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Brussels Sprouts

A braised Brussels sprouts dish cooked with butter, flour, stock, onion, parsley, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Brussels Sprouts

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Brussels Sprouts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the outer leaves from the Brussels sprouts.

  2. Bring 3 quarts of salted water to a boil, adding the carbonate of soda.

  3. Add the sprouts and boil again, then drain them on a sieve and a dry cloth.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, brown 1 ounce of butter with the flour and sugar.

  2. Add the stock, chopped onion, parsley, pepper, nutmeg, and the remaining butter.

Cook

  1. Bring to a boil, then add the sprouts and simmer gently for 30 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Brussels sprouts
Form the main vegetable; simmering softens them and lets them absorb the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded, savoury flavour when browned with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce once cooked briefly in the browned butter.
Stock
Provides the liquid for the sauce and carries savoury flavour into the sprouts.
Carbonate of soda
Raises the water's alkalinity, which helps the sprouts keep a bright green colour.

The step that matters

Browning the butter with the flour. Flour must cook in the hot butter while stirred, so it toasts evenly without burning or forming lumps. Undercooked flour tastes raw, and scorched butter turns the sauce bitter.

Swap the brussels sprouts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, flour, parsley, nutmeg, onion):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Brussels sproutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, flour, parsley, nutmeg, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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