EDF Cooking Contest--Cranberry Challenge

[BretWeir]

Main Course: Venison with Port-Cranberry Sauce, "Crandied" Yams

When I cook venison, I usually marinade it in gin for a couple of hours to remove some of the gaminess. I boiled a handful of fresh cranberries just until they popped, then let them steep in a cup of gin for a couple of days, then marinaded the venison tenderloin in the cranberry-infused gin for about 2 hours before cooking. Here's the gin concoction about a day in.



While the venison was marinating, I made the sauce:

1 cup chicken broth
1 cup beef broth
1/2 cup ruby Port
1/3 cup cranberry sauce (the jelly cylinder that comes in a can)
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp dried rosemary

Combine chicken and beef broth in a saucepan and boil until reduced to 1 cup. Add the Port and boil until reduced to 3/4 cup. Whisk in cranberry sauce and rosemary and simmer until sauce thickens. Whisk in butter. Strain sauce.

When the sauce was done, I seasoned the the venison tenderloins and sauteed them in a tiny bit of butter until they were just browned (about 2 minutes on each side).



For the side dish, I halved a few large yams, threw a pat of butter on each half, and roasted them in the oven for about an hour at 350 degrees. I scooped out and mashed the meat, and added some more butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and cloves. I simmered about 3/4 cup of dried cranberries in 1/2 cup orange juice until they plumped up a bit and folded them into the yams.

The final product:



The venison was really flavorful, but probably could have been cooked a bit less. The port-cranberry sauce was great -- I would not have expected something with so much canned craberry sauce in it to taste so elegant, but it did.

[BretWeir]

Dessert: Cranberry Sauce Ice Cream; White Cranberry Foam

Dessert was something of a disappointment. I recently bought some "molecular gastronomy" supplies, and was hoping to make a cranberry fruit caviar a la El Bulli.

Unfortunately, cranberry juice appears to be too acidic to properly "gel" in the calcium chloride solution, so I had to abort the experiment after a couple of tries. (There are apparently some work-arounds for spherifying acidic liquids, but they look to be a good bit more advanced than I am.)

So I ended up doing one old-fashioned item -- ice cream -- and one new-style dessert item -- white cranberry foam.

I thought that a really tart cranberry ice cream might taste a bit off, so I decided to try to replicate the somewhat sweeter flavor of cranberry sauce in frozen form.

2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 cup sugar
6 egg yolks
1/8 tsp salt
2 12-oz bags frozen cranberries
2 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp clove
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp powdered cinnamon
1 oz Cointreau
zest of 1 orange
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup dried cranberries

Bring cream and 1/2 cup sugar just to a boil; keep stirring until sugar is dissolved. Remove from burner and cover to keep warm.

Beat together eggs, salt, and 1/2 cup sugar until thick. Slowly add the hot milk to the egg mixture, stirring constantly. Cook over low heat, stirring, until custard reaches 170 degrees. Strain custard and let cool.



Combine cranberries, 1/2 cup sugar, Cointreau, and cinnamon sticks in heavy saucepan and bring to a boil.



Simmer over low heat until cranberries burst. Let the mixture cool, then remove cinammon stick, transfer to blender and puree.



Stir cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and orange zest into the custard. Fold the cranberry mixture into the custard, stir in walnuts and dried cranberries, and process in ice cream maker. Keep ice cream in freezer overnight to set.





To garnish the ice cream, I made some sugar ornaments by boiling 1 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup cranberry juice in a saucepan until it caramelized, then drizzing the sugar over a heatproof mat and letting it cool.





The foam was cool and super-easy. I dissolved 1 1/2 sheets of gelatin in 8 oz. of white cranberry juice. I added the mixture to my new Isi Whip charger, charged the dispenser with a nitrous cartridge, shook it, and put in the fridge overnight. Just before serving, I shot a cloud of foam on each plate.

The garnish dots around the plate are reduced and thickened cranberry wine.



Although the caviar failure was disappointing, I was pleased with the end result. The ice cream was intensely red, really creamy, not too sweet, and actually tasted like homemade, chunky cranberry sauce. The foam had an incredibly light, airy texture (much, much lighter than whipped cream), but the cranberry flavor came right through.

[Mermade]

BRAVO!

[BretWeir]

Looks like the final meat pic didn't come through for some reason, so here it is again:

[SamIAm]

The foam is really neat. I definitely think the molecular gastronomy stuff is interesting. What other projects have you tried? What happened when you tried to make the cranberry caviar?

The foam and garnish on the dessert both look really fun. Well done.

[SamIAm]

For christmas this year, Greenbird and I are making jam. We figured it'd be nice to send something to all those cousins and college friends that normally wouldn't get gifts. It'll be three or four flavors per package, depending on when we lose steam. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I'll post a trip-report when we're further along in that project, but I did make sure one of our jams uses cranberries.

<font color="red">Cran-Raspberry Preserves</font>

1 bag Cranberries
20 oz Frozen Raspberries
1/2 Orange Zest
1 C Water
5 C Sugar
1 pack Powdered Pectin

Bring all of the above up to a boil, stirring periodically.





Sterilize your jars and funnel and clamps and ladle. I just washed them all in the dishwasher and then brought them to a boil in my monstrous canning kettle.



After the above have boiled for 10 minutes, turn off the heat and toss in the lids. (You don't want the lids to boil, because the sealing solution will melt off.)

Remove the blistering hot clamps and then use those to remove the blistering hot jars. Use the funnel and ladle to load the jars to about 1/3" from the top.



Tighten the lids to finger-tight and put 'em back in the kettle. Boil for 15 minutes.



Serve. Or, don't for a couple years. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[SamIAm]

The month is almost out. Does anybody need the weekend to finish anything, or is this about it? (I don't think every month needs quite the response that Pumpkin got. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])

What contest do we want to do for December? I was thinking about maybe "Battle: Baking". Tis the season, with the holidays coming up. We could do Alcohol as an ingredient for January and the new year, or we could push it to December if you guys'd rather.

Any other ideas? Whatcha think?

[Mermade]

Sam, We are on the same wavelength. Baking is what I was going to suggest for December. I think people will be busy over the holidays, but everyone will be making family favorites, pies, breads, cookies and it would be great to rachet it up a level for a challenge. We might get more participation than we would for a more structured contest. Sounds great to me.

I have three bags of cranberries. I have one idea in mind and could crank out a couple of more, but wouldn't be able to get to it until the weekend. I'm o.k. with it ending tomorrow too. Whatever. We could extend the cranberry contest through the weekend but also start December thread on the 1st. How does that sound?

[BretWeir]

[ QUOTE ]
The foam is really neat. I definitely think the molecular gastronomy stuff is interesting. What other projects have you tried? What happened when you tried to make the cranberry caviar?

The foam and garnish on the dessert both look really fun. Well done.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've mostly been playing around with foams and with sodium alginate/calcium chloride gelling. I've made a couple of caviars that came out better than the cranberry -- one with apple juice and one with (strangely) flat Coke. When I dropped the alginated cranberry juice into the solution, it just didn't gel -- it kind of flattened out and sunk to the bottom of the bowl. It was cohesive enough not to disperse immediately, but when I stirred the water gently, it broke apart.

I also picked up a couple of other toys -- including some tapioca maltodextrin, which is supposed to turn fats into powder (bacon powder, anyone?) My next experiment will probably be pea soup "ravioli", which I may try this weekend.

If people are interested, I'll start a thread to report and discuss. I'd love to hear if anyone else has experimented with this stuff.