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Brussels Sprouts in Cheese
1 quart brussels sprouts 1 quart water 1/2 cup shortening shake of pepper 2/3 cup grated cheese Clean and cook sprouts in the salted water, drain thoroughly. Saute the sprouts in the heated shortening. When very hot stir in the cheese and seasoning, stirring gently until cheese is melted. Serve immediately in hot dish. Serves 6.
A straightforward side dish from a period when vegetables were boiled first and finished in fat. The only real risk is overcooking the sprouts before they ever reach the pan.
- Don't fully cook them twiceThe sprouts get boiled and then sautéed, so stop the boiling while they still have resistance — about 5 to 6 minutes for small sprouts, 8 for large. Older practice took them to full tenderness in the water, which leaves them collapsing and sulfurous by the time the cheese goes in.
- A quart of sproutsMeasured as whole trimmed sprouts, a quart is roughly 1 to 1 1/4 lb, which matches the stated six servings.
- Salt the waterThe instructions call for salted water though no quantity is given. About 1 tablespoon of salt per quart is enough to season through.
- Half a cup of shortening is generousThat is 8 tablespoons of fat for a pound of sprouts, more than the dish needs. Two to three tablespoons of butter or oil will brown and coat them without pooling in the dish.
- Shortening in this bookShortening -- In recipes of this vintage 'shortening' generally covers whatever solid cooking fat was to hand: lard, a hydrogenated vegetable shortening, or butter. Butter tastes best with cheese here.
- The cheeseUnspecified grated cheese of the period usually meant a firm American or aged Cheddar. Grate it yourself; pre-shredded cheese carries anti-caking starch that turns grainy in a hot pan.
- Off the heat for the cheesePull the pan from the burner before stirring the cheese in. Held over direct heat it breaks and goes stringy, releasing oil rather than clinging to the sprouts. The residual heat of the drained sprouts and fat is enough.
- Drain thoroughly means thoroughlyAny clinging water will spit in the hot fat and will keep the cheese from coating. Shake the colander and let them steam-dry a minute before they hit the pan.
Brussels sprouts were still a relative novelty on American tables in the first half of the twentieth century, and commercial growing in California was young. Weekly menu books like this one existed to spare the housekeeper the daily question of what to serve, and vegetable entries in them commonly follow the same shape: boil in salted water, drain, finish in fat, add one flourish. The flourish here is cheese.