{"id":2964,"date":"2011-12-27T20:30:06","date_gmt":"2011-12-28T01:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/?p=2964"},"modified":"2011-12-27T20:30:06","modified_gmt":"2011-12-28T01:30:06","slug":"easiest-quickest-most-delicious-brussels-sprouts-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/2011\/12\/easiest-quickest-most-delicious-brussels-sprouts-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Easiest, Quickest, Most Delicious Brussels Sprouts Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Yes, I know I am fond of hyperbole, and that the headline at the top of this blog is a bit over the top. But honestly, when something so tasty takes only two minutes to cook (and I am not kidding about that), I can\u2019t help but enthuse.<\/p>\n

Out of necessity, I had to deconstruct our garden Brussels sprouts for Christmas dinner. Serving them whole or even halved or quartered wasn\u2019t an option as they were so misshapen and riddled with holes. (They were all different sizes, too. Some were teeny tiny\u2014witness the penny picture below\u2014and some were like mini-cabbages(right), the most beautiful winter flowers I\u2019ve seen.) Secretly I also worried that a bug might have survived all those frosts and still be alive inside. So I peeled the leaves off the sprouts, trimming the stem higher and higher as I went to loosen the leaves, and wound up with a pile of different-sized leaves in various shades of green and a handful of tiny interior nubbins the color of celery.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019m lucky I had any sprouts at all as I was so annoyed about the bug damage a few weeks ago that I actually yanked up most of the Brussels sprouts stalks and fed them to the chickens (I had harvested what I could from them, I thought). But I sure am glad I saved a few, as I discovered that one thing is true\u2014the flavor of a frost-kissed Brussels sprout is definitely sweeter and more intense than a summer sprout. (This isn\u2019t just romantic gardener talk.) I brought them inside, along with the remaining rutabagas, in order to finally clear a bed I wanted to plant with winter rye. Wrapped loosely in towels and put in plastic bags, these veggies (especially the rutabagas) will keep in that (very cold) mudroom fridge for quite a while.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>But about cooking those Brussels sprouts leaves\u2014what a revelation. I heated a combination of half-butter and half-olive oil in a nonstick skillet over pretty decent heat (medium-high on my stove). Just enough fat to lightly cover the bottom of the pan. When the butter was bubbling, I tossed the leaves into the pan, sprinkled them with kosher salt, and quickly covered the pan (I love my glass lid!). I only stirred once or twice (not at all for the first minute and putting the lid back on each time), and in two minutes the leaves that had contact with the pan were all browned in spots and the rest were nicely steamed\u2014still bright green, but wilted and softened. I quickly removed them from the pan and tossed them atop the mashed potatoes alongside our roast beef. (Though I made another batch this morning and just gobbled them up straight.) So delicious.<\/p>\n

Certainly I\u2019ve seen recipes for shredding or pulling apart sprout leaves and stir-frying them or quickly saut\u00e9ing them, but I\u2019ve never really done this exact thing\u2014kind of a \u201cbrown-and-steam\u201d method. I think the brief covering creates the perfect texture, and the combination of butter and decent heat provides that incredibly nutty flavor. (The salt is key in playing up that buttery, nutty thing.) And all in two minutes, maybe three if you had a bigger batch. I\u2019d say my leaves fully covered the bottom of the skillet but weren\u2019t more than two or three layers deep, so you can eyeball whatever amount of leaves you wind up with and choose an appropriate size skillet. You don\u2019t need a recipe here, just a pile of Brussels sprouts\u2014preferably plucked from the garden stalk!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, I know I am fond of hyperbole, and that the headline at the top of this blog is a bit over the top. But honestly, when something so tasty takes only two minutes to cook (and I am not kidding about that), I can\u2019t help but enthuse. Out of necessity, I had to deconstruct […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[27],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2964"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2964"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2979,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2964\/revisions\/2979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}