Port and Orange Cranberry Sauce

I was a fan of shop brought cranberry sauce as a child. It must have been something about the sweetness. In my teenage years I started to hanker for more from a sauce. The strangely flavoured blob of very sweet and slightly bitter sauce did not seem to deserve the space it occupied on my plate of Christmas dinner! Fortunately fresh cranberries have become more readily available in this country (frozen ones too) so in recent years I have been able to enjoy home made cranberry sauce packed full of flavour and not bulked out with too much sugar. This recipe is one that started at home with my parents and I have developed over the past few years - I don't think I could do Christmas without it now!

Ingredients:

• 300g Cranberries
• 1 shard of cinnamon
• 1 blade of mace (or a good grating of nutmeg)
• Zest and juice of 1 orange
• 6 tbsp Port
• Pinch of salt
• Sugar to taste

Place all the ingredients (except the sugar) into a pan and simmer gently for 20 minutes. The berries should have split open and partially stewed by this point. Add the sugar - I usually use about 6 - 8 tbsp of granulated but just keep adding and tasting until you are stood over a hot pan of cranberry sauce going 'mmmm'. At this stage you can let it cool and reheat when required. I tend to make mine a few days before and sit it in the fridge (with the cinnamon still submerged).