Eating your greens

As a child, I used to hear from people about how awful brussels sprouts were. I didn't know how they tasted from personal experience though, this was one vegetable Ma didn't cook at home. As I got older though, I discovered that some people boiled brassica vegetables to death and I figured that this may have been why they were so hated. And in fact, the half-French Soph mentioned that people hated brussels sprouts because they were cooking them incorrectly - and she proceeded to make a dish of brussels sprouts with bacon. Miam.


If you're wondering why I'm telling this (more pointless than usual) story, it's because I wanted to use it to illustrate how difficult it is to cook leafy green vegetable dishes for one person. Think about it. Buying a head of broccoli or cauliflower means you'll be eating it for the next few days before it changes colour. Ditto with trying to eat a bunch of bok choy or one head of chinese cabbage. But oddly enough, brussels sprouts are sold in relatively small pre-packaged quantities so I decided to try and replicate Sophie's dish.  


Firstly after stripping the external leaves and cutting off the stem, I cut about 15 of those little heads in half and blanched them in salted boiling water for no more than 5 minutes. Once that was done, they were drained and rinsed with cold water. While they were boiling, I cut up a slab of back speck (I don't know, about 50g? 60?) and fried it without oil in a fry pan until the fat had rendered. I then threw in the sprouts but turned them so the cut surface was face down in the pan and let them caramelise for a few minutes and put in a teensy bit of butter (it looked a bit dry after a while). 


And it came out looking like this...

Mmmm, bright green!

I decided I wanted to eat them with one of last week's pies though.

Different angle. 

I was pretty pleased with the dish and ate it with gusto. Also, it was fun to dip the sprouts into the pie gravy. In any case, I have a delicious way of eating a leafy green that doesn't result in too huge quantities and a vaguely healthier way of getting rid of a slab of speck. Win-win!!!