Recipe: Cherry Sauce for Ham, Pork, or Turkey

Cherry Sauce for Ham, Pork, or Turkey
rec.food.cooking/Ian Staples (1993)
The following quantities will serve about 8 people

Recipe from John Morris (central Queensland butcher and caterer) on ABC Radio, Queensland Sunday, 19 Dec 93

This sauce is suitable for serving with pork &/or ham &/or turkey. Not so great with beef. Allow about 5 cherries/serve.

Take a good 3 pint (1.5 - 2 L) saucepan and heat together
(John actually equated "3 pints" to 2 - 2.5 L, up to you now :-)

1 Tablespoon butter
1 Tablespoon brown sugar

until the sugar is *all* melted and mixed through the butter. Throw in:

1/2 Cup chopped shallots - *lightly* braise in the butter/sugar mix
(you only want the shallots to be more or less "wilted") then add
1/2 Cup port wine (any old port will do).

[At this stage, if you are using tinned cherries, drain the juice into the saucepan and reduce the lot back to what it was with just the port.]

Now add:

1/2 Cup *very best* (Dundee?) orange marmalade and heat until near boiling and the marmalade is all melted. If it is not the very best marmalade you may have to thicken the sauce with cornflour at this stage - cooks will have to exercise their own judgment on this point.

Finally, just before serving, add:

1 Cup stoned cherries. If fresh, braise briefly (about 1 minute or so); if tinned, just drop them in as you are serving the sauce. (You want the cherries to be still plump and "sitting up", not collapsed in on themselves.)

Options:

1. Lime marmalade as an alternative to orange. This gives more bite to the sauce, so is especially good if serving pork only.

2. Red currant jelly and sliced ripe but firm mango instead of marmalade.