Thursday, November 3, 2011

“Mango Cranbango” – Fresh Cranberry Sauce with Dried Mango and Ghost Pepper

Don’t let the ridiculous name fool you; this delicious cranberry sauce recipe would make a wonderful condiment for your Thanksgiving turkey. My wife Michele, a cranberry sauce aficionado, says it’s the best she’s ever tasted.

Conservative estimates have the number of different cranberry sauces she’s tasted over the years at somewhere around 37, so that’s very high praise indeed. While the taste of this sauce is an unmitigated success, the name is another story.

You’ll have to forgive me, but when you post as many recipes as I do, once in a while you just have to give “half the peace sign” to those search engine algorithms, and simply amuse yourself. The “mango” and the “cran” in the name are obvious, but the “bango” comes from a few drops of hot sauce featuring the infamous ghost pepper.

I’m not sure if it’s the hottest pepper in the world, but the Bhut Jolokia is right up there. You can get the actual pepper if you look hard enough, but I had a bottle of Dave's Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce in the fridge, which worked perfectly.

It’s amazing how hot this stuff really is, and a few drops were all I needed. Believe it or not, more than just providing a searing heat, the pepper is actually celebrated for its fruity sweetness as well. By the way, while it may look like blatant product placement in the video, I can assure you I was not paid to use this specific brand (not that I’d be above such a thing…Dave, call me).

Anyway, if you’re looking for a creative, unusual, yet still relatively familiar fresh cranberry sauce for your holiday table, I hope you give this a try. Enjoy!


Ingredients:
12 oz fresh whole cranberries
4 oz dried candied mango
zest of 1 lemon
zest of 1 orange
1 cup fresh orange juice, plus the juice of 1 lemon
1/3 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp finely grated fresh ginger
1 tsp garam masala (or other Indian-style curry spice blend)
dash of hot sauce, to taste
pinch of salt

24 comments:

TheSweetestVegan said...

A little spice, sounds like a good remix to the same old same old

Anonymous said...

K Chef. Techniques are great, love the videos, have contributed. But I before you today anonymously (yes, also cowardly, I'll admit that), but I have to ask...

What is with the "acrosst" or "acrossed"?

Again, not to be an ass. Just morbidly curious. Thanks a bunch, for everything.

Pantalone said...

"... unless you love your family."

lol!

Chef John said...

That's how we say it where I'm from!

Anonymous said...

I for one think its a sexy New York accent. His voice gently tickles your soul, no joke.

huntdonald said...

I literally gasped in delight when I saw this. There are no words to adequately describe how urgently I need to make this in my kitchen. Serious yum.

Rita said...

yes... YAY, for the freakishly small wooden spoon! haven't seen that in awhile ;)

PrimeBrit said...

The real deal you showed me how to make has been the standard at Thanksgiving and has been a big hit. I will now do both and can't resist this one because of the included garam massala, of which I have plenty ;)

Great and very funny video!

Joel said...

Chef, can you actually taste the flavor of the pepper or is it just to provide heat?

Chef John said...

Not sure, because I'd have to make one without it and compare the tastes to see.

Kir said...

Not sure if I ever saw dried mango in stores here. Can you use fresh?

Chef John said...

I've never tried, but I'm sure you can. You just have to adjust the liquids since fresh would add a lot of extra moisture.

gene said...

Greetings
Realize this is not the right place but wanted to ask you about the BB grill you use. It seems to say Weber in one of your old recipes and I just saw the one for the tail gate chicken skewers done on the grill. I have a weber charcoal one but it looks nothing like yours. Yours looks really cool but I have been unable to find it on line.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Gene in Texas

Chef John said...

its this one... http://www.amazon.com/Weber-616002-Portable-Charcoal-Grill/dp/B000WEIIJ4/ref=sr_1_22?ie=UTF8&qid=1320439899&sr=8-22

Tom from Fogtown said...

Hi Chef John!! I'm definitely trying this!! Just want to know if you served this warm or cold? Thanks!!

Chef John said...

Chilled is best. Enjoy!

john said...

Just made this tonight to "practice" for Thanksgiving. It was SOOO good. Only change I made was I put a half a habanero in at the beginning instead of the hot sauce at the end. And I ate a whole bowl HOT!

Thank you!

Melody said...

OMG!!! This sounds SO good; on my table for TG. You rock, I'm a subscriber. :) - ♦Melody♦

Irina said...

Hi Chef!
Question, can I use frozen cranberries to make the sauce?

By the way, I absolutely LOOOOOVE your blog! All of my Thanksgiving dinner menu consists of your recipes. I've recommended your site to most of my friends and family. Thank you so much...love the humor!

Chef John said...

yes you can! Thanks!!

Olivia said...

just finished making this. i've been a fan for years now! thank you so much. you're an awesome teacher.

my mangoes look a lot more yellow than yours though. yours look more orange... is there a specific brand you used?

Josh said...

Hey Chef John,

Can this be made the day before? Also, can I substitute the Ghost Pepper Sauce with another ultra hot sauce?

sinnombre said...

Chef John,
Awesome recipes -- I made the french onion green bean today and it was awesome... I prepared the cranberry sauce with habanero instead of ghost pepper and it was fantastic. Thanks for all that you do!

Anonymous said...

The recipe is great! Two of our men who don't like the Sauce have tried yours and said that it's "good". One person who'd never tried/heard about the Sauce before said that she liked it (which means a lot!). Finally, a friend of mine got excited when she learned she'd got to keep the Sauce all to herself and finished it the next morning! Thank you for the recipe!