Wild Berry Glaze
This is a half-sauce, half-glaze that I developed with highbush cranberries to serve over roast grouse. But I realized it would work well with any number of berries and any number of meats.
Obvious choices would be red currants, regular cranberries, cherries, wild chokecherries, blueberries and the like.
The key here is pure flavor. Don’t be tempted to add stock, as it will muddle things. This recipe can be doubled.
- 1 cup pureed berries
- 1/2 cup sweet white wine
- A 1-inch sprig of rosemary
- 1 small dried hot chile
- A pinch of salt
- Sugar to taste
- To puree the berries, run them through a food mill to remove seeds. You want as much pulp and juice as you can extract.
- Heat the wine in a small pot and add the salt, chile and rosemary. Bring to a rolling boil and reduce by half.
- Remove the chile and rosemary.
- Add the berry puree and bring to a boil again. Boil this down until it coats the back of your spoon. You may need to skim off foam a couple times.
- To finish, turn off the heat and add about 1 tablespoon of drippings from the roasting pan, or 1 tablespoon of butter. Swirl to combine and pour of the meat.
