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Brussels Sprouts

A boiled and sautéed vegetable dish featuring Brussels sprouts, salt, baking soda, butter, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Brussels Sprouts

Why it works: Butter and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Brussels Sprouts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the Brussels sprouts well in two or three waters and trim them.

  2. Fill a saucepan with plenty of warm water and bring it to a boil.

  3. Once boiling, add ½ tablespoon of coarse sea salt and ¼ teaspoon of baking soda.

Cook

  1. Add the sprouts and boil quickly for 10 to 20 minutes, depending on their age.

  2. Keep the lid off the saucepan while boiling.

  3. Drain the sprouts in a colander.

Finish and serve

  1. Once dry, place them in a sauté pan with 1 ounce of butter.

  2. Sprinkle with pepper and salt, and toss over the heat for a few minutes without frying.

  3. Serve arranged nicely on a hot vegetable dish.

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. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Brussels sprouts + peppertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35 recipes

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

  3. Brussels sprouts + buttertop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together20 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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 body of the dish; they soften as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy coating while the sprouts are tossed over heat.
Baking soda
Raises the water's alkalinity, which helps the sprouts stay bright green while boiling.

The step that matters

Boiling time. Boiling too long turns sprouts soft and grey-green as overcooked cabbage-family vegetables release sulfur compounds, so the 10 to 20 minute range should be judged by the sprouts' age and checked for tenderness.

Swap the brussels sprouts

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Brussels sproutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper. 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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