Fresh cranberries are very popular this time of the year in the west. A thanksgiving meal or a traditional Christmas feast will feature the cranberry as a side dish or in a sauce, or even as part of the turkey stuffing.
Cranberries are a fairly new entrant in our supermarket shelves. While fresh cranberries are available sometimes, they are quite expensive. So, I stick to using the dried ones in my cooking.
Dried cranberries are much like dried raisins and intense in flavour. The sugars are concentrated, but they still retain their tartness. This makes it such a versatile ingredient to work with in both sweet as well as savoury food. Our local stores are full of dried cranberries from different countries. Read the label when you buy them; look for those with little or no sugar.
Another reason cranberries are prescribed by health gurus is because of the prevalence of many vitamins and antioxidants. The cranberry juice has been promoted as being high in polyphenols and flavonoids that are extremely beneficial in treating stomach disorders, ulcers and urinary tract infections. Dried cranberries contain vitamin E, along with traces of iron, potassium and vitamin C.
It is a berry that I have found very easy to incorporate into many a salad and rich dish, while cooking both continental as well as Middle Eastern food. My “Christmas salad”, which I have so named because of its colours featuring both broccoli and cranberries, is a favourite at home. Unfortunately, not everyone is agreeable to giving new food a try when offered in salad form. So the trick is to make cranberry treats, like the white chocolate and cranberry cookies and chocolate bark. Cranberries pair very well with both white chocolate and orange. Similarly, the milky sweetness of chocolate highlights the sour bite of the cranberry. Add bits of chopped green pistachios, and you have a delicious Christmas confection that is the work of minutes. Chocolate bark is rather thin, so while the sizes may look substantial, the volume is actually small. All that is required is a good quality of dark or milk chocolate. A swirl of melted white chocolate gives that marbling effect. Do refrain from using compound chocolate, as that contains more of hydrogenated oil and no cocoa butter. The chocolate has to be melted in what is known as a ‘baine-marie’. It’s a fun process that tantalises your senses and leaves you salivating. It’s very hard to not dip a finger in for a quick lick from that pool of melted chocolate heaven!
