I meant to make a healthy dish of roasted Brussels sprouts to go with the three varieties of BBQ’ed meat and heart unhealthy recipes on the menu for the day of BBQing I’d carefully planned with my coworker. But then out of curiosity I googled “creamed + Brussels sprouts” and found this recipe I could not pass by for some plain old roasted Brussels sprouts.
ingredients.
- 2 lbs brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved through the stem end
- 2 ½ T. unsalted butter, melted
- 1 T. Kosher salt, divided
- freshly ground black pepper
- 1 c. coarse fresh bread crumbs
- 6 slices bacon, fried until crisp, crumbled; reserve drippings (divided – approx. 1-½ T.)
- ¼ c. finely grated aged Gruyère
- 1 ½ c. heavy cream
directions.
- Preheat oven to 425. Put the brussels sprouts in a shallow baking dish that will hold them in a snug single layer. Toss them with the melted butter, 3/4 teaspoon salt and several grinds of pepper. Spread them evenly in the dish and roast, tossing once or twice, until browned in spots and tender-crisp when pierced with a knife, 20-25 minutes.
- While the sprouts roast, combine the bread crumbs with 1 tablespoon bacon drippings and 1/8 teaspoon salt. Mix in the Gruyère; set aside.
- When the sprouts are tender, sprinkle the crumbled bacon over.
- Pour the cream over the brussels sprouts and continue baking until the cream has thickened to a saucy consistency, coating the sprouts, 6 to 7 minutes, stir and cook for another 6 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven. Sprinkle the bread-crumb mixture evenly over the brussels sprouts and bake the gratin until the crust is deep golden brown, about 10 to 12 minutes. Watch CLOSELY so the topping does not burn.
I realized when we started this dish that I had half the amount of brussels sprouts called for in the recipe, which we determined was fine because there was so much other food for us to enjoy we didn’t need huge amounts of Brussels sprouts.
Instead of decreasing the remaining ingredients by half (as would be the natural thing to do when halving a recipe), I decreased the heavy cream to 1 cup and kept the bread crumbs, cheese and bacon grease amounts the same. I thought this would go unnoticed, but my coworker caught me! Luckily, he approved my decision.
Recipe rating:
Food Snob 