Holiday special--Cranpeapple sauce

Cranberry is called the ruby of north America. Not only because of its shining crystal red color, but also for its rich nutrition. Ocean spray has a lot of info on their products wrap, so I would rather not bother babbling all of those commercial cliche. But anyway, cranberry is good for your health and also, given the sourness, it's a good "kick" for those palate who are spoiled by those over-sweet American dessert.

Today, I will share with you my own cranberry sauce recipe which is mingled with a touch of apple and pear. This combination gives the sauce a more creamy texture, and mellow aroma. The most important thing is I can decreased the sugar in half compare to traditional recipe but still get a reasonable sweetness. If you are concerned about the 'jamming' reaction which calls certain amount of sugar to extract enough pectin, by no means add more sugar please. But since it's called "SAUCE" instead of jam...You know what I mean:)


Materials:

1 medium pear (any kind)

1 medium apple (any kind)

1 12oz cranberry

0.5 cup sugar in the raw (or to taste)

0.5 teaspoon pie spice mix (mainly cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg)

A few words before the steps:

For apple kind, I recommend aromatic variety like Jonathon, Jonagold or Gala (at least not Granny smith, I also not recommend Fuji) because the texture here is not important, all I need is the fragrant scent and "apple sauce-like" creaminess from the apple. So it would take too long to cook those too crisp apples but with no bonus to the flavor at all.

For sugar kind, I used sugar in the raw because it is a medium browned sugar. So it has a slight caramel taste in it which matched really well with the pie spice. This will give the whole sauce a more warm and mellow overall taste note.


Steps:

Peel and core the apple and pear, cut into small chunks;

Rinse the cranberry under tap water briefly;

Add around half cup of water into a sauce pan, pour everything into the pan, stir and stir;

Bring to a boil and then turn down into low heat and simmer for about 15min with the lid covered.

You may need to add a little more water in between until get the desired consistency.

When it reaches a relatively consistent texture with no obvious apple/pear chunks, it's done and you can store them in jar, Pyrex or any kind of glass/ceramic container. The acid in the sauce is too harsh for metal. As for plastic ware, they are too low-end OK?

NOTE: The cranberry will "pop" while the heat going on, when the sauce is getting thicker, it also tends to splash. These two things can be extremely dangerous. So be careful, always keep the lid around you or just cover the pan as a shield.


The sauce has the most gorgeous reddish color I have ever seen in the world! Also, my recipe is kind of tart, so taste it before done, if it is too sour for you, add another tablespoon of sugar.

Have fun! Let me know what do you think and happy holiday season!