A little sauce key to great brussels sprouts

Brussels sprouts get a lot of bad reactions. I remember not liking them either, until I finally had ones that had been through a fairly heavy frost. A friend cooked them up and only put butter on them, and I thought, “Uh-oh, I am going to have to be polite.” I was so startled to find out that they were sweet and tender and so delicious.

Now we always leave the sprouts out in the garden long after other vegetables have been gathered, and let them shiver in the cold for a couple of nights before we even attempt to eat them. They are seasonally available right now, of course, and that may account for their appearance on various holiday menus. We have one more stalk of them stored in the cellar, but I will have to be diligent about using them in the next couple of weeks because their outside leaves are yellowing.

I am giving you a fairly new-to-me way of cooking these. I noticed some recipes tell you “deconstruct” them, but to tell the truth, you might as well eat brussels sprout-flavored shredded cabbage. Part of the experience, it seems to me, is having these miniature cabbages on your plate. I suppose as a way to vary the dish, pulling them apart might be all right.

To get them ready for the sauce, which is really what this recipe is about, you can steam them or simmer them in chicken stock or just plain, lightly salted water. One recipe I saw suggested part water, part white wine.

With brussels sprouts, one theme I noticed repeated in various recipes was sprouts with something: mushrooms, pine nuts, chestnuts (I did that one year and I thought it was nothing to write home about), almonds, bacon, then butter or cream, horseradish, lemon, garlic, or mustard or some other very sturdy herb that holds up to the cabbagy-ness of the sprouts. So no doubt with this recipe there is room to tinker.

Back in the summer, I had a recipe here for something called baguet, a kind of parsley pesto. If you made some of that stuff and put it away, and think some sprouts in a hurry would be good, toss them with a spoonful of baguet after steaming them.

How many you need to cook depends on how many sprouts lovers you are cooking for. Five or six medium sprouts per person ought to be enough.

Looking for…

Your favorite way of fixing brussels sprouts or cabbage. Do you have a way of cooking sprouts that everyone loves? Do you have an interesting way with cabbage besides good old cole slaw? It wouldn’t hurt to run another recipe for brussels sprouts, and I bet we all get tired of the same-old, same-old with cabbage.

Send queries or answers to Sandy Oliver, 1061 Main Road, Islesboro 04848. E-mail: tastebuds@prexar.com. For recipes, tell us where they came from. List ingredients, specify number of servings and do not abbreviate measurements. Include name, address and daytime phone number.

Brussels Sprouts

1 pound brussels sprouts

1 tablespoon of butter or olive oil

1 shallot, chopped

1 cup of all-purpose cream

1/4 cup of Marsala or cooking sherry

1 tablespoon of horseradish or more to taste

A grating of nutmeg

Salt and pepper to taste

Trim the sprouts, taking off the tough outer leaves. Steam or boil them until they are just fork tender, about 15 minutes or so. Heat the butter or oil in a saute pan and cook the shallots in it for three minutes. Add the cream and sherry, and simmer until the cream is reduced slightly. Stir in the horseradish, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Heat through, and taste. Adjust seasonings as needed. Put the brussels sprouts in the saute pan and toss them so they are coated with the sauce.

Yields five or six servings.