Any meat requires certain additives that would favorably emphasize or set off its taste. One of the universal solutions to this issue will be sweet and sour cranberry sauce. It goes well with poultry, pork and beef.
This sauce is especially popular in Europe and America, where it is an invariable attribute accompanying a turkey. Its taste is very original, and, in addition, cranberries are very useful due to the large amount of vitamins it contains.
Some housewives prepare cranberry sauce for future use and serve not only with meat, but also with potatoes, and with pasta, and with some types of cheese. But such a sauce requires sterilization and longer cooking.
The original sweet and sour cranberry sauce is prepared in just half an hour. To prepare it, you need 250 g of fresh cranberries, 1 orange, 1 onion, 50 g of butter, 2 tbsp. l. honey, ¼ tsp. red pepper and salt to taste. For cranberry sauce, as a rule, fresh berries are used, but in the absence of them, you can also use frozen ones.
First of all, the berry needs to be sorted out and rinsed in running water. Then the cranberries need to be dried. Then you need to peel the onion and chop it very finely, and the orange should be freed from the zest and grated on the finest grater.
In a frying pan, slowly heat the butter, put the chopped onion on it and fry it over low heat until golden brown.
Onions, despite expectations, go very well with berries, giving the sauce the right taste and aroma.
As soon as the onion acquires the indicated color, you need to put the cranberries, honey and zest into the pan. The orange itself should be squeezed and its juice added to the mixture. The future sauce must be mixed well, covered tightly with a lid and simmer over moderate heat for at least 20 minutes.
After the specified time has elapsed, remove the lid and simmer the sauce for about 5 more minutes, stirring constantly to avoid it sticking to the bottom of the pan.
At this stage of cooking, you can add other spices to the sauce, such as cloves or finely grated ginger.
The thickness of the sauce can be adjusted by evaporating the liquid or adding flour. When the sauce is ready, it should be removed from the heat, cooled slightly and rubbed with a fine sieve. The same operation can be done with a blender, which will greatly speed it up. But in this case, small inclusions of unmilled berries are possible in the sauce.
At the end of cooking, add red pepper and salt to the grated sauce and mix it well. Serve the sauce chilled. The cranberry sauce prepared according to this recipe can be stored in the refrigerator for about two weeks in a glass jar.
Perhaps there are only two main secrets in making a really delicious sweet and sour cranberry sauce. First, you need to choose the right berry. The cranberries should be dark red. If it is unripe, the finished sauce may take on a slight bitter taste.
Secondly, during preparation and further storage, in no case should you use metal utensils. For such a berry, only enameled dishes are applicable, otherwise the acid in its composition will interact with the metal, as a result of which harmful substances will begin to be produced.
