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Brussels Sprouts, Spanish Style

A dish of boiled Brussels sprouts tossed with butter, salt, pepper, sugar, Espagnole sauce, served with roast chestnuts and fried sausages.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and chestnut work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 826 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Brussels Sprouts, Spanish Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the Brussels sprouts until tender.

  2. In a flat saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the boiled sprouts and season with salt, pepper, and sugar.

  2. Toss the sprouts until thoroughly warmed.

  3. Add the Espagnole sauce and mix well.

  4. Serve with roast chestnuts and small fried sausages around the 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.

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 + chestnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + chestnuttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, becoming tender when boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the sprouts.
Espagnole sauce
Adds a savoury, rich brown sauce that coats the sprouts.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness to balance the savoury seasoning.

Swap the brussels sprouts

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Brussels sproutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, sugar, sauce, chestnut. 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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