flavor of the finished dish will be more complex and interesting. Also, if the recipe calls for cooking the fruit, only cook whole cranberries until they pop - any longer and they will get mushy.

It is also exciting to experiment with dried cranberries, which, when bought sweetened, can be substituted for raisins in almost any recipe. Not only do they add a beautiful red color to the final food product, but also they add a sweet tartness that excites mouth feel. Besides using dried cranberries in baked goods like cookies or muffins, they can be plumped in warm water to be added to stuffings, or in rum to be added to puddings or ice creams. Nowadays, dried cranberries even come in orange and cherry flavors to add additional options.

Cranberry Upside Down Cake, (Adapted from Fannie Farmer)

§         1 ¼ cup homemade cranberry relish

§         1/3 cup brown sugar

§         1 ¼ cup flour

§         ¾ cup sugar

§         1 teaspoon baking powder

§         ½ teaspoon baking soda

§         ½ teaspoon salt

§         ½ teaspoon vanilla

§         5 tablespoons butter, softened

§         ½ cup orange juice

§         1 egg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray a non-stick 9-inch round cake pan with Pam or equivalent. In a small bowl, combine the cranberry sauce and brown sugar and mix well. Spread the cranberry mixture evenly in the prepared pan.

Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl. Add the vanilla, butter, orange juice, and egg and beat until perfectly smooth.

Spoon the batter in small mounds over the cranberry mixture and spread evenly with an offset spatula, not mixing the cranberries into the batter. Bake for 45 minutes or until the top is a golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, and then turn over onto a plate or cooling rack. If any of the cranberry topping remains in the pan, it can be smoothed easily on the cake.