spruce up your sprouts

blossomhill_2

Smother them in vinegar or mint sauce - they're gorgeous!

Pink.

Hi kezlou,

This thread has some ideas that may help:

spruce up your sprouts

I'll add your thread to that one later to keep the suggestions together.

Pink

cutestkids

Lightly cook the sprouts in salted water for about 5-7 mins while you are doing this cut up some smoked bacon and fry in a really hot pan till the bacon is starting to brown, drain the sprouts and roughly chop them add to the bacon fry for a couple more mins till just starting to take on some colour sprinkle with balsamic vinegar.

OR

Cook the sprouts slice up and add to mashed potato with a little butter with some cooked bacon or ham, you can add some grated cheese as well if you want, add about a tablespoon of flour just to sto the mixture being stick, form the potato mix into paties and fry gently till golden on both sides.

meritaten

try tossing them in olive oil and roasting them with a couple of cloves of garlic (bruised but not chopped up) in a hot oven for around 35 minutes. the taste is far better than you would expect.
another method - for fresh sprouts - is to slice them up and stir fry them in sunflower or groundnut oil to which you have added a crushed and chopped clove of garlic, about an inch of fresh ginger finely chopped and perhaps a few crushed chilli flakes. this is a really really nice way of cooking sprouts and goes well with pork stir fry dishes.

CH27

Par boil them
Fry some bacon pieces & a chopped red onion in a bit of butter.
Drain the sprouts. Half them & add to the bacon & onions & fry for 5 mins.
Put into an oven proof dish, cover with tinfoil & put in the oven for 15 mins.

rinabean

I think they are least sprouty if you grate or finely slice them and make them into a bubble and squeak type thing. This assumes that you do like brassicas, though?

I like them roasted or pan-fried until crispy on one side with garlic, oil and lemon (and salt!). In my opinion this is the nicest way, but they still taste of sprouts, obviously, just not like the typical boiled/steamed christmas sprouts.

Sambucus_Nigra

Even better, fry them and then add to mash for bubble and squeak. Flippin lovely. I'd have this every night if I could.

kezlou

Thanks for your help everyone

i'll definitely be trying them with bacon and i'll have a look at the links to see what else i can do with them.

Were a fan of other brassicas i.e broccoli, kale,cabbage etc just not sprouts. No idea why, we just can't get away with them.

I'll try the bubble and squeak tonight, i normally make it with cabbage so it hopefully will taste the same.

I remember my mother boiling them senseless so they were just a soggy mash on a place, i feel sick thinking about it. Probably the reason why i can't stand sprouts.

piglet6

I use raw sprouts to make a "winter coleslaw"...

Basically, where you normally make coleslaw with cabbage, carrots, onion and mayonnaise, I use sprouts, carrots, spring onions and garlic mayonnaise. I find the garlic mayo gives it a bit more of a kick (and probably helps to offset the slightly stronger flavour of the sprouts!), and the spring onions just add a bit of a different flavour. Then I serve where I would use normal coleslaw - on jacket potatoes, with salads, in sandwiches, wherever you fancy...!!

I haven't yet had anybody not like this coleslaw (even definite "sprout haters" love it - before I tell them it is sprouts, and even then they still continue to eat it so it can't be that bad!).

If you want to cook them before serving them, I find a cheese sauce over them is nice... People eat "cauliflower cheese" - I think "sprout cheese" just hasn't caught on yet because its not such a catchy name!!

rosie383

Next time, do the whole family a favour and just buy a handful of sprouts, loose. Saves you having to find ways to use them all up and will just cost pennies. No point in buying a whole bag if your relative will only manage a few himself.