How do I make cranberry sauce?

Cranberry sauce is the easiest thing on a Christmas table and the one most often bought. Cranberries are exceptionally high in pectin and in acid, which is the exact combination that makes a preserve set, so the sauce thickens by itself with no gelatine, cornflour or jam sugar involved.

What you'll need

• Fresh or frozen cranberries
• Sugar
• Orange — juice and zest (optional)
• Port, cinnamon or star anise (optional)

Step by step

1. Use fresh or frozen cranberries — both work equally well.Frozen go straight into the pan with no thawing. A 300g bag makes enough for eight to ten people as a condiment. They are only in the shops for a few weeks around Christmas, so buy extra and freeze them.
2. Put them in a pan with sugar and liquid.300g of cranberries, 100g of caster or light brown sugar, and 100ml of orange juice or water. Brown sugar gives a deeper flavour. The zest of an orange goes in too if you want it.
3. Bring it to a simmer and cook for about ten minutes.The berries pop audibly as they burst. Stir occasionally. Ten minutes is usually enough; if you want it very smooth, cook for fifteen and crush the remaining berries against the side of the pan.
4. Do not judge the set in the pan.It looks alarmingly loose while hot, and it thickens dramatically as it cools because of the pectin. Resist the temptation to boil it down further — an over-cooked cranberry sauce sets solid and tastes jammy.
5. Taste and balance the sweetness at the end.Cranberries are extremely sour and the sauce needs enough sugar to be edible without becoming a jam. It should still make you notice the sharpness. Add sugar a spoonful at a time.
6. Add a spirit or a spice if you want.A splash of port added in the last two minutes, or a cinnamon stick, star anise or a strip of orange zest cooked with the berries. Remove whole spices before it goes into a jar.
7. Cool, jar, and refrigerate.It keeps about two weeks in the fridge in a covered container, and freezes for months. Making it a week ahead of Christmas is one of the easiest things to take off the day.

Tips

• Cranberries are high in pectin and acid, which is why the sauce sets by itself. No jam sugar, gelatine or cornflour is needed and adding any of them makes it worse.
• If it has set too firm, stir in a tablespoon of water or orange juice. It loosens readily.
• If it has not set at all, it was probably under-cooked or over-diluted. Simmer for another five minutes and cool again before judging.
• The same method works with frozen redcurrants or a mixture of cranberries and blackberries.
• Leftover cranberry sauce is very good stirred into gravy, spread in a turkey sandwich, or served with cheese.

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