• Brussels sprouts, halved, fried at 350F (the ones pictured were tests, fried at 375F--a little too caramelized):
• Maple-Pecan Butter - Pecans, toasted, then boiled with a bit of water until the water has mostly evaporated, then pureed with a bit of maple syrup and salt.
• Barbecue sauce, hickory-smoked, with heavy cream added to dull the sharpness of the BBQ sauce
• Bacon - Maple-cured, hickory-smoked. Lardons, fried and very crispy.

I love Brussels sprouts, but they have to be caramelized like crazy. Usually I just roast them (halved, drizzled with lots of olive oil, sprinkled with salt and sugar, roasted at 450F for about 20 minutes, toss halfway through). Lately, I've been deep-frying them sometimes, mostly because it's quicker. The finished product is also totally different. With roasting, they're very soft inside once they're nicely caramelized outside. With deep frying, they're crisp-tender inside and are almost instantly caramelized outside. Also, they do absorb a lot of oil (a.k.a. deliciousness) when they're deep fried.

Here, I paired them with a nut butter. Initially, I was thinking of making a pine nut butter, but I didn't have enough pine nuts on hand, so I went with a pecan butter instead. And, since I was already going Southern, I figured I might as well add the smoke, the maple, and the BBQ. This was pretty good. Honestly, the pine nut butter would have suited the sprouts a bit more, but this still worked well. The maple pecan butter was awesome on its own, though, and I plan on incorporating such a component into a lot of future dishes. It's key, by the way, to dull the barbecue sauce with heavy cream, and maybe even butter. Otherwise the BBQ sauce flavor just takes over.

Posted by Barzelay on 2009/02/09 @ 23:49 | Comments (2) | Sauces, Condiments, Veggies, Fruit, Grain, Cheese

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