Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 276 kcal | 78 kcal |
| Protein | 21.9 g | 6.2 g |
| Fat | 1.9 g | 0.5 g |
| saturated | 0.4 g | 0.1 g |
| Carbohydrate | 33.4 g | 9.5 g |
| sugars | 14.1 g | 4 g |
| Fibre | 24.4 g | 6.9 g |
| Sodium | 161 mg | 46 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
Ingredients
- 3.4 kg brussels Sprouts (about 169 medium)
Instructions
- Pick sprouts that are tight and squeak when you rub them rather than loose and yellowing. A sprout that has begun to open has already turned sugar into starch and dries to something bitter.
- Trim the stem flush and pull off the outer leaves. Those leaves take the brunt of handling and are usually bruised, and bruised cabbage smells sulphurous as it dries.
- Boil or steam the sprouts whole until a skewer goes in with slight resistance. The blanch does two jobs: it stops the enzymes that make cabbage smell, and it opens up the dense layers so water can get out of the middle.
- Drop them into ice water and leave them until they are cold at the centre. A sprout left to keep cooking in its own heat goes grey and loses its leaf structure.
- Halve each one down through the stem and lay the halves cut side up. That cut face is the only opening into a very tightly packed vegetable.
- Dry at 52 °C for 12 hours. Expect a strong smell for the first hour or two, because cabbage always does that, and expect the halves to shrink to about a third of their size.
- They are ready when a half crumbles under pressure and the layers come apart dry rather than peeling apart damply. Prise one open from the stem end to check, since the heart finishes last.
- Cool them spread out and jar them in the dark, where they hold for a year. Rehydrated in hot stock for twenty minutes they go into a stew; eaten dry and salted they are surprisingly good, if a little like eating a leaf.
