I dare you, actually I double-dog dare you, to take a look at that photo and tell me that you can't wait to eat some brussel sprouts! Choux de Bruxelles a la Mornay, Gratines is not your everyday "steam some frozen brussel sprouts in a bag" brussel sprouts. No sir, these are "Brussel Sprouts Gratineed with Cheese Sauce." Now, doesn't that make your mouth just water, even if you're a brussel sprout hater? Even if you think you don't like brussel sprouts, trying some brussel sprouts gratineed with cheese sauce has a pretty good chance of hanging your mind.
This was simply a side dish packed full of awesomeness and a lot of fun to prepare. It combined several of the new cooking skills I've been learning and I managed to successfully do them all this time! Bechamel, mornay, blanch, gratin -- it doesn't get any better than this and it all started off with my friend Blanch.
First I trimmed off the ends of a two pound bag of fresh brussel sprouts and plopped them into a giant kettle of boiling water for a little over five minutes. While they were boiling I started my bechamel sauce. Did you catch that, I actually was multi-tasking while I cooked! Woohooooo! I used to dread making a white sauce (usually gravy) because it took me forever and usualy ended up being too thin. Now, however, I'm able to whip it together in just a couple of minutes. Butter and flour cooked together for a couple of minutes and then and then boiling milk was added. As I've mentioned before, the trick to the bechamel sauce is to have the milk boiling hot when it is added to the roux.
Once the bechamel sauce was completed, shredded Swiss cheese was stirred into the bechamel and it was magically converted into a delicious cheesy mornay sauce. In the meantime, the brussel sprouts had finished blanching and were drained. A couple tablespoons of melted butter was then poured over the dish (remember, butter is needed to make this a French dish). Then one third of the mornay sauce was spread across the bottom of 9"x13" Pyrex baking dish. On top of the layer of sauce, I placed all of the brussel sprouts head side up. After that the remaining mornay sauce was poured over, and spread evenly, to pretty much cover the spouts in the pan. Finally about a third of a cup of shredded Swiss cheese was spread around over the sprouts in the baking dish.
Finally, to finish this dish off it was placed into a medium hot broiler for between five to ten minutes to melt the cheese and heat the dish to its final serving temperature. This made it possible to complete the dish a little bit before the rest of our meal was complete and then heat it to be ready to serve on time.
It was really really good and we had no leftovers at all. Definitely a recipe that'll be made again. Are you still a doubter? Try it, you'll like it and will never wrinkle your nose at brussel sprouts again!
Bon appetit!
Make them again.