Spicy Bean Sprouts

You can tell it must still be raining when I am posting another recipe!

This one is so simple that anyone can do it in less than 10 minutes. It utilizes bean sprouts as a vegetable on it's own as a side dish - useful with all sorts of things including fish, meat and any vegetarian dish.

This recipe served four people.

1 lb. bean sprouts
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp Rayu (Japanese chili sauce – if you don’t have any, substitute 2 tsp. sesame oil and 1 tsp sichimi togarashi, a Japanese spice mix that packs some punch.
2 tsp. sesame seeds

Toast sesame seeds. I always do this as it brings out the nutty odours and flavours so well. Just don't look away when you are doing it!

Put sprouts in a large pot, water to cover and bring to a boil. After 30 seconds at boil, drain into a colander and let come to room temp.

In a large bowl mix sprouts, sesame oil and rayu.

Serve.

Ten minutes and three ingredients but they transform a relatively plain vegetable to something that acts as a foil to whatever the rest of the plate consists of. You can adjust the recipe to suit your personal heat tolerance levels. The recipe as written is fairly spicy which suits my taste but She-who-must-be-obeyed likes it less spicy, so I reduce the heat level for her.

I'm doing this tonight to accompany one of our favourite dishes - a ribeye steak with a suce of shallot, capers, Dijon mustard, brandy and whipping cream.

[Jenise]

I *love* bean sprouts. They were a very necessary ingredient in the chicken chow meins of my childhood. Very annoying trend in American stores--they come in packages in which they've been treated with a citric acid preservative and gassed for long shelf life. You need busy Asian markets for untreated sprouts--no problem in your neck of the woods, I know.

Btw, a friend of mine who is Chinese? She can't stand bean sprouts. This is just wrong, but to her mind they're a flavorless filler for poor people. She also considers them a major hassle because she requires that each little sprout has it's tail snapped off. Would you ever have considered doing that? Me neither.

Btw, a friend of mine who is Chinese? She can't stand bean sprouts. This is just wrong, but to her mind they're a flavorless filler for poor people. She also considers them a major hassle because she requires that each little sprout has it's tail snapped off. Would you ever have considered doing that? Me neither.

This isn't the same friend that gets headaches from Champagne is it......

[Jenise]

Btw, a friend of mine who is Chinese? She can't stand bean sprouts. This is just wrong, but to her mind they're a flavorless filler for poor people. She also considers them a major hassle because she requires that each little sprout has it's tail snapped off. Would you ever have considered doing that? Me neither.

This isn't the same friend that gets headaches from Champagne is it......

Nope.

If you're doing mung bean sprouts the elegant Chinese banquet style, you snip off both the root and the bean ends, leaving only the middle part. WAY too much work, IMO, and you lose most of the nutrients that way.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

If you're doing mung bean sprouts the elegant Chinese banquet style, you snip off both the root and the bean ends, leaving only the middle part. WAY too much work, IMO, and you lose most of the nutrients that way.

-Paul W.

Annabelle might snap both ends. In my mind, I couldn't remember.