For our family Thanksgiving dinner, I was asked to bring my spicy cranberry chutney. I’m not sure whether this is because it’s about the only holiday dish I know how to make, or because it’s the only one that my friends trust me with. At any rate, I follow this recipe from an old number of Gourmet (November 1987), which rests on the top of a short stack of similar magazines in my kitchen. It’s on the same page as a recipe for tasty cranberries in chocolate sauce that I haven’t made since my Susan days. The chutney doesn’t take too much time to make, especially if you are like me and you skimp on the chopping. I like big chunks of fruit in my chutney. Below, my paraphrase of the recipe:
Cranberry Chutney
- 1 lemon
- 1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped as fine as you care to
- 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1 12-ounce bag of fresh cranberries, rinsed and picked over
- 1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and diced (1/4 inch or so)
- 1/4 cup crystallized ginger (to be found probably somewhere in the produce section at your supermarket), chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes
Grate the lemon rind to make about 1 teaspoon. Squeeze the lemon to make about 1/4 cup of juice.
In a saucepan combine the apricots, the brown sugar, the raisins, and 1 cup water. Bring the liquid to a boil, stirring, and simmer the mixture for 5 minutes. Add the cranberries, the apple, and the lemon rind, simmer the mixture until most but not all of the cranberries have popped, about 15 or 20 minutes. Stir in the lemon juice, the ginger, and the red pepper flakes.
Serve at room temperature or chilled. Makes about 3 cups.
This last time out, I was unsure of the state of my spice rack, so I was inclined to add more pepper. But Leta took a quick taste test and assured me that half a teaspoon of pepper is good.