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Brussels Sprouts

A boiled and buttered Brussels sprouts dish seasoned with vinegar, salt, 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: Vinegar and white pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,154 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Brussels Sprouts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the sprouts, trimming off all discolored leaves.

  2. Soak them in a basin of cold water with 1 teaspoon of vinegar for 30 minutes to remove insects.

  3. Strain and rinse the sprouts in fresh cold water.

Cook

  1. Boil plenty of salted water (1 tablespoon of salt per quart) in a saucepan.

  2. Add the sprouts and boil rapidly with the lid off for 20-25 minutes until tender.

  3. Drain thoroughly in a colander.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the sprouts to the saucepan, add butter and a sprinkle of pepper, and toss for a few minutes.

  2. Serve in a hot dish, arranged in a pyramid shape. Optionally, top with maitre d’hotel sauce or stir in some cream.

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. Vinegar + white peppertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Butter + white peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Brussels sprouts + vinegartop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. 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, cooking to a tender texture during the boil.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the sprouts and carrying flavour when tossed in the pan.

The step that matters

Boiling with the lid off. Boiling rapidly in plenty of well-salted water keeps the sprouts bright green and cooks them evenly. Covering the pan traps volatile sulfur compounds, which give a stronger, more bitter cabbage-like smell and flavour.

Swap the brussels sprouts

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar, white 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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