Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down

     This week I tried two new recipes.  I call them experiments.  And my long suffering wife becomes the unsuspecting victim of such attempts at culinary excellence.  One recipe combined several unlikely elements and worked out very well.  The other looked good in the magazine but was decidedly less than mediocre in actuality.
     So let's begin with the thumbs up recipe.  Here are the elements in order of appearance: bacon, Brussels sprouts, an onion, unsweetened apple juice, whole grain mustard, an apple, butter, cider vinegar.  Sounds odd, doesn't it?  But the flavors and textures worked very well together and at the dinner table we both decided the recipe was a "keeper."  I will post it below.
     The thumbs down recipe seemed good in theory and was certainly simple enough.  It just didn't deliver on taste or appearance.  It was for glazed radishes.  On that issue the verdict was that some things are just better eaten fresh from the garden.  Butter, sugar and heat could not improve on the familiar crunch of a radish right out of the ground, rinsed first of course.
     For the week, then, my record is 1 for 2 or in baseball terms, I'm batting .500.  And that's not a bad average to have.

     A question for my readers:  What vegetable is only sold fresh, never canned or frozen?  Answer tomorrow.

Braised Brussels Sprouts

4 strips bacon, diced                                        2 Tbsp whole grain mustard

2 lbs Brussels sprouts, halved                       1 Fuji apple, cored and diced

1/2 cup thinly sliced onion                             4 Tbsp butter, diced

1/4 cup unsweetened apple juice                  2 Tbsp cider vinegar

                                         salt & pepper to taste

     Cook the bacon in a large saute pan over medium heat until crisp, 7-10 minutes.  Transfer bacon to a paper towel lined plate then increase the heat to high.  Add Brussels sprouts and onion and cook until sprouts begin to brown, about 5 minutes; season with salt.

     Deglaze the pan with the apple juice, scraping up any browned bits on the bottom.  Add mustard, cover, reduce heat to medium-low and cook sprouts until nearly fork tender, 6 minutes.  Add diced apple, cover and cook until tender, 3 minutes.

     Stir in butter, vinegar and bacon then season with salt and pepper.

Serves 6

Cuisine at Home, Issue #92, April 2012, p. 43