Raw Cranberry-Orange Relish (the Grinder Classic)
No stove at all: raw cranberries, a whole unpeeled orange, an apple and sugar ground coarse and left to sit a day, the way families once cranked it through a meat grinder clamped to the table.
Edited by JP Lambiase
Change the estimate
Swaps change the price only: cook any meat to its own safe temperature. Where these numbers come from
The uncooked relish is a family recipe more than a printed one, and most versions trace back to a hand-cranked meat grinder. The Boston Globe printed one reader's uncooked cranberry-orange relish, credited to her uncle Leonard L. F. Remington, who ate at a restaurant in Bellingham, Massachusetts, almost every day in the 1950s and 1960s; the original was made in a meat grinder, and the Globe suggests a food processor today. The trick that makes the relish work is grinding the orange whole, peel and all, which America's Test Kitchen says gives "a deep citrus flavor and mild bitterness" to balance the sugar. Its most famous cousin is the pink relish with sour cream and horseradish that NPR's Susan Stamberg read on the air every Thanksgiving; NPR traces it to a 1959 New York Times recipe by Craig Claiborne (search results only; see Step 3).
🇺🇸 This one is American
No stove at all: raw cranberries, a whole unpeeled orange, an apple and sugar ground coarse and left to sit a day, the way families once cranked it through a meat grinder clamped to the table.
🇺🇸 The original
The original is succotash: corn and beans cooked together, the Three Sisters of Native American farming with squash beside them. See the Three Sisters Succotash recipe.
📖 Origin story: Why Is Canned Cranberry Sauce a Ridged Log? A Short History →
Why it works the kitchen science
The whole orange
The peel's oils and slight bitterness keep a raw, very sweet relish from tasting like candy, and it is the reason the relish tastes of orange at all (ATK).
Rest before serving
A day in the refrigerator lets the sugar dissolve and pull juice from the raw berries, softening their bite and blending the flavors (ATK says 1 to 2 days).
🧰 You'll need 4 items
Everything the steps call for. Tick off what you have before you start.
Appliances
Tools
Step by step
- Step 1
Scrub the orange under warm water, trim off both ends, cut it into 8 pieces and flick out any seeds.
- Step 2
Put the orange pieces in a food processor and pulse about 10 times, until the peel is in small bits.
- Step 3
Add the apple, cranberries, sugar, ginger and salt. Pulse 10 to 15 times, scraping the bowl once, until everything looks like coarse meal with no whole berries left. Stop before it turns to purée.
✓ What it should look like - Step 4
Scrape into a glass or plastic container, cover and refrigerate 1 to 2 days, stirring once a day. The sugar draws out juice and the color deepens.
- Step 5
Stir, taste and add a spoonful more sugar if the orange peel is too bitter for you. Serve cold.
Raw Cranberry-Orange Relish (the Grinder Classic)
Serves 16 · about 2 cups · 15 min total
- 1 large sweet apple (such as Gala or Fuji), peeled, cored and roughly chopped
- 1 (12-ounce) bag fresh or frozen cranberries (thawed if frozen), rinsed and picked over
- 1 whole orange, scrubbed, ends trimmed, cut into 8 pieces with the peel on, seeds removed
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- Pinch of table salt
Equipment: Food processor, Chef's knife and cutting board, Measuring cups and spoons, Mixing bowls
Method
- Scrub the orange under warm water, trim off both ends, cut it into 8 pieces and flick out any seeds.
- Put the orange pieces in a food processor and pulse about 10 times, until the peel is in small bits.
- Add the apple, cranberries, sugar, ginger and salt. Pulse 10 to 15 times, scraping the bowl once, until everything looks like coarse meal with no whole berries left. Stop before it turns to purée.
- Scrape into a glass or plastic container, cover and refrigerate 1 to 2 days, stirring once a day. The sugar draws out juice and the color deepens.
- Stir, taste and add a spoonful more sugar if the orange peel is too bitter for you. Serve cold.
Adapted from America's Test Kitchen (Cook's Country), "Cranberry-Apple-Orange Relish" (November 3, 2011), as written for 16. The grinder history is from the Boston Globe recipe linked in the Story. The grinder method in Tips is ours. America's Test Kitchen. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
All sources (2)
Tips
- Make-ahead: this one has to be made ahead. Make it Tuesday or Wednesday for Thursday.
- Grinder method (ours): feed the orange, apple and berries through the coarse plate of a hand-cranked or stand-mixer meat grinder into a bowl set underneath to catch the juice, then stir in the sugar, ginger and salt.
- Leave the apple out for the plain two-fruit relish many families make; it will be a little more tart.
- Use a navel orange; it has no seeds and a thinner pith.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- The classic relish is just cranberries, orange and sugar. Folklore: that is how many family versions go, but ATK adds apple and ginger, and the Boston Globe version adds apples too. Neither is wrong.
- It must be made in a meat grinder. Folklore: the grinder is the old tool (Boston Globe), but a food processor does the same job if you pulse instead of blend.
- Peel the orange first. Disputed: ATK keeps the whole peel on for flavor; many cooks peel or zest it to cut bitterness. Both are real recipes.
- Raw relish is healthier than cooked sauce. Folklore: it is uncooked, but it still carries 3/4 cup of sugar.
- The pink horseradish relish came from Susan Stamberg's mother-in-law. Disputed: that is how the radio story is often told; NPR's own later account (search results only) traces it to Craig Claiborne's 1959 New York Times recipe.
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