Cranberry Sauce Spiked with Ginger & Port

Cranberry sauce is one of my favourite flavours of the winter season. The sweet-tart fruity taste and bright jewel colour makes it the perfect accompaniment to many winter recipes. Try it with garlicky roast vegetables, a spicy lentil loaf or even a mushroom risotto.

When fresh cranberries are in shops I make several varieties, each one with a slightly different twist! This year, for my first batch of the season I added stem ginger and was delighted with the result. I used just one sticky, round ball of stem ginger in this recipe and it added just right amount of extra deliciousness to the sauce. To make cranberry sauce more festive a tablespoon of port worked perfectly.

Ingredients

250 grams cranberries
100 grams light muscovado sugar or coconut sugar
100 ml fresh orange juice
Finely grated zest from 1 orange
1 stick cinnamon
1 stem ginger (from a jar of stem ginger in syrup)
1 tablespoon port (optional)

What to do

1. Tip the orange juice, orange zest, cinnamon stick, and cranberries into a pan. Bring to a gentle simmer, stirring occasionally.

2.While the cranberries are cooking finely chop the stem ginger.

3. After a couple of minutes when the cranberries begin pop add the sugar and stem ginger.

4. Simmer gently until most of the cranberries are tender. This will only take 5 minutes or so. Mash the cranberries against the side of the pan to speed up the process.

5. Just before removing the pan from the heat add the port.

6. Remove the cinnamon stick before pouring the cranberry sauce into glass jars with lids. Store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

7. The flavour is at its best when the cranberry sauce is at room temperature.