The Dish That Launched a Thousand Brussels Sprouts

The Dish That Launched a Thousand Brussels Sprouts

These days, Brussels sprouts are everywhere on restaurant menus. That’s a good thing. When deep-fried and tossed with fish sauce—how they invariably appear—they’re little bombs of flavor and texture. When we opened Craft, however, Brussels sprouts were a rarity on restaurant menus. No one wanted them. No one made them, at least not professionally. They were derided for their flavor, for their texture, for everything so much so that they were a cliché of what you didn’t want to eat. And then, at Craft, we started gently tossing them in rendered bacon fat and aromatics until their delicate flavor commingled with the richness of the bacon. People took notice and the little cruciferous orbs began to sell, becoming one of our most popular sides. Soon, they began to spread to other menus, where methods of preparing them grew wider and more varied. (I am not, by the way, taking sole credit for popularizing Brussels sprouts, but like Edison bulbs and Chilewich place mats, there was a hockey stick upward after Craft.) But this, the original preparation, is still one of my favorite recipes and on regular rotation at home.

Servings:

Author: Tom Colicchio

Ingredients

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil plus more for drizzling
6 ounces slab bacon roughly chopped
1 small white onion sliced
Kosher salt
2 pounds Brussels sprouts trimmed and halved
3/4 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves plus 2 full sprigs thyme
Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat until shimmering. Add the bacon and cook, stirring occasionally, until the fat is rendered and the bacon starts to crisp, about 5 minutes. Add the onion and season with salt. Cook together until the onion starts to soften, about 5 minutes.
Add the Brussels sprouts slowly in batches, so as not to overwhelm the pan, and season with salt. Add ¼ cup water and cook together, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 6 minutes. Add the thyme leaves and season with salt and pepper. Continue cooking until the Brussels sprouts start to become tender, 7 to 10 minutes.
Add the 2 sprigs of thyme and cook until the Brussels sprouts are soft and just starting to brown, 4 to 5 minutes. Taste and season with more salt and pepper and a drizzle of oil to finish.
Note: You can add small amounts of water if the Brussels sprouts start to stick to the pan, but don’t add too much as you don’t want them steaming in water.