Thanksgiving Cranberry Sauce

Cranberry sauce is nearly ubiquitous in a traditional American Thanksgiving, so even though we’ve rarely if ever, had it at home (but I’ve had it dozens of times away from home), I feel compelled to include it here. Likely, you’ll find it one of the easiest parts of this menu to prepare, and thus a welcome reprieve from the otherwise hectic day of holiday cooking.

Cranberries are loaded full of a compound called pectin—the same compound found in equal abundance in tomatoes that allows a tomato sauce to thicken up incredibly well given enough time without any additional thickening power from a roux or anything else. How you like your cranberry sauce will determine how long you let the pectin in your cranberries be active before stopping the reactions and determining the final form of your sauce. It could be very runny, almost watery, at one end of the spectrum with almost no pectin extraction and development, and it could be practically cranberry Jell-O at the opposite extreme where the pectin is fully taken advantage of. Everything in this extravagant Thanksgiving meal is, as I see it, the Platonic ideal of the dish. The Platonic ideal of cranberry sauce, then, is not at either extreme of thickness, but somewhere in the middle. (This isn’t sponsored, but this is the best product I ever had, so I have to give them a shoutout: Years ago, in Brazil and, to a lesser extent in the US, I could reliably find a “St. Dalfour”-brand blueberry jam; the consistency of that jam is perfect. If you can find this line of products near you, buy it, taste it, and learn the consistency, because that’s what we’re going for in this recipe. Sidenote, I don’t know who St. Dalfour was—so if any of you know anything about this saint (even as basic as if he/she was real or not, please drop a comment and let me know!)

Whatever your preferred cranberry sauce thickness, maceration of the berries is an essential step in the cranberry sauce-making process. Maceration is the process by which, by coating the berries in sugar, we allow some liquid to be extracted, and so the berries essentially sit in their own sweetened liquid for a few minutes. Zest—don’t peel, since that’ll bring the white bitter pith with it—an orange, and juice it, placing that in a 3qt saucepan with 12 oz cranberries and 8 oz sugar, plus just enough water to cover everything. Cook this over medium heat, stirring often so nothing sticks and burns. Once the sauce has not quite thickened to your desired consistency (remembering that it will continue thickening as it cools), remove it from the heat, check for seasoning one last time, and transfer it to your intended serving vessel.