Month: December 2015

Day: December 16, 2015

How to Make Heston’s Perfect Brussels Sprouts recipe for Christmas

INGREDIENTS

400g Brussels Sprouts
Pack of smoked bacon lardons, or 4 thick streaky rashers
30 – 50g unsalted butter

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METHOD

Separate the sprout leaves individually, or shred each sprout very finely
If using bacon rashers, dice very finely
Fry bacon over medium heat until lightly cooked, then remove to a side plate
Add butter and 2 tbsp water to pan and heat until foaming
Add sprouts to pan
Reduce heat to low
Stir pan to evenly coat contents, then cover with lid
Cook for approx. 5 minutes, shaking pan (or stirring) every minute to prevent contents sticking
Stir in the cooked bacon, season with salt & pepper then serve

REPORT

Step 1: Preparing Heston’s Brussels Sprouts recipe

You can make this recipe faster and easier depending on how you choose to separate the leaves.

Heston’s Brussels Sprouts recipe on the Waitrose website and the Sprout recipe in Heston at Home both tell you to separate the leaves individually, so you end up with what looks like a tiny pile of miniature cabbage leaves.

This looks fancy, and it means you won’t end up eating the bitter cores of each sprout (they get thrown away). But it’s a very fiddly and time-consuming job. Also, as the leaves at the centre of each sprout are too small and tough to peel you do end up throwing away a lot of the veg you’ve bought. We estimated we threw away half the weight in sprouts with this method.

If you’re stood in front of a big pile of sprouts we recommend you test this method out with your first sprout. Cut the bottom off and start pulling the leaves away until you’ve separated as many as you can. You should be left with a tough sprout core of tight, knotty leaves.

Now look at your pile of sprouts and decide if you’d be happy doing that with all of them.

Faster and cheaper is a second technique that is also suggested in the Heston Sprout recipe from Heston at Home shred the sprouts very finely.

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Note: for both versions of Heston’s Brussels sprout recipes make sure you discard the dirty outer leaves, unless you bought sprouts already washed and prepared.

Step 2: Cooking the Bacon

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If you did decide to shred the sprouts finely we recommend dicing our bacon into pieces as tiny as you can, so they match up better. If you just separated the leaves then standard lardons will be fine.

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Streaky bacon works best in Heston’s Brussels Sprouts recipe, as it has more fat – which means more flavour. You may find it best to slightly oil your pan to prevent the bacon from sticking. If so try to use butter or neutral flavour oil like groundnut.

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Once the bacon is cooked it’s easiest just to tip it onto a small side plate so its handy for later.

Step 3: Cooking Heston’s Brussels Sprouts recipe

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Now it’s time to add the sprouts themselves for the final stage of Heston’s Brussels Sprouts recipe. Add the butter to the pan and once it’s foaming tip in all your sprouts along with 2 tablespoons of water (about 30ml).

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This water is essential, as it’ll turn into a steam inside the pan, which will help cook your sprouts to tender perfection. Be sure to keep the lid on to prevent the heat and steam from escaping!

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Jostle the pan a few times during cooking to stop the leaves from sticking and ensure Heston’s Brussels Sprouts recipe cooks evenly and to perfection. (You can lift the lid and give them a quick stir if you like, but they might take a minute or two longer to cook).

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Stir the bacon into the sprouts once they are cooked to your liking.

VERDICT

When we first made Heston’s Brussels sprouts recipe none of the people sat at the table would claim to enjoy any of the Christmas sprouts recipes they’d tried. After trying Heston’s Brussels sprouts recipe every single diner was converted.

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Whatever it is Heston’s Perfect Brussels Sprouts recipe is one that we’ll be making every Christmas from now on. It’s so good that we simply wouldn’t prepare Brussels Sprouts any other way than the Heston Blumenthal way.

Source: http://www.insearchofheston.com/2013/12/how-to-make-hestons-perfect-brussels-sprouts-recipe-for-christmas/