Junglefrog Cooking » cranberries

Cranberry sauce

Simone (junglefrog) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 12:01:44 +0000

The ultimate cranberry sauce

I did promise you I would give you the recipe for the ultimate cranberry sauce right? Well, here it is… I’ve made cranberry sauce, cranberry compote and cranberry relish before but never before did I find THE cranberry sauce to go with everything. If you look at the small list of ingredients it is really nothing to fancy and it’s also nothing really special but I can assure you that the end result will never have you ask for another cranberry recipe, ever again. It is rich, it is sweet (but not too sweet) and it goes so well with both savory dishes and sweet desserts.

I made this sauce for the simple reason that I had bought too many cranberries so I just figured I might try a couple of different variations to see which one I liked best. We had this the first time with some pork and we were immediately sold. Then I used it to spice up the mascarpone raspberry trifle you saw earlier and that just confirmed the fact that this does go with just about anything.

Cranberry sauce on top of delicious trifle

Cranberry sauce

Print recipe

Serves	4
Prep time	5 minutes
Cook time	10 minutes
Total time	15 minutes
Meal type	Condiment, Side Dish
Misc	Pre-preparable

Ingredients

250g cranberries
3 pieces star anise
2 cinnamon sticks
1 cup sugar
1,5 cup fresh orange juice

Directions


Put all ingredients into a saucepan and brings to the boil. Once the sugar is all dissolved turn down the heat

Leave to boil softly until all craberries have popped open. Take of the fire and remove the cinnamon and star anise. Put in a blender and puree until smooth. Be careful when turning on the blender as it is hot which means it will spatter too.

Once pureed put through a sieve to remove all the skins.

Note

This recipe is perfect for both sweet and savory dishes. Sofar we have had it with dessert and we had it with pork but this will be equally good with turkey!

I am actually thinking of making large batches of this sauce so I can freeze it in and enjoy it for the rest of the year too. I still have quite a few dried cranberries left so I am wondering if I can use those to make cranberry sauce too. Something tells me that is not an option as there would be no popping. Does anyone have any experience with using dried cranberries for making a sauce? Would it work to re-hydrate them first and then cook? Let me know your thoughts! In the meantime I have another bag of cranberries in the fridge that is just waiting for me to make another batch…

Chipotle bread – Living leaner

Simone (junglefrog) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 08:00:07 +0000

Cranberry chipotle bread

I peer into the oven, a little worried that my bread will not be coming out as I had intended it to. Hmm, still undercooked. I close the door again, busy myself with cleaning the kitchen after having made quite a bit of a mess doing various dishes at the same time. Open the door of the oven again, just a crack and it’s starting to look better.

When I saw the recipe for a Jalapeno cranberry skillet bread on E-curry by my good friend Soma just this morning, I just knew I had to try this one. It looked so good and it looked so pretty too on Soma’s photos! Ofcourse I did not have a skillet so I figured in terms of cast iron it was either my Dutch oven or my aebleskiver pan. Now the latter would have been a very interesting experiment but I will leave that one for another time… Although mmm, while I’m writing this all sort of ideas pop into my head how I can make mini buns this way! Oooo, next on the to do list!

In the end baking the bread in the Dutch oven did work out but it was difficult getting it out in one piece since it was a little bit stuck to the bottom so I had to cut it in two. Still not a bad effort for my first skillet pan. This is also fitting nicely into the budget for Living Leaner, the challenge setup by my good friend Mona. I actually had this bread together with those pretty pears you saw earlier and miraculously managed to stay below the 10 euro. I didn’t think I would be able to make it but I did.

So what did I pay? I obviously had some stuff in the fridge and cupboard that I used otherwise I would never have made it, but still. I bought extra for both the pears and the bread the following item.

One bottle of red wine € 2,99
100 gr ham € 2,29
100 gr spanish salami € 2,50
1 kilo pears € 1,10

Out of stock I used a lot as I had all the ingredients for this bread in house. Flour, cilantro, dried cranberries, milk and butter. The original recipe called for cornflour which I did not have so I used all purpose flour instead. It also called for jalapeno peppers which I substituted for some chipotle peppers in Adobo sauce I had also leftover from another recipe. So I do feel a little bit like cheating as I had so much still in house, but on the other hand, that’s what it’s all about also right? Using up the things we have leftover.

The meats are gonna be used to be put on the bread, together with some grilled courgette (also leftovers in the fridge). I probably have some roasted peppers and pesto lying around still plus cheese leftovers… and I might find some other things that need to be eaten! This is actually the most expensive meal as all the other meals we had sofar for the living leaner challenge were good for two days and have only set us back less then 5 euro’s a day.

So all in all not bad, and I’ve made some great and easy recipes in the process that are definitely going to be made again!

Chipotle cranberry bread

5.0 from 2 reviews

Recipe type: Bread

Author: Adapted from E-curry blog

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 25 mins

Total time: 35 mins

Serves: 4

Ingredients

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
150 gr all purpose flour
1 chipotle chili in adobo sauce
2 tbsp fresh coriander
1/2 cup dried cranberries
2 tbsp of honey
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp of black pepper
150 ml milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Instructions

I used a small Dutch Oven to bake this bread. A 20 cm pan makes about 1 fairly flat bread.
Preheat the oven to 200 C.
In a bowl, sift the all purpose flour with baking powder, black pepper and salt.
Pound the chipotle and the fresh cilantro/coriander leaves until it is coarse paste.
Add the cranberries to the flour and toss for them to be coated.
Whisk the milk, honey and eggs in a different bowl and stir in lightly with the flour mix. Add the paste of chipotle and cilantro/coriander. Add the melted butter and stir just until blended.
Add 1/2 tablespoon oil to the Dutch oven and heat the pan over the stove top or in the oven until the oil shimmer and is really hot. When the dough is added to this, it should sizzle loud.
Remove pan from the stove top or the oven and scrape half of the batter into the hot pan. Transfer the pan to the oven and bake for about 15-20 minutes, or until the center springs back when gently pressed. The bread should be golden brown and crispy at the edges.
Turn the bread out onto a rack to cool and slice only when cooled.

Cranberry pannacotta

Simone (junglefrog) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:34:11 +0000

Cranberry pannacotta

I have a thing for pannacotta…. ever since I tasted the first (the first homemade version that is) pannacotta I am sort of addicted. It’s not that I make this dessert every week or even every month for that matter, but no matter what flavor I make; I love it every single time… From the lemon buttermilk pannacotta, to the cinnamon apple pannacotta, to this seasonal variety. They’re all good… Not so good for the waistline though; lots of cream in there…

While we initially wanted to make the Italian icecream for dessert (and don’t worry, we will be making that before the year is over.. ) we figured a little lighter then that would be advisable. It’s weird really that most christmas dishes are rather heavy on the stomach; we had to really make adjustments from our original menu to the current one to make sure that we didn’t have to roll every one out the door. I don’t know about you but I don’t particularly like the overly full feeling that you get after eating too much. I do – in fact – hate that feeling and while I am the only one to blame for that feeling when it happens to me, I would like to think that I try to avoid it as much as possible. So we made a few adjustments to the final menu; some things were cancelled, other things were added. No potatoes at the main course; the cream leek tart will be more then enough even without potatoes. And a nice fresh salad to go with the ham and the tart and then for dessert a pannacotta. While the pannacotta is arguably not exactly leaner then the Italian icecream when you count it in calories; it does feel lighter due to the smaller portion and the fact that I will be changing the recipe that I followed for the above cranberry version. I am going to add the buttermilk in.

Dare we hope for a white christmas??

The lemon buttermilk pannacotta that I made before is perfect in that sense; due to the tartness of the buttermilk it looses some of it’s rich creamy texture making it fresh and light. And then I will add the cranberries to it for that seasonal feeling (and because I love cranberries too ofcourse) I will make them a little sweeter then the ones we use for the ham to counter balance the lemon and buttermilk. Hmmm, lovely… and that then is our christmas menu complete!

I will give you below the recipe for the original cranberry pannacotta which I made yesterday. If you make it I would advise adding a little lemon or some other sour tasting flavor to pick it up a little.

Yesterday it has been snowing almost the entire day resulting in a big pile of white fluffy snow today and when the sun broke through the clouds this morning I just had to go for a little walk in the park across from our house. Isn’t it beautiful?? Too bad that it will probably not last until christmas. It’s gonna be melting starting tomorrow… O well, we had fun while it lasted, although it’s a nightmare for traffic ofcourse. Our little country is not equipped to deal with things like heavy snow or frost; everyone is in a state of panick, trains, trams and buses no longer operate due to frozen tracks, or whatever else happens and let’s not talk about the traffic jams!! Yesterday, a sunday no less, we had a total of 1200 minutes traffic jam and 90 traffic jams altogether. On a sunday! Imagine what would’ve happened if yesterday had been a monday.

Thanks to christmas holidays the traffic was bad but not as bad as it could have been on a regular working day. I was supposed to have a photoshoot with two kids wanting a portrait for their parents, but they had to come from far and well… the trains didn’t run so…. I had the morning off to enjoy the sunshine and the snow.

Here is the recipe for the pannacotta!

PANNACOTTA WITH CRANBERRIES (serves 4)

80 gr white castersugar

100 gr fresh cranberries

1 vanillabean

375 ml whipping cream or double cream

2 leaves of gelatine

100 ml yogurt

4 forms (150 ml each) or one large form (0,5 ltr)

1. In a saucepan heat 50 gr of castersugar with 5 tbsp of water en add, once the sugar is melted, the cranberries. Simmer on low for about 3 minutes.

2. Cut the vanillabean open lenghtwise. Heat the cream in a saucepan and add the vanillabean and the rest of the sugar. Leave to simmer but not really boil for 5 minutes en make sure all sugar is dissolved. Remove the vanillabean from the cream and scrape the marrow from the vanilla with a sharp knife and add the marrow to the cream.

3. Soak the gelatine leaves for about 5 minutes in cold water. Squeeze them and add to the hot cream. Stir until dissolved. Leave to cool and add the yogurt. Divide the yogurtcream over the forms and spoon 1 teaspoon of the cranberries into each form. Put into the fridge for at least 3 hours. To remove the pannacotta from the forms, shortly keep them under a hot tab and put them on plates. Serve with the rest of the cranberries.

Junglefrog Cooking » cranberries

Cranberry sauce

Cranberry sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Note

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Chipotle bread – Living leaner

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Cranberry pannacotta

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