Brussels sprouts offer riches in winter

I wish I could say that "Once at dusk, hurtling through Belgium on a train, I saw miniature forests of Brussels sprouts: knobby 4-foot-tall stalks sticking awkwardly out of the ground like old men's legs with clenched green fists clinging to them." But only Irena Chalmers could have said that, which she did in "The Great Food Almanac." I've never been to Belgium.

I can, however, say that I used to buy Brussels sprouts still on the stalk from a farm in Skagit Valley. And there, on the wide alluvial plain that reaches from the foothills of the Cascades to the northernmost shores of Puget Sound, the sprouts stood on their stalks like harbingers of winter or some atavistic reminder of the old world rising on the edge of the new. I used to watch for them through the fall, dutifully buying broccoli and cabbage until at last the Brussels sprouts were ready.

Brussels sprouts are playful and surprising, and in the narrow world of winter produce, there are few surprises. The vegetable kingdom can seem downright miserly in winter. Most of us resort to out-of-season imports from warmer climates: Florida corn, California lettuce or frozen peas and green beans; otherwise, we dutifully eat our rutabagas and wait for a better season. Oh sure, there are kales and cabbages, carrots and beets, but these things are around all the time. Brussels sprouts belong to winter (just try to find a good one in the summer!), and their peculiarity makes them interesting.

A lot of people — OK, most people — dismiss these minuscule specimens from the cabbage family outright, but serious cooks and serious eaters are passionate about them. Julia Child calls them "One of our great winter vegetables."

Some chefs, Charlie Trotter and Alfred Portale among them, like to coax off the individual leaves, blanch them in salted water and serve them tossed with other vegetables or forest mushrooms. Freed from their heads, the little leaves are new and mysterious. In "Chez Panisse Vegetables," Alice Waters tosses the individual leaves with orrechiette pasta (little ear-shaped noodles), roughly the same size and shape as the leaves, and sauces them with olive oil, red pepper flakes and garlic — sumptuous.

But traditionally, the heads are kept intact. Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher, more familiarly known as M.F.K., liked to boil them briefly in salted water then roast them with butter, giving them "a good shake now and then . . . they become glistening like little nuts with delicate soft centers." I've used her method many times and always with happy results.

James Beard liked them tossed with hot bacon fat and onions. I think they are especially nice if the onions are pearl onions left whole to be found tucked between the little heads on the plate, and bits of crispy bacon are crumbled over the top.

But if there were only one way to cook Brussels sprouts, it would have to be the way they are cooked in Brussels. Left whole, they're cooked in salted water until barely tender, then tossed with peeled, cooked chestnuts. The technique shows up in half a dozen books on my shelf, but too often the recipe is deceptively simple.

"Cook them in a lot of salted water until they are barely tender," writes Irena Chalmers, "drain them and add a handful of hot chestnuts." That handful of hot chestnuts is the tricky part. Allow yourself a half an hour to peel the little devils or, if you must, use canned chestnuts; if you can find them, they're really not too bad.

Braised Chestnuts and Brussels Sprouts
Serves 6

- 1 pound chestnuts (about 36)
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1 pound Brussels sprouts
- 2 quarts boiling water
- 1 tablespoon salt

1. Put a big pot of water on to boil. With a sharp paring knife, cut an "X" in the shell of each chestnut. Try not to cut down into the meat of the nut, but do cut through the shell so the nuts will be easy to peel when they are cooked. Boil the cut chestnuts for 5 minutes then scoop them out of the water with a strainer or a slotted spoon.

2. While the nuts are still hot, pull off the outer shells and peel off as much of the inner skin as you can. Some nuts will not give up their skins; reheat them and try again, and if necessary, cut the skin away with a paring knife.

3. Use the paring knife to trim the bottoms from the Brussels sprouts. Pull away any loose or damaged leaves. Cook the Brussels sprouts in boiling salted water for 4 or 5 minutes, or until they can be easily pierced with the tip of a knife. Drain the sprouts and rinse in cold water to halt the cooking process.

4. Put the peeled chestnuts in a sauté pan with the chicken broth, cover the pan and simmer gently for 15 minutes. Do not let the broth boil too hard or the chestnuts will fall apart. As soon as the chestnuts are tender, add the Brussels sprouts and cook uncovered another five minutes.

5. If the sauce has not reduced into a syrupy glaze around the vegetables, lift them out with a slotted spoon and boil the juice in the pan until it is almost gone, then return the vegetables to the pan and toss them in the reduced broth to coat them. Serve hot as a side dish.

Greg Atkinson is chef at IslandWood. He is also author of "The Northwest Essentials Cookbook" (Sasquatch Books, 1999).