I love braising vegetables. It is a simple mostly hands off preparation method.  My favorite part of braising vegetables is that you get a bonus sauce or glaze that elevates the dish beyond roasting or steaming.

This dish is good hot or room temperature and travels perfectly so this would be a good vegetable dish to bring to a friends house for Hannukah or Thanksgiving, but it’s simple enough for a weeknight meal.

Here is what you need.

1 pound brussels sprouts
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup dry white wine-I used vermouth
1 cup broth (chicken or vegetable)
1/2 to 1 cup of leeks or shallots or onions
2 tablespoons heavy cream-optional. I wasn’t going t use it then in the end I added a little.
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Those cubes on the dish are frozen chicken stock. I make and freeze it in small portions so I can use what I need. Use what you have.

Wash trim and cut the Brussels sprouts in half and cut up your leek or onion.

Heat the butter and oil in a large skillet with a medium heat. I used my biggest skillet, it’s 12 inches, put the Brussels sprouts cut side down in the pan, they all fit in my skillet. If yours is smaller you might need to do 2 batches to brown them.

Let those brown and cook without moving them for about 5 minutes. Then add the leeks, wine, stock and salt and pepper and give it a stir and cover it and let is gently simmer for about 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes they look like this. A lot of the liquid is magically absorbed and the sprouts are soft but still pretty firm, not crunchy.  You could stop here and they would be delicious.

I scooped out my sprouts and was left with this much liquid. I added a little Dijon and just a splash of cream. You could use sour cream or butter, or nothing.

I stirred that up and let it reduce just a little and added my sprouts back to mix it all up to get that sauce in all the nooks and crannies.

We happened to be having cod and rice for dinner the night I made this, so we had this for our vegetable and you know what? It was unbelievably good. The strong flavors of the sprouts and mustard were perfect with the cod and rice and there was just enough sauce to not overwhelm the plate.

Anyway….

I have a couple other braising recipes here you might want to check out and this Brussels sprout salad recipe that I love too.

Have a great week. I hope you are enjoying these great winter vegetables.

Mo