Cranberries Sybil Kapoor Cranberries may be considered 'festive', but what exactly do you do with them once you get them home? We have some delectable cooking suggestions right here.

In this article

What are cranberries? North American cranberries

Storing How to cook them

Cranberry dishes Recipes

Cranberries are a delicious seasonal fruit that can be transformed into luscious dishes

Scarlet cranberries are still regarded by many as a slightly suspect American import. Certainly they make a pleasantly tart sauce for the Christmas turkey, but are they good for much else? Ironically, it was the early English settlers who recognised that the plump red berries that the Native Americans introduced to them were related to the smaller cranberries that they had cooked and eaten in pies in Britain. Used properly, cranberries are a delicious seasonal fruit that can be transformed into luscious dishes throughout the winter.

Cranberries are the fruit of a low, scrubby, woody bog plant of the genus Vaccinium. A larger-berried branch of the family, V. macrocarpon, originated in the acidic, icy bogs of North America. These grow mainly in Quebec and British Columbia in Canada and the states of Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Washington and Oregon in the US. Other, smaller strains, such as the small cranberry (V. oyxcoccus) and the mountain cranberry (V. vitis idaea), both of which are also known as lingonberries, grow wild in Scandinavia, northern Europe and Northern Britain. A few American plants now also grow wild in northern Europe.

Traditionally, wild small cranberries were picked each autumn and turned into pies, tarts and preserves in Britain, before much of the marshland was drained in the 17th and 18th centuries. Today, however, there are too few plants and too low a fruit crop to make them worth picking. Better to pop into the local supermarket instead.

The bulk of the world's cranberries are now grown in North America, where growers have perfected the art of farming them, based on how the cranberries used to grow naturally in the wild. Peter Beaton, a fourth-generation cranberry grower in Carver, south-east Massachusetts, says: "Cranberries like dry bright skies throughout their growing season, and, once the fruit is ripening, they prefer cool nights. However, they also need some rain, because once the temperature falls below -7C (20F) we have to flood the cranberry fields to protect the plants from the extreme winter cold by keeping them underneath 10cm (4in) of ice."

One of the remarkable properties of fresh cranberries is their ability to keep for months on end in a cool place. This is because they contain large amounts of benzoic acid, which is a natural preservative. The early settlers in America used to store them in barrels in their cellars, and American sailors carried them on long voyages to prevent scurvy.

The essential thing to remember when cooking cranberries is that sugar toughens their skins, so it's best to cook them until tender and then add sugar to taste. If making any form of sauce or purée, the berries should be placed in a pan with enough liquid to reach almost the top of the fruit, but not enough to cover it. They should then be simmered until the berries burst (about four minutes). Or, if you want to retain their shape, simmer until they're just tender.

Walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts, for example, all taste delicious with cranberries

The best way to create recipes with cranberries is to imagine their taste in your mouth and then mentally match it with other ingredients. Walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts, for example, all taste delicious with cranberries regardless of whether they're in a savoury stuffing for chicken or in a baked sweet frangipane tart. Orange or lemon zest bring out floral notes in cranberries in both sweet and savoury dishes while vanilla and cinnamon bring out their sweetness in puddings.

In the US, cranberries are simmered in sauces, mixed into bread- or meat-based stuffings for turkey, added to muffins and baked in fruit tarts and pies. However, cranberries work well in many other types of recipes. For example, once cooked and puréed, they can be transformed into wonderful (shocking pink) sorbets, soufflés, mousses and syllabubs. A touch of orange liqueur will add a delicious complexity to such dishes.

Their astringent taste also makes them a good addition to naturally sweet puddings, such as a buttery steamed pudding or a cream-covered hazelnut pavlova. Their unsweetened juice can even be mixed into icing sugar to make a tart icing for a sponge cake. The cooked fruit can then be sweetened and folded into whipped cream as the filling.

Editor's tip

It's even worth playing with the concept of a cranberry sauce by serving it hot with a creamy vanilla or lemon ice cream. Add a drop of vodka for extra oomph, or serve them, ice cream and all, with buckwheat pancakes. The possibilities are endless.

Here are a few recipes that are sure to get your creative instincts going. Use them as they are, or as a basis for your own experimentation.

Sweet recipes:

• Mincemeat and cranberry pies
• Cranberry compote
• Cranberry chutney
• Mincemeat, orange and cranberry strudel
• White chocolate and cranberry cookies
• Cranberry panettone pudding

Savoury recipes:

• Venison, red wine and cranberry braise
• Savoury cranberry rolls
• Roast shoulder of lamb with apricot, cranberry and rosemary stuffing and gravy
• Cranberry stuffed turkey breast
• Cranberry mulled wine