- Well hello, today we're going
to make a healthy
pear and Brussels sprouts salad,
with some parmesan cheese, some pecans,
a delicious homemade dressing,
and yes, you can be happy
in the dead of winter
when all you're left with
is pears and apples.
All the stone fruits are gone.
So sad.
Remember the peaches, remember those apricots?
You were just like,
ahhh, fruit fruit fruit fruit fruit!
Those days are gone now.
The farmers' market's a little sad.
But we can make some magic happen.
Let's get started.
First off, we're gonna be cleaning
our Brussels sprouts,
a lot of them have these little
like, you know,
kind of sad ends where they've been
snapped off of their stem.
Just cut that right off.
Discard the excess.
Now we have our delicious mustardy little green,
and we're just gonna give it a thin slice.
(cutting)
Very important when you're slicing,
to use your knuckles as a guard.
Don't do this, this is a bad trip to the emergency room.
This, this is cooking like a pro.
#inagarten
#trademark
All right, so thin slice,
the thinner the better.
These are really like sturdy almost waxy greens.
So the nice thing is,
that they will keep for a long time.
Like a lot of people do meal prep
love using Brussels sprouts
because you can just like
literally prep them, lock them away
for the rest of the week,
and you know, add your sauce
in at the last moment.
You could totally do that with this salad.
One of the nice things about Brussels sprouts
besides their kind of naturally mustardy,
slightly peppery taste,
is that they will hold a ton of dressing
and you can really add a lot of flavor to them,
and they're substantial enough to hold it.
Okay so real talk,
I had planned on making
a giant mega-salad
so be like a beautiful platter,
but in reality, my 18 month old twins
will not eat this salad.
And my husband will not come near Brussels sprouts
unless they're like just baked in butter and sugar
and that's not gonna happen today.
So this will be like enough of a salad
for me and to offer him like a fake taste,
like, oh, do you want some salad?
And he'll be like, no,
and I'll be like, fine.
So like a double portion for me, basically.
We could put away our Brussels sprouts right now
and I have some beautiful red pears.
You could use d'Anjou, anything you'd like.
We're gonna give these a nice slice
after you wash them of course.
Just cut away from the core like this.
(chops)
And then that, this is for nibbling on.
These guys are for getting beautiful little slices.
So once again we're gonna get a nice thin cut.
And I'm probably going to cut these in half
because you wanna have a nice forkful.
And the Brussels sprouts are pretty small, so.
Kinda comparably sliced pieces.
And it looks nice, you get a nice fan.
Mmm.
(chops)
So here, like this.
Just slightly in so your fingernail is just
away and is guiding the knife
'cause they're going together.
That's how I get really thin slices
but you have to be very careful.
Seeing this beautiful fan of almost perfectly cut pear
just totally making me want to make a tart so bad.
But no.
We're gonna make this salad.
(laughs)
All right, now we're going to make our dressing.
This is really simple, we're gonna toss the pecans in,
I toasted them already.
And then we're gonna assemble.
So quick, so fast, so delicious.
For the dressing I'm adding in
about a teaspoon of caraway seeds,
a total favorite of mine
but you don't have to do it
if you don't like them.
I'm part Greek so caraway seeds
are kind of big.
Just saying.
I'm also going to add
a pinch of turmeric
because it's totally trendy right now
and inflammation.
Now I'm gonna add in a few tablespoons
of apple cider vinegar, like so healthy.
Another like two-ish tablespoons of honey.
Three tablespoons!
Okay, a quarter cup of olive oil,
make sure it's not rancid.
Add in like half a teaspoon of salt,
and now, a little bit of fresh thyme.
Just strip those leaves right off.
You don't want the stalks.
Give them a crush to kind of
help activate the oils in there.
Or yeah, get the oils out.
You can also do this on a chopping board
if you're making good choices, unlike me.
Seal it up.
Give it a good shake but make sure
it's sealed.
(shaking)
This is a new shirt.
I have many of these gingham shirts
if you haven't noticed.
Okay, let's give that a taste.
I love the color from the turmeric.
Mom's right.
(chews)
Mmm!
Right up my alley.
The caraway seeds, so good.
Look at this color.
No mustard...
and I can feel all the inflammations
draining out of my body,
I feel like $1000.
I could totally be a guest star
on whatever platform Goop would have me on now.
I'm adding in my delicious shaved Brussels sprouts.
Look at this.
Look at that.
All done by hand.
If you're serving this
on a table where it's going to be seen,
go ahead and fan some pears out,
make it look real nice.
Add in a cup or so
of your toasted pecans.
So easy.
If you're feeling indulgent,
eat some cake,
or go ahead and candy these.
It's so easy to candy pecans
and they're perfect for the salad.
But, as my husband likes to remind me,
salads are often the most caloric things
you can order,
because they're putting all the stuff in
to make leaves taste good.
Just a hint.
I am going to be shaving a little bit
of parmesan on here,
you can also shave some pecorino,
add some goat cheese dollops,
whatever you'd like.
But I'll do that after I've dressed the salad
and tossed it up.
I still can't get over this color.
Golden!
Beautiful color.
Look at that.
(upbeat music)
All of that went in,
I didn't save any.
Thanks.
All right, give it a nice toss
with your beautiful copper utensils.
This looks great.
And yes, I did need to add in
all that dressing, it really absorbed a lot.
Could you add some avocado in here?
Mmhmm, sure.
Just do it after you toss it.
Okay, I'm liking this.
This is like,
this is mom approved.
Okay, now we're going to shave in some parmesan,
I don't know exactly how much to advise
you to shave in,
but as much as you want.
How about that?
And you can use a cheese grater for this
or just a nice knife.
And confidence.
Now we have our cheese salad all ready.
(laughs)
So just you know you can distribute
a little bit in, you can leave some on top.
It's really nice if you're taking photos
for Instagram, to have a little bit
of shaved cheese, unblemished by dressing,
resting on top.
But that's just me.
Last up is a couple of those
pear pieces just to really emphasize
that it's not all Brussels sprouts,
there are pieces of pear in here as well.
And we're done, we're done.
Ready to eat.
Let's plate this up.
Just gonna serve myself
a little salad so I can do
an official taste test for you.
You get any on the counter,
you can just eat that. Mmm.
I literally just came up with this salad
I'm like, have some pears, some Brussels sprouts,
and we'll figure the rest out.
Just off the cuff.
So happy about this.
Tootin' that horn, tootin' it so hard.
Let's take a bite.
Lot of chewing here.
But it's so good! Mmm!
Oh my gosh, those flavors work perfectly together.
In my humble opinion.
The pears are really soft and sweet.
The dressing has like the savory, the sweet,
the tang from that apple cider vinegar.
And of course those Brussels sprouts
have a ton of crunch.
So much crunch.
All right, thanks so much for watching,
try this salad out.
It's real tasty and I think you'll like it.
If you have any questions,
leave them in the comments below,
and if you like my videos,
don't forget to hit that like button and subscribe.