Veggies To Eat Before You Die: Cabbage Sprouts

Spring time is here, yey yey yey. To celebrate I went to Easy Way (the only shop that I don't budget my spending) last weekend to see if they had any new seasonal veggies in yet. Most of the stuff on the shelves was still pushing it as far as being in season is concerned. They fooled me once this time of year with the melons about 4 years ago, but never again.

So I am searching for the new stuff, the stuff they only have in the store for a couple of weeks before it is gone until the next season, and I stumble upon cabbage sprouts. They looked interesting enough, a mix between a tiny cabbage and a really big over grown brussel sprout and at 49 cents a pound they couldn't be beat. So I scoop some up, assuming that surely I will be able to find a recipe online when I get home.

Well let me be the first to tell you that nobody eats these things. The things that I learned from my google search on cabbage sprout recipes are two fold.
1. Only one person has ever eaten a cabbage sprout and felt the need to post about it on the internet besides me. (Although I was hungry and didn't do a thorough search.)
2. Broccoli is Italian for cabbage sprout meaning every hit returned from my cabbage sprout search was ultimately about broccoli, which is not the same thing as a cabbage sprout.

The recipe I found was simple enough, thanks to fellow blogger Alanna over at A Veggie Venture.
-Melt some butter in a pan. (About a tablespoon)
-Remove loose or tough leaves from cabbage sprouts.
-Cut sprouts in half and place in pan with melted butter.
-Toss well and cover pan. Cook slowly for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

We tried it out and the cabbage sprouts were phenomenal. They have more of a winter greens flavor (think Kale) than cabbage or brussel sprout flavor. I didn't really know what I was looking for in a cabbage sprout when I picked them out but since cooking them, I do know, and shall impart my sprout wisdom onto you.

1. Pick tight sprouts, the outer leaves are kind of hard and the looser sprouts don't have as much of a "heart" as the tighter ones do. The heart is the good part, tender light green leaves full of flavor.

2. Keep the butter on low heat. I ended up with a couple of kind of crispy leaves because of a thin pan and high heat.

3. Leaves that you might think would be too tough to eat really turn out tender. The bigger tougher leaves fall off and burn rather quickly. They don't make for pretty presentation but still taste good and I think would be good sautéed in butter or oil separately from the hearts.