Home › Vegetables and Salads › Salad of Brussels Sprouts
Salad of Brussels Sprouts
Boil 1 pint of sprouts, and drain them; when tender, sprinkle with chopped onion, olives, walnut kernels, and capers, in equal parts, all chopped fine, and two teaspoonfuls of lemon juice. Pour over these, when well mingled, a good mayonnaise dressing, and serve.
A cold sprout salad in the French manner, dressed with mayonnaise rather than vinaigrette. The recipe is workable as written; the only real risk is overcooking the sprouts.
- Cook the sprouts shortA pint of sprouts is about 12 oz. Boil in well-salted water 5-7 minutes, until a knife meets slight resistance at the core; period boiling times for green vegetables were often long, and mushy sprouts will not hold a dressing.
- Cool them before dressingDrain, spread on a tray, and let them cool to room temperature or colder. Mayonnaise poured over hot sprouts will thin and separate.
- "In equal parts"The onion, olives, walnuts and capers are measured against each other, not against the sprouts. About 2 tablespoons of each, all chopped fine, suits a pint of sprouts; more and the garnish overwhelms the vegetable.
- Olives and capersOlives of the period were often sold unpitted, so you may need to stone them yourself. Rinse the capers if they are salt-packed, and drain them well either way, or the dressing turns briny.
- OnionUse a mild sweet or red onion, or a shallot. A strong raw yellow onion will dominate the whole dish; a brief soak in cold water tames it.
- Walnut kernelsToast them lightly and let them cool. Untoasted walnut skins can read as bitter against the mayonnaise.
- The dressing"A good mayonnaise" here means a made-from-scratch egg-and-oil emulsion, thicker than bottled. About 1/2 cup is enough to coat; if you want it looser, thin with a little more lemon juice rather than water.
- YieldServes four as a side salad. Dress it no more than an hour ahead — the lemon juice will dull the green of the sprouts if it sits longer.
Serving sprouts cold under mayonnaise belongs to the French habit of dressing cooked vegetables as salads, cooled and bound with a rich dressing rather than eaten hot. The combination of olives, capers, walnuts and onion gives the briny, sharp, crunchy contrast such salads look for against a bland base, doing the work that anchovy or hard-boiled egg does elsewhere. The sprout is traditionally traced to the region around Brussels, where it is said to have been cultivated by the late eighteenth century, and the name travelled with the plant.