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Brussels Sprouts

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Digby

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Huge fan of these little devils. Halve them, toss in salt, freshly ground pepper, olive oil, orange juice, a little honey, some nuts, smoked paprika and roast in the oven. The kid inside me screams while I devour them haha
How do you prepare the kid? Rather surprised you have the room left for sprouts after something so filling.
 

BlackTalon

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Huge fan of these little devils. Halve them, toss in salt, freshly ground pepper, olive oil, orange juice, a little honey, some nuts, smoked paprika and roast in the oven. The kid inside me screams while I devour them haha
This sounds delicious, especially if you increase the amount of nuts and omit the brussels sprouts. :cool:
 

xray

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The key to good brussel sprouts to avoid overcooking as a few have mentioned already. Overcooking brings out the sulphur compounds which nobody likes. Cutting them in half speeds up the cooking process and avoids overcooking the outer layers. We've been using this America's Test Kitchen skillet recipe for years. It's simple and produces great tasting results. The only problem is you need to do multiple batches for larger groups since the technique calls for a single layer in the skillet.
 

JaccoW

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JaccoW

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They’re a man made invention.
Pretty much all of our fruit and vegetables are. The big difference is the timeline. ;)
Brussels sprouts are just one form of the wild mustard plant.

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As for the history: From Culinary Dud To Stud: How Dutch Plant Breeders Built Our Brussels Sprouts Boom - NPR.org

The TL;DR is that in the 1990's they found out what made them stinky and bitter so they searched in historic seed banks for varieties that contained less of the relevant chemical. By cross-breeding the old (non-stinky) variety with the modern high-yield ones they intented the modern brussels sprout.
 

Pareto Pragmatic

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You can do anything with them that you do with cabbage, really. I'll eat them raw and shaved as a salad, or flash fried, but the way I actually like them requires a high wire cooking act.

Toss in oil and salt in a bowl, then roast them, hard. Like 425/220 for temp and I use convection, maybe 30-40 minutes depending on size. They eventually turn mahogany brown, and the insides are creamy ans sweet. Brown, not black! Toss them in the oil bowl half way through for better browning.

The problem is that just a few minutes under and they don't have the crisp, a few minutes over and they dry out and become just crispy shells. Which are good, unless they turn to carbon. So there's a 5 minute window where you really have to pay attention, as they go from not quite done to carbonized. Taste test helps at this stage. They are 100% different at this point from any other form of preparation. And it's too finicky for restaurants to do this, which is why you usually see flash fried,

A bit of bacon, a bit of parm, either or both is a good finish. Just recently I used some maple syrup/soy/white balsamic to dress them on the plate, and that was a good change. I'm going to see what I can do with that maple mix in terms of glazing for fish or other veg too.
 

Brian Hall

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Boil a batch, coat them with chocolate, take them to a potluck gathering and place them on the desert table. Stand back and watch.

Great for family reunions.
 
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