No. 598

Cranberry Sauce

Sauce aux Caneberges

Wash five pounds of cranberries, lay them in an untinned saucepan on the fire, with one quart of water, let cook slowly while stirring frequently, and when they are done add to them five pounds of sugar; pass them through a coarse colander, put in jars and set the jelly away in a cool closet.

← No. 597 Chicken and Game Sauce Cold Sauces No. 599 Cumberland Sauce →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's cranberry sauce is a straightforward 1:1 fruit-and-sugar jelly built for a hotel kitchen; the quantities and the pan are what need attention.

The untinned saucepanThis meant bare, unlined copper, which nineteenth-century confectioners favored because it kept preserves bright. Cranberries are strongly acidic and will leach copper from an unlined pan, so use stainless steel or enameled cast iron instead. Nothing else about the method changes.
Scale it downFive pounds of cranberries is roughly six and a half of today's 12-oz bags, about 20 cups of fruit, and yields something near four quarts of sauce. One pound of berries to one pound of sugar with a scant cup of water holds the proportions for a single dinner.
Sugar goes in last, and by weightEqual weights of fruit and sugar is the instruction, not equal volumes; a pound of sugar is a little over two cups. Adding it only after the skins have burst lets the berries break down properly rather than staying firm in syrup.
No pectin neededCranberries are among the highest-pectin fruits and carry plenty of their own acid, so the mixture sets on cooling without any addition. Cook until the berries have all popped and the mass mounds on a spoon.
"Pass through a coarse colander"This is a food mill or a coarse sieve worked with a wooden spoon, not a fine strainer. The point is to remove skins while keeping the pulp, giving a smooth jelly rather than the whole-berry sauce most people expect now.
StorageA cool closet was the best a nineteenth-century household could offer and this recipe includes no sealing or processing step. Treat it as a refrigerator preserve: cool, cover, and keep chilled for two or three weeks, or freeze. For shelf-stable jars, follow a current tested canning procedure.
ServingFiled among the cold sauces, it is meant to be set out chilled and firm alongside roast turkey, chicken or game, in the same role as No. 597 and the Cumberland sauce that follows it.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's, gives the dish a French title, sauce aux caneberges, but the fruit is thoroughly American: Vaccinium macrocarpon, the large-fruited cranberry of northeastern bogs, harvested commercially on Cape Cod from the early nineteenth century and shipped in barrels to city markets. Its place in The Epicurean among the cold sauces, rather than as a holiday side dish, reflects period practice, in which sharp fruit jellies stood in the same rank as Cumberland sauce and other cold accompaniments to roast and game. The instruction to use an untinned pan points to the confectioner's tradition Ranhofer trained in, where unlined copper was believed to preserve the color of red fruit preserves.