Cranberries expatriated

I read somewhere on the internet that cranberry/grappa jelly was the hot new dish for Thanksgiving this year. Who wouldn’t want to make the hot new dish of the year? It’s from Gourmet magazine, too, so there you go.

Three years ago, eg brought me two bags of cranberries in her luggage. They have sat, triple-bagged, in my freezer since then, because like the story of the pig you wouldn’t want to eat all at once, I couldn’t bear for them to just go away. But for the hot new dish of 2007, I figured let’s do it! Those of you who don’t live here will think how silly we are to miss something most people eat once a year and many people deride as not real food. I love cranberries.

The original recipe is fairly straight forward but a little messy with a lot of straining and pressing to get the skins and seeds free of the juices. Note that not only does it star the elusive cranberry, but also granulated gelatin, which doesn’t exist here, as far as I have ever been able to tell.

Italian gelatin is evocatively named “fish glue.” Yum. It comes in transparent sheets or leaves in envelopes. I made a strawberry Bavarian some years back using fish glue and it didn’t jell. I didn’t know how much fish glue to use to replace granulated gelatin nor did anyone I asked.

But I am nothing if not determined when it comes to my cranberries. The package says that the enclosed leaves will jell 500 milliliters of liquid. I started adding up the liquids in the recipe, converting the number to milliliters and voila! It needed more than eleven sheets of gelatin. Whoa, said I, but I soaked twelve sheets in cold water. And you know what? It’s only a few hours later and it’s jelled. Hunh.

So here is the recipe for Cranberries Expatriated. Only the translation is mine.

Get 20 ounces of cranberries, frozen or fresh — or use lingonberries instead if that’s what you can find.
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups cold water
3/4 cup grappa

Remember that 250 milliliters is one cup, or close enough.

In a large pan, put those ingredients and bring them to a boil. Allow them to boil briskly, popping and eventually thickening, then remove that from the flame. Gradually pass all of it through the finest screen of a food mill. This is much cleaner than a China cap and kitchen towels, believe me.

You can soak 10 sheets of fish glue in cold water to cover while that’s cooking.

1/4 cup water
the soaked gelatin
1 cup of the juice you have now milled.

Put those into the same, now empty pan and bring it to a simmer, stirring. As soon as it is all melted and wonderful, remove it from the heat, and stir in 1.5 more cups of the juice and 1/2 cup of grappa. Oil a mold that holds at least 3 cups and pour the mixture into it. As soon as it is room temperature, put it in the fridge to chill until the next day.

To unmold it, run a sharp knife along the edges of the jelly in the mold. Dip the mold into a deep bowl of warm water for a few seconds and then turn it out onto a plate

I had a lot of leftover cranberry juice, so I put it into a jar in the fridge. I feel cranberry other things coming on. I will try to photograph this beauty (we can hope) tomorrow and add the photo when I get back from Massa Martana. And now, happy Thanksgiving to all the celebrators of same.

NB I have changed the number of leaves of fish glue, because it was too jelled.