Brussels Sprouts with Grapes

A simple two-ingredient vegetable dish whose only real difficulty is that modern sprouts want far less cooking than the original assumes. Read the timing note before you start.

• A quart of sproutsThe recipe measures by volume, as period American cookbooks commonly did. A quart measure holds roughly a pound of trimmed sprouts, which is about right for six as a side dish.
• Cut the cooking timeThe recipe assumes sprouts boiled to softness, perhaps 20 minutes or more. Today's varieties are less bitter and want 6-8 minutes in boiling salted water, until a knife meets slight resistance at the core. Overcooked sprouts turn grey and sulphurous.
• When to add the grapesFollow the sequence rather than the clock: give the sprouts most of their cooking, then add the grapes for the last 2-3 minutes, only long enough to heat them through. Grapes boiled 10 minutes collapse into skins.
• Malaga grapesGreen Malagas were a large, firm, seeded table grape common in winter markets. Any firm green grape works; seedless varieties save you the halving and seeding, though halving still helps them sit among the sprouts.
• The salt-water soakFifteen minutes in cold salted water was insurance against insects in field-grown sprouts. It is unnecessary with supermarket sprouts, and does no harm if you do it.
• Scoring the stemsThe original says only to remove outer leaves. Trim the stem flush and, if the sprouts are large, halve them so the centres cook at the same rate as the leaves.
• SeasoningSalt, pepper and butter is the whole of it. Add the butter off the heat after draining well, so it coats rather than pools, and taste for salt after the grapes go in since their sweetness flattens it.