My black currant sauce is actually derived from the original Cumberland sauce. But since I was lacking a few ingredients on a Sunday night, I chose to let away the worcester sauce and the port wine. Instead, I used garlic, chili, bay leaf and red wine. I ended up with a more fruity sauce with a bit of “oomph” when it comes to spicyness.
The ingredients:
- a glass of black currant jelly
- 1-2 shallots
- 1/2 lemon peel
- sugar, best is jelly sugar to make the sauce thicker or molasses
- 1-2 bay leafs
- 1 fresh garlic clove
- a Chili pod
- orange juice
- 2 glasses of good (!) red wine
- salt and pepper
- a few drops of balsamico vinegar cream
- optional: clove or cinnamon, port wine, tamarin as seasonal herbs
First peel the lemon, garlic and shallots. Cut the shallots and the garlic in halves, not too small, or the taste will get too strong. Put them into a bowl together with the bay leafs, the chili, the lemon peel and the red wine. leave the bowl in a warm place for at least 2 hours, better over night. until the shallots and the garlic pieces are soaked in red wine.
After the bowl rested and the ingredients got a really red color, take out the garlic and the shallots and roast them in a pan at low heat with a little bit of butter. Add the chili pod, lemon peel and the bay leafs and start covering the pan with sugar or molasses and a tea spoon of the vinegar cream to caramelize the sugar. When the sugar melts and gets a little golden brown color, add the red wine mix out of the bowl and cook it on low heat until the red wine is reduced to about half of its mass. Slow stir in the glass of black currant jelly and take the sauce from the oven to cool down. Take out the shallots, garlic, bay leafs and the lemon peel, so that only the sauce is left and pour it into a nice serving bowl, stirn in salt and pepper. The remains of the sauce in the pan could be poured into a clean bottle with a cap. Make sure to rinse it with hot water first. Now place the sauce in the fridge for at least 1 hour, os it will get thicker again and ready to serve.
Optional variants of the sauce:
Cinnamon, clove, tamarind and port wine are fantastic to give some extra flavour to the sauce, according to your meat dish. Just add them to the bowl when soaking the garlic and shallots, and later to the cooking pan.
