Non-Negotiable Thanksgiving Dishes #2 and #3: The Cranberry Contingent

Thanksgiving wouldn't be Thanksgiving without cranberry sauce, right? In traditional foodmomiac fashion, we take that one step further by making TWO types of cranberry sauce. I love, love, love both. Below are the two recipes (which I've posted before but re-posted here for your convenience).

Cranberry Horseradish Relish

This is from the 1994 Thanksgiving Bon Appetit. It is one of our favorites. The tangy flavor provides an excellent foil to the rich turkey. My sister-in-law is vegetarian, but she eats this with EVERYTHING. She especially loves it with the creamed corn.

2 cups cranberries (about 8 ounces)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup prepared horseradish
1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

Chop berries with sugar in a food processor. Place it into a bowl. Add horseradish and lemon juice, and mix well. Cover with plastic wrap and chill it for at least 1 day. (Can be made up to
5 days ahead). You are correct in reading that the cranberries are raw in this recipe. If this relish doesn't sit for at least 24 hours, it will be too crunchy.

Cook's Illustrated Cranberry Sauce
Every Thanksgiving, my mom made homemade cranberry sauce. And, while some of the berries were sweet and delicious, there are always plenty that were almost too tart to bear. After I found this recipe by Cook's Illustrated in 1999, the too-tart berry became a thing of the past. The secret? Salt!! The salt brings out the sweetness from EVERY cranberry, yielding the perfect cranberry sauce.

3/4 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 12oz.bag of cranberries, picked through

Bring water, sugar and salt to a boil in a medium pot over high heat. Stir occasionally to insure that the sugar dissolves and doesn't burn. Once dissolved, stir in cranberries and return the mixture to a boil. Lower the heat to medium and simmer until the sauce thickens. You want about 2/3 of the berries to pop open. (CI says this takes about five minutes. I ALWAYS cook it longer, because I like a thicker sauce.) Pour the sauce into a bowl (not metal) and chill. This can be prepared up to seven days in advance. CI recommends serving it at room temperature, but I like it nice and cold.