The night before the big dinner I prepared the Chilli, Lemon & Herb Butter and Apple Cranberry Sauce with Chilli & Lime. Both of these can be stored in the fridge overnight, and in fact will develop in flavour.
Apple Cranberry Sauce
1 cup of cranberries, fresh or frozen
1 apple peeled and diced
Zest and juice of 1 large lime
1 red chilli deseeded and julienned ?
Quarter red onion, finely diced
Quarter cup of castor sugar
Since I couldn’t find any fresh or frozen cranberries, I used dried cranberries (half a cup) which I pre-soaked in orange juice to rehydrate them. I also used 4 small limes instead of 1 large lime (as you can see in the photo below).
What to do
Combine castor sugar with dash of apple cider in a saucepan, and simmer until the sugar dissolves and the syrup starts to thicken.
Added cranberries (with orange juice if using), apple, lime zest and juice, chilli and red onion to the saucepan and stir.
Simmer mixture for 25mins, or until you like the texture and consistency of the sauce. Set aside to cool.
I prefer more tart and savoury sauces so I only added half the amount of sugar at the beginning and added more sugar to taste while cooking the sauce. This allows you to control the sweetness of the sauce.
Chilli, Lemon & Herb Butter
300g butter
3 garlic cloves, minced
Finely chopped herbs like parsley, basil, rosemary, thyme etc.
1 or 2 red chilli, minced (deseeded if you like but I prefer a little heat)
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 Tablespoon olive oil
Sale & pepper
Combine all ingredients for the herb butter in a bowl, pushing chilli and herbs into the butter and mixing well. Refrigerate overnight so that it’s easier to stuff under the skin of the turkey tomorrow (especially in the Singapore heat).