A 50 pound bag of flour ought to hold me for a while. Scoring this humongous sack today gave me the same joy i felt as a college freshman when my dorm mate brought home a half keg of beer.

King Arthur Flour’s Sir Lancelot has a higher gluten percentage than just about any American-milled flour, and ought to produce the chewy bagels I’m after. If I can’t, it’s not the flour’s fault.

But scoring a beer keg as an eighteen year old is as difficult as securing this high gluten flour as a home baker. This particular brand is only distributed through wholesale channels to professional bakers. I spoke to a Phoenix distributor willing to sell me a pallet of 50 bags. That’s a ton and a quarter of flour.

A schmuck like me has to jump through serious hoops to get a “small” quantity, or have really good friends with a hookup. Thanks, RM, you are the best!

I interviewed barbecue legend Mike Mills today over the phone for an upcoming review of his book, and I’m playing back the recording to Gurlfren. Mike and I are talking about liquid smoke flavoring in barbecue sauce.

She: “What’s liquid smoke made from?”

Me: “It’s wood smoke filtered through water, like distilling smoke through a water column.”

She: “So, it’s like…bong water?”

Me: “Um, yeah. Zactly.”

There’s nothing new under the sun in the food world and this technique as applied to fruit preserves is probably in use somewhere. For all I know, this might be a common technique in jam making, which I know little about. If you know of a recipe like this that starts by adding fruit to hot caramel, please point me to it so I can research it further.

The key idea is to minimize the cooking time to retain the fresh fruit flavors and aromas. Start with no added liquid other than honey and maple syrup cooked down until it’s a caramel. Adding fruit to this intensely hot syrup causes the fruit to pop quickly and give up its juices fast. The small amount of juice produced is the only liquid that needs to cook off.

This recipe yields a chunky sauce of thick consistency with cranberries that still pop between the teeth, and apples that stil have some texture. If you like a less chunky sauce, I have some suggestions after the recipe.

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Fresh n’ Fruity Cranberry Chutney
©2004 Professor Salt

Yield: roughly 1/2 quart (all measurements in US units)

Ingredients:
One 12 oz. bag fresh cranberries
1 medium sized apple – I used a Fuji
1/4 cup maple syrup - I like the dark and strongly flavored US grade B
1/4 cup honey
freshly grated zest of 1 lemon
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Optional:
Black pepper, a few grinds, to taste
Ground cardomom, to taste
Grand Marnier, a splash to add flavor, but not enough to booze it up.
Maple syrup, to taste

1. Rinse cranberries in a bowl of water. Discard stems and spoiled berries. Drain berries in a colander.
2. Core and chop apple, with skin on, into small pieces about the same size as cranberries
3. Mix maple syrup and honey in a 3 quart saucepot with a heavy clad bottom, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
4. Reduce the syrup and measure it with a candy thermometer until it reaches hard crack stage, 300 degrees Farenheit.
5. Quickly add cranberries.
6. Stir fruit with a heat resistant silicone spatula or wooden spoon constantly for 2 minutes. Scrape syrup off the bottom of pot, and coat all of the fruit with the syrup.
7. Add the apples, and stir again to coat.
8. Reduce heat to low, and allow the fruit to seep out its juices.
9. Cook uncovered for 20 minutes or until the juices have evaporated and/or absorbed into the sauce. Stir every few minutes during cooking. Time will vary depending on how juicy the fruit started out.
10. Remove pot from heat, and dip the pot into a sinkful of cool water to bring contents quickly to room temperature.
11. Add salt, pepper, lemon zest, and optional ingredients like vanillla, Grand Marnier, or spices, and taste.
12. If more sweetener is desired, drizzle maple syrup and meditate until nirvana is achieved.
13. Transfer cooled sauce into a sealed container, and store in refrigerator.

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NOTE: Sugar burns are extremely painful. DO NOT touch or taste the syrup no matter how tempting it looks. Use a larger pot than you think you need (I used a 3 quart saucier) because the syrup foams up alot. Overspilled sugar will wreak havoc on your stovetop. Ask me how I know.

Maple and honey start boiling. Its water content is still high at this point. Pay attention to its color and the size of bubbles as it cooks off.

240F, “soft ball” stage. Individual bubbles are fairly large, and color has darkened.

300F, “hard crack” stage. I’m a jackass and dropped the thermometer. Tiny bubbles form a tall foam.

Cranberries start popping immdiately. Stir well to coat evenly.

Apples go in a minute later. Notice the amount of juice already given off.

Sorry, I didn’t take a photo of the final product. Use the Force to know when it’s done, you will.

This is a tart, almost chutney-like sauce because the honey and maple syrup have caramelized enough that it loses its sugary character and takes on a darkly roasted caramel flavor. The variety of apple will also affect its sweetness. If you want yours sweeter, add additional maple syrup after the sauce has cooled to room temperature.

If you like a less chunky sauce where all the cranberry skins have popped, try one of these options:

1) Cover the pot while it cooks to retain liquid, and increase your cooking time to 30 minutes or slightly more. The additional time will help break down the cranberry skins until they’ve all popped.
or
2) Cook the sauce uncovered per the instructions, then run the room temperature product briefly through a food processor.

If you try this technique, please come back and comment. I’m still dialing it in and I’d appreciate your feedback.

My Japanese family emigrated to New York in 1973 blissfully unaware of Thanksgiving, cranberry sauce, or turkey induced food comas. I have my second grade teacher to thank for introducing me to all that, and seeding a love for cooking on the one day Americans celebrate clueless FOB immigrants.

I was seven years old. Ms. Shapiro was a pretty first year teacher fresh out of grad school (ahem…schoolboycrush). It was 1975, and she let us play the Bay City Rollers on the record player and dance like goons if we were good. She taught us about holidays through food traditions and having us kids cook in class. We formed wontons on Chinese New Year for instance, and she did the frying. Being the only Asian kid in my school (except for my sister), I already knew how to use chopsticks and helped her show the other kids how (ugghahem…teacherspet).

On Thanksgiving, we made cranberry sauce in class. Hers is the classicly simple recipe: berries, apples, sugar, water, orange juice and zest simmered for a couple hours until thickened. I’ve made cranberry sauce every Thanksgiving since. The jellied gloop still shaped like a can has never fouled my parents’ holiday meal out of sheer ignorance of the stuff. I think of Ms. Shapiro every November and often thought I should track her down to say thanks for imbuing an early love of food and cooking. Two years ago, I did exactly that and we’ve since been in touch via email.

She confessed that she spilled those cranberries all over the floor while she was prepping the recipe. We kids were in another classroom at the time so we didn’t see her having to chase them all over the room, under the desks, before we could cook. Mmm… dust bunnies. I also learned she got her recipe from her mom. So this tradition goes back a ways.

I admit that after nearly three decades of making this sauce, the magic wasn’t there for me. I didn’t need B.B. King to tell me the thrill was gone. I tweaked the basic recipe every year by adding spices, wine, or Grand Marnier. I tried using maple syrup or honey instead of white sugar for added flavor. And I realized that was the whole problem: I was adding other flavors to make up for a lack of fresh berry and apple flavors. Why the lack of fresh fruit flavors? Because I was simmering the sauce for two hours and all the volatile aromas and flavors had long since cooked off. Why did I need to cook it for two hours? Because it started off with too much liquid. Why, why, why? Because that’s the way our mamas did it and we don’t screw with tradition, that’s why.

In my next post, I’ll share a technique I came up with last year for a fresh tasting, quick cooking cranberry sauce.