Day After Thanksgiving Cranberry Chutney

I didn’t want to like this! I’m a homemade-cranberry-sauce, Grandma’s-recipe kind of person. But I couldn’t resist. This is so good. Yes, mustard, but you smell it more than taste it. It’s better after it’s refrigerated awhile. The fresh cranberries—why not use the whole package instead of 7 1/2 ounces? Chopped onion was about 2/3 of a cup and cooked down to less than a 1/4 cup. The sauce was tart when I first tried it but mellowed in the fridge. Now I have to cook turkey!

This is delightfully delicious and oh so easy to make. It’s the perfect accompaniment for leftovers the day after Thanksgiving, and the onions give it such a wonderful flavor. The onions take about 7 minutes to turn golden, so factor in a little bit of extra time when cooking. The overall process, however, is really straightforward with great results.

I’m a big fan of cranberries, especially the fresh ones. There is this incredible tart, crisp freshness that has just the right amount of zing in it. This recipe delivers that, plus a bit extra to boot…the perfect addition to after-Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches. I used fresh cranberries, of course, but the frozen would be fine I’m sure. It did say that the cranberries would take 5 or so minutes to pop but this happened after only 2 or 3. Not much of the water evaporated either before the popping started. I do believe that it left a little too much behind, as I’d like my spread a little thicker. The red onions turned a lovely color and smelled delicious, especially after the vinegar and mustard were added. When finished with the cooking process you’re asked to blend them in a food processor, which I did, but I do believe a hand blender would do the trick and make for a much less messy job than pouring hot liquid and sticky sweetness. I found the end result to be really quite delightful and spreadable, though a little too sweet for my liking. A little more mustard would be better and possibly a little less honey, though the addition of salt and pepper at the end did push it in the savory direction. It did, however, make a delicious addition to a turkey sandwich and would even be delightful on a burger. I don’t think it’d be as nice alongside grilled or roasted meat, as the purée is a bit fine. If more chunky, I think a chutney would be a much prettier if not more flavorful choice.

I followed this recipe to a T and ended up with 1 1/2 pints. This was certainly a pleasant surprise since that gives us more of this tasty spread to smear on lots of goodies. I chose orange juice for my liquid since I often think of cranberries with orange. I did opt to leave mine a bit chunky, as I thought I’d like it that way, as the author does, and I was right. Both my daughter and I enjoyed this spread very much. We had it on toasted sourdough with both cold ham and cold turkey. We were both surprised that we enjoyed the ham more than the turkey since we love cranberry sauce with our turkey at Thanksgiving. Don’t get me wrong, the turkey one was delicious too, we just liked the ham better. I had braised sweet potatoes for lunch and I tried some with those and it was delicious. I also had a grilled sourdough, sharp cheddar cheese sandwich the next day, which I spread some of this on, and that was good too. I see many uses for this wonderful spread.

I love cranberries, from the taste to the color (I also have some outerwear and scarves that color). Even cranberry spills seem easier to clean up than spills from other red foods like other berries or tomatoes or peppers. I’ve done a variety of cranberry chutneys and sauces over the years. So I was happy to try a new recipe using this tart, versatile fruit. From the bright color to the sweet–sour flavor, it didn’t disappoint. It’s more like a relish. Using farmer’s market fresh berries—one of those overfilled pint boxes the farmer dumped in a bag for me—I had more than 2 cups’ worth. Using a scale, the full 2 measuring cups came to 8 ounces. When I processed the entire concoction, I left it slightly chunky. It tasted good while warm and especially after it had chilled a day or so.

I really liked this condiment. I can envision it now with a slice of ham, piece of roasted poultry, or a sausage or turkey burger. It’d be fabulous on a sandwich. I can’t stop thinking of things to put it on. It’s tangy and spicy without being overpowering. I like the addition of the red onion. I did add another 1/2 teaspoon of grainy mustard, as I found the mustard taste too subtle in the first batch. That small change took it from OK to sublime. I pulsed this only a little to combine, as I like the look of the almost-whole berries. I’ll be freezing some, as I’d like to see how it does frozen. This will definitely be going onto my holiday table.