Future
Put Cranberries in Your Shrimp Cocktail
This Thanksgiving, Genevieve Ko wants you to think beyond those canned rounds and adds the fruit to a dipping sauce — and also a creamy ricotta cheesecake.
My first experience with cranberry sauce was like that of many others: carefully picking the razor-edged lid off a can, then holding the open end over a plate to let the magenta cylinder shimmy out and land with a soft fwop. Even better than the sauce’s mesmerizing jiggle was the taste, intriguing in how it was both overly sugary but not sweet enough to hide its sourness.
Recipe: Shrimp Cocktail With Cranberry Cocktail Sauce
When I finally ate, and eventually cooked, homemade cranberry sauce, I loved the fruit even more. There’s a wildness inside that shiny red skin, pricks of tart, tannic, grassy flavors that are fruity but not sweet. It’s not a taste that’s immediately likable — eaten on their own, cranberries are too bitter and tart — but tamed, they’re a revelation. Sugar is the most common balm, mellowing the berries’ harshness to a lovely tang.
But going savory with cranberries on Thanksgiving and beyond brings out even more of their wild complexity. Here, a jammy sauce for cheesecake showcases the sweet side of cranberries we know and love, and a shrimp cocktail sauce, where cranberries replace tomatoes, surprises with its familiarity and freshness. It tastes just like the classic, but with a festive zing.
Recipe: Clementine Ricotta Cheesecake With Cranberry Compote