Brussels sprouts - how to make them nice.

Mr.V is the main cook in our house and when he cooks sprouts they are gorgeous. I'm not sure of the exact recipe but I know he cooks them first, then puts them in with a bit of smoky bacon ( or pancetta or smoky lardons) fried in butter with chestnuts and shallots. Think he adds a spoon or two of creme fraiche at the end and there might be a bit of stock in there too. Mmmm. Getting hungry now.

Actually now that I think about it, our children still weren't keen. We do the same thing as you- you don't have to eat the whole lot but you do have to taste. No matter what you do to sprouts they still have that slight bitter undertone and it can be hard for children to like.

orka said:

Adding all that fat, salt etc. just cancels out any goodness in the sprouts so why bother?.

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Its Christmas! Forget about the goodness! Bring on the flavour, don't worry about how bad it is for you for one day!

I can still remember my dear old Mum making me sit — for hours, if need be — staring sullenly at four cold, foul-smelling, Brussels sprouts on the plate.

I don't care about the starving black babies, or how much iron they're full of (the sprouts, not the black babies) — they are an abomination. Even our "iron stomach", eat-'til-you-burst mutt of a Labrador turns his nose up at them, and believe me, I have seen him eat some pretty disgusting things.

If you must have them, smothering the taste with garlic/Parmesan/bacon bits is the only way to go.

not how to make them nice - but not nice -

My poor mother is not the best cook, she does try. The Brussels sprouts yesterday were of the M&S microwave variety. However she got mixed up in timings, and forgot to do them (we assume). Nana (at 90) sitting beside me, asked me to cut the sprouts on her plate. They were obviously rock hard (as I don't like them hadn't tried). Sawing through them, my hand slipped and brussel sprout went sailing through the air, hitting off christmas angel which then smashed into patio doors....one broken pane later....

BTW I for some reason always assumed Vanilla was male....now realise there is a Mr V!

Well Bronte

What was the verdict?

Curious Marion

I don't know why people don't like brussel sprouts, I've never had any problem eating them..I must be in the minority!

Sunday Times had a recipe for using left over brussels sprouts in a Spanish Omelette type recipe if anyone still has some left.

Vanilla said:

Sunday Times had a recipe for using left over brussels sprouts in a Spanish Omelette type recipe if anyone still has some left.

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Even the thought of that has turned me off omlettes for life! Actually, I'd imagine there must be a great demand for recipes for left-over sprouts

Firefly said:

Even the thought of that has turned me off omlettes for life! Actually, I'd imagine there must be a great demand for recipes for left-over sprouts

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My stomach nearly turned at omlettes and sprouts but I have noticed the Sunday Times have some totally wack job recipes from time to time.

Marion said:

Well Bronte

What was the verdict?

Curious Marion

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Well the Bronte household were treated to no less than Brussels sprouts 3 ways such is my culinary expertise. Sadly this experiment was a dismal failure. Started with my enthusasiam in the supermarket when I decided no less than 2 bags would do and the eldest raised an eyebrow (and vocals) as to the fact of quantity so that didn't auger well.

Just to clarify something on bacon, I can get pork, lardons pancetta even rashers etc. Just not boiling bacon and the rashers are called English breakfast or somesuch and are so thin, like parma ham so you can just imagine.

I took advice from Firefly's and Vanilla's suggestion. I found that I had a small piece of Irish bacon in the deep freeze (probably a Dutch import into Ireland but we won't go there) so to make Mr.Bronte's xmas dinner even more special I decided to cook that too along with the Roast Chicken and use the water from the bacon for the Brussels sprouts. I generally don't time anything but it was xmas so I boiled them for 3 minutes exactly and took some of them out into iced water - the things I do - and then divided into two amounts. I cut one set in half with lardons, and sauteed them in olive oil, another I did with lardons, shallots, and sour cream (which is what creme fraiche is, I always have sour cream in the fridge and had to translate Mr. Vanilla's ingredient to discover I already had it, which was great). Mistake with this last was that I should have cut them in half two or boiled them a few minutes more. I tried this again a few days later so that's a really good way to do them (boil in stock, halve them, saute with shallots & lardons and add some sour cream). The third way was that I just let some of the originals boil for the normal amount of time and no Vandriver this does not mean boiling them from the morning. None of us tried the 3rd way. And as for the Bronte children, well suffice it to say that none actually swallowed a full Brussels sprout if any. Certainly one child spat it into a napkin and threw it in the bin. But hey it's xmas and Bronte was exhausted having been up since some ungodly hour and was feeling all the better for some Chateau Neuf du Pape so Xmas dinner was a success and everyone was happy. And they want the exact same again next year without Brussels sprouts.

And later that afternoon we all went for a lovely xmas walk and stopped out for real pint for Mr. Bronte who occasionally really rejoices at being abroad and hot chocolates for the kids etc.

That's dedication!! How about starting your own tradition next year by not having any sprouts?

I did mine the usual way and I'm close to giving up. They were fine, but with so many other, delicious things on the plate they never had a chance! This year, I did a cold starter - basically a large leaf of iceberg lettuce filled with Tiger prawns, crab claws, smoked salmon and scallops. They went down a treat and they took seconds to plate. Enjoyed with some pink bubbly too

The mains, I have to say went well, although the bird, for all it's weight, was a rather skinny one. Big boned I'd say. Still, I managed to get a curry out of it the next day.