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Brussels Sprouts in Cream

A creamy side dish of Brussels sprouts simmered in milk, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Brussels Sprouts in Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sprouts

  1. Pick over the Brussels sprouts and soak them in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Drain and cook in boiling salted water for 30 minutes.

Make the creamed sauce

  1. Drain again and place in a double boiler with the milk; cook for 10 minutes.

  2. Cream the butter, then add the flour and a little hot milk; mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture over the sprouts and cook for an additional 5 minutes.

  4. Add the salt and pepper before serving.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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, cooked until tender before being combined with the sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream sauce, giving it a smooth, pourable texture.
Butter
Creamed with the flour to add richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter mixture into a creamy sauce that coats the sprouts.

The step that matters

Adding the flour mixture to the sprouts. Flour thickens hot liquid only when it is well blended with fat and milk first; adding it unmixed causes lumps. Cooking the mixture gently after pouring it over the sprouts lets the starch swell and thicken the sauce evenly.

Swap the brussels sprouts

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, 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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