Crossing culture: kung pao brussels sprouts

Annalena is a big fan of vegetables.  She cannot write ALL vegetables, however, because she does not like some.  Parsnips have a high position on the list of vegetables Annalena does not like. So, too, do Brussels sprouts.  Annalena has tried. She eats them gamely.  Many of her restaurant friends are very  pround of their variation on  Brussels sprouts, and bring them out, gratis.  Annalena eats.  And passes most of them to the Guyman.  And every year, she determines that "this is the year" she is going to learn to like the veggies she does not.

It never works.  Now, she knows she will get no sympathy from the many fans of these little cabbages (what they are called in Italian:  cavolini),  but things are what they are.   She does find dishes and variations that she does like, and this year, she decided to give a try to what she felt was a very unusual variation:  Brussels sprouts in Kung Pao sauce.

Now, any of you who have eaten take out Chinese food (that is ALL of you, ragazzi), have encountered "kung pao."  Unlike his friend, General Ts'o, however, there is pretty much a consensus that there WAS a "kung pao," which  Annalena understands to mean "palace guardian."  She also understands that the dish is Szechuan in origin, which almost inevitably means spicy and hot .  (Incidentally, ragazzi, we have not been eating true Szechuan cooking in this country, EVER.  For many years, this was because the key ingredient, the Szechuan peppercorn, was banned.  Such is not the case anymore.  Yet, our Szechuan dishes do not include it,  as is the case with the dish that follows.  Let Annalena be clear:  they are an acquired taste.  You may find yourself eschewing authenticity in favor of what you like).

When you get true Kung Pao sauce, it is dark,  spicy, and with peanuts.  You will almost always get someone's variation on it, however.  Again,  having transformed, as dishes do, when they travel, you will almost always get it with an orange element in it in the US.  Annalena adds orange juice to her sauce at the end, but you do not have to.

There are certain cliches about Chinese cooking, one of which is that, once you finish the prep work, the cooking is fast.  Indeed, you're going to find this to be the case with what follows.

A warning, ragazzi: if you make this dish with ALL of the peppers, it is wicked hot. REALLY wicked hot spicy.  Consider bringing it down and using fewer peppers, if you are not a true spice head.    Are we ready to make:

Ok, let's start with a pound of fresh brussels sprouts.  Small ones if you can get them:

Cut them in half (this will take you longer than anything else you do)

And then toss them on a baking sheet, rolling them around in two tablespoons of olive oil (clearly we're doing fusion here), and add some salt and pepper.  Roast these at  425 for 20 minutes.  You will get something that looks like this:

While these boys are roasting, let's make the sauce.  You will need a list of ingredients:  a tablespoon of cornstarch, 3 garlic cloves,  2 tablespoons worth of ginger ( a nice sized knob), 2 tablespoons of a  hot chili sauce (Annalena's recipe recommended an Indonesian one.  She used sriracha),  6 chiles de arbol (we did say cross cultural, didn't we? As explained above, feel free to cut back on these, and also feel free to substitute another hot chile), a half a cup of soy sauce (feel free to use tamari), 3 tablespoons of sugar,  a tablespoon of rice vinegar, and a half cup of water.   Quite a list of ingredients:

When you've collected them,  chop the garlic as finely as you can, and do the same thing with the ginger, after you peel it.  Crush the chiles very lightly,  and of course, measure out  the other ingredients:

You will see that Annalena combined the soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, and water before she began cooking.  You should do the same.

So, to start cooking,  add a tablespoon of oil to a medium or small sauce pan, and turn the  heat to high. Add the garlic and the ginger together, and cook for about a minute and a half.  Add the chile sauce, and stir madly, until it darkens.    Now add the chiles, and that liquid mixture.    Finally, take that cornstarch and combine it with a tablespoon of water.  You'l get a gloppy slurry.  That's fine.  Toss it into the sauce, stir everything together, lower the heat, and keep your eye on it.  When the cornstarch activates, everything will thicken some, and you will see a sheen, and a clarity develop in the sauce

This is about two cups and trust Annalena ragazzi, it is PLENTY.  Taste a small amount of it.  You may very well feel, as Annalena did, that she needed orange juice and orange peel in it.  Toss the sauce and baby cabbages together, but keep in mind you have more than twice as much sauce as you will need.   It will keep.  Use it for something else.

Here is the finished product, on a plate with some not so spicy, saucy glass noodles:

Did this turn annalena into a lover of Brussels sprouts?  Well, no.  But she likes this, and now she has a new sauce in her repertoire, which will be making periodic appearances on Annalena's table