Produce

Brussels Sprouts

Brussels sprouts belong to the same plant species as cabbage, broccoli, and kale, all different cultivated varieties of Brassica oleracea bred to emphasize different parts of the same underlying plant.

They grow in a spiral pattern along a tall central stalk, and buying them still attached to the stalk, when available, generally extends freshness compared to loose, pre-trimmed sprouts.

Roasting at high heat, rather than boiling, has become the dominant modern preparation, since it caramelizes their natural sugars and avoids the overly sulfurous smell and mushy texture that gave boiled Brussels sprouts a poor reputation for decades.

Brussels sprouts are believed to have been cultivated first near Brussels, Belgium, sometime around the 16th century, which is where the vegetable's common name comes from, though the exact origin story is harder to pin down definitively than the name itself suggests.

Sprouts near the top of a Brussels sprout stalk are typically smaller and more tender than the larger ones lower down, since the plant continues producing new sprouts as it grows upward, and picking through a bag for the smaller ones tends to reward a cook with a milder, more tender result once roasted whole.

Bacon and Brussels sprouts have become something of a fixed pairing on modern American menus, largely because the sprouts' natural bitterness plays well against bacon's salty richness, a pairing credit with helping rehabilitate the vegetable's reputation after decades of being associated mainly with mushy, overboiled preparations from school cafeterias.

A cross-hatch cut into the stem end of a whole Brussels sprout, a small X sliced partway into the base, is a traditional trick meant to help the dense stem cook through at roughly the same rate as the more delicate outer leaves, though many modern cooks skip this step, especially when halving sprouts before roasting anyway.

Because Brussels sprouts are a cool-weather crop, like collards, their sweetness genuinely improves after exposure to a light frost, which is part of why the vegetable is so strongly associated with a late fall and winter harvest and holiday table rather than a summer vegetable.

Shaving raw Brussels sprouts thinly on a mandoline or with a knife, then tossing them with a vinaigrette, nuts, and a hard cheese, has become a popular modern salad preparation that sidesteps roasting or boiling entirely, relying on the sprout's naturally firm, crunchy texture to hold up well even uncooked.

Frying whole Brussels sprout halves in oil until deeply browned and crisp on the cut side, then tossing with a punchy sauce like a fish-sauce vinaigrette, is a preparation credited with much of the vegetable's recent restaurant popularity, a far more aggressive cooking method than the gentler boiling that dominated its earlier reputation.

Because overcooked Brussels sprouts release more of the sulfur compounds responsible for their strongest, least pleasant smell, keeping the cooking time short, whether roasted, steamed, or boiled, is a genuinely reliable way to avoid the overly pungent result that gave the vegetable its poor reputation in decades past.