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Brussels Sprouts Plain

A simple boiled Brussels sprouts dish seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick over and wash the Brussels sprouts.

  2. Soak in cold salted water for 30 minutes to remove insects.

Boil

  1. Drain and drop into a kettle of rapidly boiling salted water.

  2. Boil uncovered for 12 to 15 minutes until tender.

  3. Drain and press gently to remove excess water.

Finish with butter

  1. In a clean saucepan, add the sprouts, butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Shake over the heat until the butter is melted.

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. 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 dish; boiling softens their dense cabbage-like texture until tender.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky coating that carries flavor across the sprouts.

The step that matters

Drain and press gently to remove excess water. Water left on the sprouts dilutes the melted butter and seasoning, so they taste watery instead of coated and savory.

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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