Adventurous sauce

First, the back story. I love cranberry juice, cranberry bread, and cosmopolitans, but I've never, much to lil bird's amazement, eaten cranberry sauce.

Our Thanksgiving celebration will be at someone else's house so when given the task of bringing the cranberry sauce I said yes, I'll give it a try. I do fancy myself a cook.

Now, fast forward to last night, just a few days from the celebration. I researched many recipes and found Ming Tsai's to be the most interesting. It starts with a saute of red onion and orange zest and ginger; not traditional but I'm adventurous. Then add the cranberries with two tablespoons of brown sugar, orange juice, and some salt and pepper. Salt and pepper? This is getting odd.

Taste. For me it had way to much of an onion flavor so I'm gonna fix it up. Yeah, right.

To this I added some more sugar and ground chipotle and some more ginger. I'm going to get some flavor out of this if it kills me. Getting better but still not certain. Oops, lost the cranberry tartness, how about some dried cranberries, yeah. Taste?

So like a coward, I went back to the market and made the recipe on the back of the package.


What will I do with the other? Surprisingly when it cooled it had enough flavor for me to keep so there will be two sauces this Thanksgiving. If I were to attempt that recipe again I'd caramelize the onions first add more sugar but I'd leave in the chipotle. It does add a brief hint of heat which in my opinion says California.

Hope everyone enjoys their holiday.