No. 2704

Brussels Sprouts Sauted

Choux de Bruxelles Sautes

Select three pounds of the freshest and firmest Brussels sprouts, having them of as uniform size as possible; pare and plunge them into an untinned vessel full of boiling water to cook green; when done drain, refresh in cold water, drain once more, wipe and pare again. Put six ounces of butter into a sautoir and when hot add the sprouts; season with salt and shake them in the butter; sprinkle in some chopped parsley, and if so desired they can be mingled with a little veloute sauce (No. 415).

← No. 2703 Brussels Sprouts a la Baroness Cabbages & Greens No. 2705 Cabbage in Ballotines—Stuffed →

For the Modern Kitchen

A straightforward buttered sprout, but two of its instructions belong to a nineteenth-century professional kitchen rather than a modern one.

The untinned vesselRanhofer means an unlined copper pot, used because dissolved copper fixes the green chlorophyll. It also puts copper into the food, and the practice was abandoned for good reason. Boil in stainless steel in generously salted water, uncovered, and set the colour with a proper ice bath instead.
Cooking timeNo time is given because "cook green" was understood as the whole instruction. Small sprouts need 5 to 7 minutes in fast-boiling water, larger ones 8 to 10; test with a knife tip at the core. Held longer they turn drab and sulphurous, which is the fault this recipe is trying to avoid.
Pare, then pare againThe first paring is trimming the stem and pulling off loose outer leaves; the second, after blanching, is tidying the base and any leaves that have gone slack in the water. Skipping the second step leaves the ragged bits that brown badly in butter.
SautoirA wide, straight-sided shallow pan. Any large skillet works, provided the sprouts sit in a single layer with room to move when shaken.
Six ounces of butterThat is a stick and a half for three pounds of sprouts, which is period restaurant practice. Three to four ounces gives a proper gloss without a pool of butter in the dish.
Velouté No. 415A velouté is a white stock thickened with a blond roux. Added here it should be a spoonful or two, just enough to coat; more turns the dish into creamed sprouts.
YieldThree pounds of sprouts serves eight to ten as a side dish. The recipe scales down without change.

A Little History

Brussels sprouts are generally traced to the region around Brussels, though the date of their cultivation there is variously placed, from the sixteenth century by some accounts and later by others, and they reached fine dining in France and then America through the nineteenth century. Ranhofer gives them a run of numbered variations at Delmonico's rather than a single entry. The technique here is textbook French vegetable cookery of the period: blanch to fix colour, refresh to stop the cooking, then finish to order in butter, with an optional enrichment from the sauce station. The unlined copper pot is the tell of a professional kitchen — a detail Ranhofer expected his readers to have, and one that modern cooks should quietly replace.