The Brassica family are something of a recurrent theme on Show Me The Treasure, though, and this is an entirely personal view, I am not quite sure if Brussel Sprouts are treasure. An indicator species for winter, a diminuitive satire on the cabbage,  these two speciments packed an olfactory punch well above their weight, a condition  I had time to observe while scribbling away on their portraits. The problem is how to cook them, to avoid any repetition of the overboiled, water laden khaki bags with mush pink hearts that are too easy to recollect from childhood.  A quick look in that reliable  Doyen of Cookbooks, Time Life's The Good Cook/Techniques and Recipes - Vegetables show only two recipes. To put this in context Kohlrabi gets three and potatoes 27,  making the Brussell Sprout something of an outsider vegetable.  One recipe starts off with boiling, which I would avoid, the second with braising and a 4:1 ratio of sprouts to butter, which seems to defeat the purpose.  My friend Ingrid once served them to us stir fried, the compact cross sections still holding up, with that slight,desirable singed edges to the slices, and a little garlic - slivered and golden brown from stir frying, and I may be imagining this, toasty  flaked almonds, a method which avoids all of the pitfalls of over brussellling.