Braised red cabbage with redcurrant jelly

This is such a lovely accompaniment to all sorts of meat dishes, but particularly your Christmas turkey!

What you do:

80g butter
1 medium onion, diced
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 red cabbage (approx 1kg), finely sliced
200ml red wine
50ml red wine vinegar
50ml port
Juice of 1/2 orange
Juice of 1/2 lemon
60g Demerara sugar
100g Tracklements Redcurrant Jelly
50g smoked lardons pan fried until crisp
salt and pepper
spice bag: ½ cinnamon stick, 1 orange peel, 1 clove, 3 black peppercorns, 3 sprigs of thyme and 1 bay leaf.

What you do:

Preheat the oven to 160°C/320°F gas mark 3.
Heat the butter in a large casserole dish and cook the onions and garlic on a medium heat until soft and transparent. Add the red cabbage and cook for approx. 5 mins until slightly softened.
In a separate pan, mix together the red wine, red wine vinegar, port, lemon and orange juice, Demerara sugar and Redcurrant Jelly. Gently heat until warmed through. Add the liquid to the casserole. Add the spice bag, cooked lardons and season. Oven cook for 1hr 30 mins to 2 hours. Check the seasoning, remove and leave to cool.
Remove the spice bag before serving.

Tracklements

Tracklements is driven by the twin aims of producing the best chutneys, mustards and preserves on the market, tasting as good as the best home-made, and of making it traditionally, in small batches, with all natural ingredients.