Blair's Brussels Sprouts

This is a pretty popular dish around town at the moment, with most of the Glowbal Group restaurants offering some variant of it, and the Flying Pig (one of the founders of which is a Glowbal alumni) doing their own version. Glowbal deepfries their dish which makes it awesome, but not so healthy. FP seems to bake theirs, which is almost as good and better for you. Personally I'm too lazy for either so mine are faster, which is good because I'm hungry now. Also, there's butter involved. Lots and lots of delicious butter. 

Even if you never liked these little guys, you should still try this recipe. You Emirates folks can just delegate to one of the maids and then have a beer.

To do the trick you need:

• Brussels sprouts (yes, the extra 's' is technically correct). These are delicious, so buy roughly one million of them. Alternatively, if you are not feeding the entire army, about a half dozen per person will do
• Butter (lots of it)
• Brown sugar (a little bit)
• Apple cider vinegar (a splash)
• Red chilli flakes (a pinch)
• Salt & pepper to taste
• A lemon
• Capers
• Parmesan cheese

Exact amounts aren't critical - just man up and do things to taste.

1. Prep sprouts. Trim the stems and remove any dead leaves. Then make a cross-shaped cut about 10mm into each stem, and finish by slicing it in half. If healthy leaves fall off, keep 'em.

2. Parboil (or 'leach') - a few minutes will do. Include the stray leaves. Not too much, if they go mushy then fun times are over and we'll have to order in a pizza. While this is happening, let's get a pan rolling on medium or so with a generous knob of butter - a couple of tablespoons at least - and a bit of brown sugar. We don't want the butter to burn, but if it simmers for a few minutes it'll start to go brown as the sugar caramelizes. Brown butter makes stuff delicious.

3. Add sprouts. Drain and into the pan. Toss them all around to coat them in butter. Season with a big pinch of rock salt and some pepper, squeeze in some lemon juice and add a couple tablespoons of capers - the more the merrier. A splash of apple cider vinegar is good, and some chilli flakes if you like a little bite. Shuffle everything around occasionally but not too much - we want the sprouts to brown up real nice. They'll be in there a while - 10 or 15 minutes at least. Add more butter if they seem thirsty. When they're all nice and browned, they're done.

4. Serve. This is for sharing so just throw it all in a big dish and distribute forks. Grate a metric ass-load of fresh parmesan cheese all over, and maybe a little more lemon juice. Cracked black pepper finishes it off.

Bonus: Balsamic reduction - this extra step is unnecessary but awesome. Heat equal parts balsamic vinegar and orange juice in a pan until it reduces to a syrup - add a pinch of brown sugar if it's too tart - and drizzle all over. Fab!

Remember: I stole this recipe fair and square, so if you make it you need to pay me royalties. I take Big Macs as payment.