Charred Brussels Sprout Toasts with Ricotta
Deb Perelman, creator of the award-winning blog Smitten Kitchen, says one of her favorite recipes she learned in her early blogging years is a wildly simple sauté of shredded brussels sprouts with lemon juice and garlic from New York City’s Union Square Café. You’re supposed to cook the sprouts for just a few minutes, so they’re just tender, still green and somewhat crisp. But what if you’re an easily distracted cook? You might discover that sprouts cooked to a light char—crispy in some places, a little green in the others—are fantastic. Deb heaps the brussels sprouts on olive-oil-fried, garlic-rubbed toasts, and adds hazelnuts for crunch and ricotta for richness. Lemon juice goes on at the end, where it’s the brightest. Is this dinner? Do you eat it as a snack as you stand in the kitchen? That’s between you and your toasts, and Deb says she would never want to interfere.
Ingredients:
- Olive oil
- 6 medium-size slices sourdough or country bread, each 1/2 inch (12 mm) thick
- 1 garlic clove, halved
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 lb. (500 g) brussels sprouts, trimmed, halved lengthwise and sliced 1/8 inch (3 mm) thick, or 12 oz. (375 g) sliced brussels sprouts
- 1 medium lemon
- 1 cup (8 oz./250 g) whole-milk ricotta cheese
- Red pepper flakes, to taste
- 1/2 cup (2 3/4 oz./80 g) hazelnuts, toasted, loose skins removed, coarsely chopped
Directions:
Drizzle a large fry pan lightly with olive oil and add as many bread slices as fit in one layer. Turn the heat to medium and cook until the bread is golden brown and toasted underneath, about 4 minutes. Flip and toast the second side, about 1 minute more, then set the toast aside on a plate. Repeat with the remaining bread, adding more olive oil as needed. Remove from the heat and rub the toasts with the halves of the garlic clove and sprinkle with salt.
Increase the heat to medium/medium-high and add enough olive oil to recoat the pan well. Heat the oil until hot, then add the brussels sprouts. Season well with salt and black pepper, then let them cook undisturbed until well browned underneath, 3 to 5 minutes. Flip and let the second side brown well underneath, 2 to 4 minutes more. Stir once or twice and repeat this browning-and-flipping process until the sprouts have charred spots all over. Remove from the heat and squeeze the juice of half of the lemon over the top. Taste and season with more salt and black pepper if needed.
Spread each slice of bread thickly with the ricotta. Heap the ricotta with the charred brussels sprouts. Finish with another drizzle of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, salt and red pepper flakes, to taste. Scatter with the hazelnuts. Makes 6 toasts.
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen Keepers by Deb Perelman (Knopf 2022)
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