, Step by step

Sauté Brussels sprouts with salsify and pancetta

A tasty and different way of cooking sprouts. Remember to keep the leftovers for bubble and squeak!

Mark Stower, Director of Food and Service

Preparation Time: 10 mins

Cooking Time: 20 mins

Serves: 4

Method

  • Step 1

    Heat the olive oil in a heavy bottomed pan, add the chopped onion and crushed garlic and cook until a light golden colour.

  • Step 2

    Add the diced pancetta and lightly cook until starting to brown.

  • Step 3

    Add the already cooked salsify and sauté until brown.

  • Step 4

    Add the brussel sprouts and continue to cook until lightly coloured.

  • Step 5

    Season with freshly milled pepper.

Nutrition

Brussel sprouts – you either love them or loathe them. That’s partly because we tend to ‘murder’ vegetables like sprouts by boiling them in loads of water for far too long until they are watery, soggy and have lost lots of their nutrients.

Try Mark’s recipe and you’ll find the brussel sprout is much better served so that it is crunchy and absorbs the flavours of the pancetta, garlic and onions. The quick cooking ensures that most of the lovely vitamin C should be retained too.

Many people have never even heard of salsify – a root vegetable, also known as vegetable oyster because of a slight oyster flavour – and until recently it’s been hard to find. It grows as a wild flower in parts of the UK and it’s been cultivated for use as a vegetable in Europe since the sixteenth century.

You can boil or steam salsify in its skin after washing it and then peel off the brown skin quite easily afterwards. It’s rich in fibre and potassium.

A portion of this lovely vegetable dish should be equivalent to about two of your recommended 5 a day.

DR JULIET GRAY, COMPANY NUTRITIONIST