Thanksgiving Brussels Sprouts

Thanksgiving Brussels Sprouts

My mom's boyfriend Paul is one of the best home cooks I've encountered. Actually, the only two exceptional home cooks I have encountered are Riley's mom, Pam, and my mom's boyfriend, Paul. These two will whip up a five course meal like it's nothing. If I know I am cooking that much food, I swear I'm sweatin two days prior over the ingredients, and my groceries, and the recipes, and quizzing myself to make sure I know what I am doing. These two don't do that. It's like they could cook like this in their sleep.

Anyways, Paul made a fantastic meal on Friday to break up all of the Thanksgiving food. We had short ribs, risotto, Brussels sprouts, and probably 5 other dishes I am forgetting about (it's been a long week). When I decided I wanted to make this for my dad's Thanksgiving on Saturday, I texted Paul for a "rough guidance" on what he included. Knowing him, he's not going off of any recipe except his instinct. And because his email with the instructions is so fantastic, I am going to include it below. We both used Brussels Sprouts from the actual stock, which is a hilarious looking vegetable. You could definitely hurt someone with one of those bad boys.

I could write a direct recipe from Paul's email, but I think that his email shows the amazing art of cooking in a completely raw way... in his words, "the recipe lends itself to variation", and I think this is what most artists in the kitchen would live by. I will consider myself a fantastic cook when I no longer need to look at the amount of spice to add to something, or when I no longer need to find inspiration from recipes. Cooking is instinctual, and boy, does Paul have that instinct.

And apologies on the shitty photos, I didn't have my Canon in Sacramento with me. 

Ingredients:

2 stocks of Brussels Sprouts (see photo for reference), plucked from the stock, and sliced thinly

6 shallots, sliced

1 cup golden raisins

1 cup pine nuts (but you can substitute sliced almonds, walnuts, or whatever else you want if you don't want to spend your life savings on pine nuts)

1/2 lb pancetta, sliced (I bought something from Raley's called salted pork, and it came in a big huge cube that looked like a fat piece of bacon

Directions (from Paul) aka email from Paul - Paraphrased by moi:

Hi Ellen, no 'directions' on this one. It's pretty forgiving and lends itself to variation. Once you've cut the sprouts, saute lots of shallots -- I'm sure onions would work as well -- and set aside. Then cook pancetta and set aside. Find a huge pan and saute sprouts in the pancetta grease until cooked, perhaps 8-10 minutes. Yesterday we did this in 2 batches, the pan wasn't large enough for only one go, but it doesn't really matter - the first batch will keep while the second cooks just fine. 

Anyway, cool (cooling is not necessary if you're in a time crunch) all the sprouts then add the shallots & pancetta back into the mixture (with everything) with really good chicken broth, and, towards the end, heavy whipping cream. How much? Not sure; all depends on how many sprouts you've made. Point being, you can always add more liquid if needs be but too much is harder to remedy. One word of warning: it's easy to underestimate how many shallots you'll need. Yesterday, I used 6 large ones. I put toasted pinenuts on top at the end, up to you, or you can use toasted sliced almonds or nothing at all for garnish. Salt, nutmeg, either, both, up to you.