No. 707

Puree of Brussels Sprouts

Puree de Choux de Bruxelles

Blanch in boiling salted water in an untinned vessel, two pounds of well cleaned Brussels sprouts; drain and put them into a saucepan, with one quart of broth (No. 189), two ounces of butter, some salt and sugar; boil slowly until done and the moisture entirely reduced, then mash them and press them through a sieve. Put the puree back into the saucepan with a pint of either veloute (No. 415), or espagnole (No. 414), and a tablespoonful of meat glaze (No. 401); heat it well and finish with two ounces of fine butter just when serving.

← No. 706 Puree of Beans Bretonne Garnishings No. 708 Puree of Milan or Savoy Cabbage →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

A classic Escoffier-era garnish purée: sprouts stewed to softness in stock, sieved, then bound with a mother sauce and finished with butter. Most of the work in adapting it is decoding the cross-references and ignoring one piece of nineteenth-century copper lore.

The "untinned vessel"This means unlined copper, used because trace copper salts set the chlorophyll and keep green vegetables bright. Copper leaches into hot salted water and should not be used for this; blanch in stainless or enamel and accept a slightly duller colour, or drop the sprouts into ice water straight from the boil to hold what green there is.
No. 189, 415, 414, 401No. 189 is Ranhofer's broth; any good unsalted chicken or veal stock works. Velouté is stock thickened with a blond roux; espagnole is the brown equivalent. Meat glaze (glace de viande) is stock reduced to a syrup; a tablespoon of demi-glace concentrate or a reduced-stock cube of your own is the practical stand-in, and it carries much of the savour.
QuantitiesTwo pounds of sprouts, one quart (4 cups) of broth, a pint (2 cups) of sauce, and 2 oz butter at each of two stages — about 4 tablespoons each time. The finished purée will run to several cups; as a garnish it will stretch a long way, as a side dish it will serve a smaller table.
"Until done and the moisture entirely reduced"The sprouts must braise until the quart of stock has cooked away almost completely, concentrating in the vegetable rather than being drained off. Allow a good while at a bare simmer, uncovered at the end; stir near the finish, as the pan will catch once the liquid goes.
Sugar and saltThe recipe calls for both; a small amount of sugar is still worth it — perhaps a teaspoon for two pounds. Season the stock lightly, since it reduces to nothing and will concentrate whatever salt is in it.
SievingA food mill on the fine plate does in two minutes what the tammy or drum sieve did in twenty. A blender gives a gluey texture with cooked cabbage; the mill or a sieve is better. Push through a fine sieve afterwards if you want it truly smooth.
Finishing butterThe last 2 oz goes in off the heat, whisked in just before it leaves the kitchen. Boiling after that point splits the emulsion and the purée turns greasy. Hold the purée warm in a bain-marie rather than over direct heat.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, and this purée sits in the garnishing section rather than among the vegetables, as the page's own heading shows: such purées were used to accompany and dress other dishes as much as to be served alone. The construction is thoroughly French — vegetable stewed in stock, sieved, then bound with velouté or espagnole and lifted with glace de viande — and reflects a system in which garnishes were built from the same handful of mother sauces kept standing on the stove. Brussels sprouts had been cultivated around the Low Countries since at least the sixteenth century and were available in American markets by Ranhofer's day, though still treated as a late-autumn and winter vegetable. Blanching green vegetables in untinned copper was a recognised professional trick for holding colour, and fell away as the hazards of dissolved copper became better understood.