Brussels Sprout Melts

Happy Thanksgiving week! I've got a very fall recipe for you today. I'd love to say that this one was premeditated, but the reality is that I went to make mushroom toast with some mushrooms I really needed to use up, only to find that I was a couple of days too late (RIP mushrooms, you deserved better). Fortunately I had some Brussels sprouts from the farmers market (I wonder how many times I've said that exact phrase?), so I instead threw them on top of the bread I'd bought for the mushroom toast. It was delicious! Even my sister (a Brussels sprouts hater) said so. With such a ringing endorsement and a small ingredient list, I'd suggest you make this very soon (a light Thanksgiving lunch, perhaps?).



Brussels Sprout Melts
Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients
1 small or 1/2 large sweet onion
1 tbsp butter
Salt and pepper, to taste
15-20 medium Brussels sprouts
Olive oil, for the pan
Pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)
4 1/2-inch thick slices of hearty country bread
2 tbsp softened butter1
Garlic salt (optional)2
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
  1. Cut the onion in half lengthwise and thinly slice into half moons. Add to a skillet over medium heat and cook until caramelized to your liking3. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.
  2. Preheat the broiler if yours is the type that needs preheating. While the onions cook, clean and dry the Brussels sprouts and thinly slice them crosswise (you don't even need to halve them, in which case you will essentially be cutting thin circles off the sprouts).
  3. Add the Brussels sprouts to another skillet with a glug of olive oil over medium-high heat. Sprinkle with red pepper flakes, if desired, and season with salt and pepper.
  4. Cook the sprouts, stirring often, until they are beginning to brown. Remove from heat and mix in the onions.
  5. While the Brussels sprouts are cooking, spread the butter on the bread, sprinkle with garlic salt, if using, and run under the broiler to toast lightly4.
  6. When the bread is toasted, pile on the Brussels sprout/onion mixture and top with the parmesan. Broil again until the cheese is melted and beginning to brown. Enjoy!

Notes:
  1. I had some delicious garlic-chive butter that I made over the summer in my freezer, so I defrosted that and used it on the bread. It was delicious, and I'd recommend making some: add a pasted garlic clove and a few tbsp chopped chives to a softened stick of butter. Combine in a bowl and then re-shape into a stick. Roll in plastic wrap, seal in a ziploc bag, and store in the freezer.
  2. If you don't have the aforementioned garlic butter, a nice sprinkling of garlic salt over the butter before broiling would be wonderful as well.
  3. Caramelizing onions takes a long time! Some recipes will tell you 15-20 minutes, but that's simply not true. This is more like a 40-minute process. Fortunately, you can make them in advance and store them in the fridge for quite a while.
  4. Even if you like your toast dark, don't overdo it here. The bread will go back under the broiler once it has the sandwich ingredients on it, and if you toast it too darkly at first, it will burn.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Julia Child's Pain de Mie

Image
French lesson time! Pain  is French for bread, which you likely know. Mie means "crumb", and refers to the dense, moist crumb this bread has. The crumb is the interior of the bread (i.e., not the crust). A dense crumb means that the bread has very tiny air pockets in it, while an open crumb refers to a bread more like ciabatta, which has beautiful big bubbles inside. The crumb of pain de mie makes it perfect for slicing, so it's often used for sandwiches or toast. I've been eyeing this recipe for a while, and I finally had some time the other day while I was working from home. I had some downtime while I was running some things for my data, and I used those intervals to make the bread. It came out beautifully, and it's delicious! It looks so professional but really doesn't take much effort (it does take most of a day, but it's largely downtime).  I also had a chance to get out some pent-up aggression by whacking a stick of butter with a rolling pin....
Read more

Charred Cauliflower Bowl

Image
Often, when I tell people I love to cook, they ask me, "What's your favorite thing to cook?" I suppose they're just making conversation, but I never really know how to answer a question like that. Are they looking for a specific dish, or maybe a general category like "chicken"? Either way, I don't have a favorite thing to cook. What I love about cooking is that there is always something new to try, so I rarely repeat recipes more than once or twice (except for a few staples). That being said, there are some ingredients that I just can't get enough of, one of which is cauliflower. Weird, I know, but in my defense, I'm writing a blog purely devoted to food. I should be allowed a few bizarre food obsessions. On my first grocery trip to my beautiful new grocery store, I found a lovely head of purple cauliflower. I knew I wanted to do something fun with it, and I got my opportunity a few days later when I was assessing my lunch options. To...
Read more

Creamy Lemon Pasta with Asparagus and Garlic Scapes

Image
Now that spring is practically over, I thought I'd share this delightful pasta I made a couple of weeks ago. But first, a look at this spring according to my phone and snapchat story. I joined a CSA this year (in which you pay a farm up front and get a box of fresh produce every week), and I've been having fun with some unusual ingredients like applemint and garlic scapes. Here are the contents of my first box from a few weeks ago: And of course, I've been making lots of trips to the farmers market(s) as well. And my tomatoes are finally in the ground! My herbs and garlic are doing wonderfully, as well. My fridge has been bulging with produce for the last month or two as I try to get as much rhubarb, asparagus, and strawberries as I can before their all-too-short season is up. When I saw this creamy lemon pasta on the New York Times cooking newsletter, I couldn't help but dress it up with some of that produce (plus a little Parmesan, of course). It wa...
Read more