Another thing we miss by not wandering around in the Brussels sprout patch, is the knowledge that these plants have enormous leaves, rather like those of a fig tree. Even though the Iacopi Farms stand at the Saturday Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market offers Brussels sprouts in season, and although they often display the stalk with the sprouts and leaves, I had never taken note of the leaves until yesterday. I overheard Chris Consentino (chef at Incanto), who was holding a stalk replete with leaves and explaining to a companion how he was hoping to get a supply of the leaves because they would be delicious with some olive oil and anchovies. (!) This had never occurred to me, which probably explains why he is a chef and I'm wasting part of my Sunday afternoon writing about overheard conversations.
So, off to the Iacopi stand I went where I found out from Lou that Chris had eaten Brussel Sprout leaves in England, and wanted to use them here. A little subtle begging, coupled with the Lou's generosity, got me a handful of leaves which I stuck in the pack for use in future experiments.
When I got home, a little work with Google, showed that other mortals eat these leaves and blog about them: Brussels Sprouts Leaves Raw and Not Raw, and also that V.R. Markovic, and LJ.O. Vracar have written an article entitled APPLICABILITY OF BRUSSELS SPROUTS LEAVES FOR HUMAN NUTRITION, where they state:
Chemical analyses, conducted at the Faculty of Technology in Novi Sad during 1998 and 1999 on the variety Lunet, which had been grown at a stand density of 35,700 plants/ha and yielded 12.1 t/ha of sprouts and 22.5 t/ha of leaves, showed that for most of the parameters measured the quality of leaves was better than that of sprouts. On the basis of these results, it was concluded that the leaves of Brussels sprouts could be recommended for human nutrition as a substitute for kale.
Today as part of lunch, I took the leaves, stacked them up and rolled them, like I was making a cigar, and then cut them into a coarse chiffonade. First, I took a taste of the raw leaf, and not surprisingly, it tasted like a tough Brussels sprout. Next, I put the leaves into a pan with some garlic, olive oil, and red pepper flakes, and braised them for about fifteen minutes. The result? These are tough leaves. They were still crunchy, but they taste fine. It is unclear if they can be cooked to tenderness without a pressure cooker or a long slow braise in liquid, but it is also unclear that tender would really be better than what I ended up with. But, that's why cooking can be fun. MAYBE IT IS BETTER. Next week I'll see if I can score a few more leaves and try a braise. The rest of you are either going to have to move to a farm or eat at Incanto, which isn't a bad idea.
I have been trying to find a the seeds for "spring greens" that we find in our UK supermarkets for ages. I did some research and found out the these "spring greens" are nothing other than the earliest cabbages and other brassicas. One of these "greens" was also listed as the leaves from Sprouts. Luckily for me I have some in the garden that I had started last spring, for harvesting on Christmas day. I pulled off a handful of leaves and then sliced them into strips about 3cm long. I then steamed these for just 5 minutes. The results were fanstastic. Full of flavour, quite sweet and full of vitamins and iron. The sprout is truly a remarkable vegitable to have in the garden!!
I tried the leaves for the first time, cooked them down in a chicken base with about 4 cups of water, added, salt, pepper, onion and oil steamed them down for about 40 mins, and they tasked like collard greens, my family couldn't tell the difference we found them to be an excellence replacement for cabbage and collard greens.