111 currant recipes

Mango and tamarind chutney: slow-simmered jammy preserve with mango, golden raisins, ginger, mustard seed, and sour tamarind. Water-bath canned for a year of shelf life.

Traditional Christmas fruitcake with brandy-soaked candied citrus peel, citron, currants, and raisins, deeply spiced and aged in a tin with periodic brandy basting before the holidays.

Vegan Christmas cake packed with candied pineapple, cherries, citrus peel, raisins, and currants, bound without eggs or dairy. A long-baking holiday fruitcake for slicing into thin festive servings.

This very rich cake from the West Indies is ideal for those who prefer not to ice their Christmas cakes.

Traditional German Rumtopf: a layered preserve of summer fruits, sugar, and rum that builds up over the season and matures into a boozy Christmas dessert by winter.

Spiced porridge cooked in milk with cinnamon, currants or raisins, and large flake oats. A warm, creamy breakfast ready in under 10 minutes on the stovetop.

Moroccan chicken with couscous simmers chicken legs in paprika, ginger, turmeric, and cinnamon with lemon and carrots, served over currant-studded allspice couscous. North African flavors at home.

Rugalach rolls cream cheese dough around apricot preserves, cinnamon-sugar, ground pecans, and currants into bite-sized crescent cookies. The Jewish-American holiday cookie passed down through generations of bakers.

Emily Dickinson's black cake, a dense Victorian fruitcake with brandy, molasses, raisins, currants, and citron spiced with cloves, mace, and cinnamon. Baked low and slow.

Gnocchi with chickpeas, butternut squash, and greens pan-sears pillowy gnocchi, then tosses them into a skillet of sage-scented squash, currants, garlic, and wilted spinach. A hearty vegetarian one-pan meal.

Raw carrot and orange salad with currants, walnuts, lemon juice, and a pinch of red pepper flakes. A bright, no-cook side dish dressed in olive oil.

Restaurant-style plum chutney with blood plums, apples, currants, ginger, curry powder, and brown sugar. A big-batch preserve that improves with age. Great for gifting.

Ruby pears poached in Beaujolais wine with currant jelly, rosemary, vanilla bean, and whole cloves. Pressure cooked and chilled 24 hours for deep ruby color.

Moroccan carrot and orange salad with shredded carrots, fresh orange segments, currants, walnuts, and red pepper flakes in a lemon-olive oil dressing. A vibrant no-cook side dish.

Steamed Boston brown bread made with cornmeal, rye flour, whole wheat flour, molasses, and buttermilk. Cooked in coffee cans for three hours for a dense, moist, no-oven loaf.

Kutia, a traditional Polish Christmas pudding made with wheat berries, ground poppy seeds, honey, walnuts, almonds, figs, dates, and rum-soaked currants. A treasured holiday dessert.