Kevin Aherne from Sage Restaurant gives us his recipe for homemade cranberry sauce with a kick.

It’s the little touches around the Christmas dinner table that make it special for me homemade cranberry sauce is a must its quick & very easy to make. One of the main things to remember with this recipe is to use a good quality local honey.

• The first thing you want to do with this recipe is to flavour the honey with our pickling spices. So in a pot add the honey, fennel, cinnamon, peppercorns, coriander & whole chilli together.
• On the lowest heat possible gently warm the mixture (Do Not Boil) for about 20 minutes, this will help the flavours to infuse into the honey.
• Pass the honey mixture through a sieve & set aside until needed.
• In a separate pot add the cranberries, star anise,  brown sugar, orange & lemon juice & zest together.
• Bring the mixture to the boil & turn down to a simmer just until the cranberries start to split or burst.
• Remove from the heat. Remove star anise from the cranberries.
• Now add the honey mixture to the cranberries, trying to keep the cranberries intact, it’s nice to have some texture in the sauce.Gently bring back to a simmer & serve.