Cumberland Sauce

Cumberland Sauce is the one and only, best and brightest, one hundred percent winner of a sauce to have with your Christmas Ham. It's also pretty simple to make: the only time-consuming bit is julienning the cirtus peel, but if you stick on some Christmas songs or a DVD it'll pass in a flash. It is sometimes called Oxford sauce, and the internets would have me believe that they are pretty much the same thing. However, my Food Guru tells me that  the difference is in the citrus peel, which is julienned in a Cumberland sauce and finely chopped in an Oxford one.

It's pretty much redcurrant jelly, melted, jazzed up with some alcohol, citrus and spices and reintroduced in a yummy Christmas disguise. Especially brilliant because you can serve it straight away, warm and runny, if you're eating a hot meal; or you can store it in a jar, like you would redcurrant jelly or jam (it sets slightly), and eat it later. It keeps as well as any other jam or jelly. Incidentally, it makes a killer Boxing Day ham sandwich or salad. A lot of people add mustard to their sauce - in fact, mustard is one of the defining elements of a Cumberland sauce - but I used cayenne pepper this year. You can use either: I'd recommend cayenne if you like a bit of bite, and mustard for a bit of a smoother, milder tone.

I've made my Cumberland sauce today so as to have something to say to you lovely people, but it's such a simple thing to do you could easily fit it into one of those periods when the Ham is soaking, or boiling, or cooling, or all those other time-consuming things you have to do with ham. Let's face it, in the time it takes to cook the ham you could make Christmas dinner twice over.

So, here's the recipe for your sauce.

Ingredients:
Makes about one or two jars full, depending on the jars and the size of your spoons


One orange
One lemon
8 or so big spoonfuls of redcurrant jelly (shop-bought is fine)
3-4 of the same sized spoonfuls of port (mmm...)
A sprinkle of ground ginger
A sprinkle of cayenne pepper
Some mustard if you like, probably instead of the cayenne

Method:

Firstly, if you're putting this in jars to eat later, you're going to want to sterilize the jars. This will help your sauce to keep for longer. Just boil them in a big pan of water for a couple of minutes, with the lids if they are metal, then fish them out (CAREFULLY, they will obviously be HOT) and dry them in a low oven while you do the rest of the recipe.

Now to the time-consuming bit. Get this over with while you watch something Christmassy on telly. You need the orange and the lemon, which should preferably be unwaxed - although if you shop at the same supermarkets I do, they won't be I'm afraid. You also need a vegetable peeler, or a nice sharp little knife. You need to peel the orange and lemon, as thinly as you can manage, taking off as much of the rind and as little of the sour white pith as possible. You can slice any pith extra pith off the rind. When you've got a pile of it needs to be julienned, which means cut into slices as thinly as you can manage.

That's the boring bit over; now it's a matter for twenty minutes or so and you're done. Put the citrus peel in a pan and cover it with cold water, then bring it to the boil and simmer quite rapidly for 4 minutes or a little longer. This is called blanching. Don't worry if the colour goes from the peel - it's meant to. The whole thing will smell gorgeous.

When it's done, drain the peel out, and get yourself a bigger saucepan with nice high sides. If the sides are too low, what happened to me will happen to you, and it's never fun to spend 15 minutes cleaning sticky redcurrant jelly off the sides of your parents' electric stove because the pan's boiled over.

Now, juice the orange and the lemon, and stick the juice, jelly and spices in the saucepan. You can add the mustard at this point if you're using it. Pop the saucepan on the heat and stir until the jelly has melted and everything has combined. Then add the port and peel, and turn up the heat. Boil vigorously for ten minutes, or until it's reached setting point (put some on a cold saucer, and if it forms a thin skin after a few moments you're sorted). This is the time to be avoiding the boil-over moment. Watch it like a hawk, and stick a cold spoon in if it looks like disobeying you. In extreme cricumstances, take it off the heat for a bit.

Now, pour carefully into the jars, if you're using them, or into a jug if you're serving it hot. You can always reheat it if it's cooled too much. Put the lids on the jars, screw firmly on, then turn the jar upside down and back upright to sterilise the lid (this is a trick I learned from 'Pam the Jam' - I kid you not - on River Cottage, with which, as you know, I am utterly obsessed).

There you have it. Cumberland sauce, to eat with the best Christmas Ham you've ever tasted. I hope you enjoy it as much as I will.