I must admit, and maybe it comes as no surprise considering I write a food blog, I’ll eat pretty much anything. Except tinned tuna of course; quite how anyone can is beyond me. Other than that though, pretty much anything.

Sprouts are pretty close to dropping off that list mind you and sit somewhere in the ‘tolerable’ category for me. Maybe it’s a childhood thing, or the fact they taste how they smell, a pungent cabbagey flavour. I love cabbage mind you, so I suppose I’m actually none the wiser.

Anyway, with Christmas day rapidly approaching, I thought I’d look at a few alternative methods of cooking them. Stir-frying them with bacon and/or chestnuts was the alternative last year and worked well enough, but then it hit me.

Deep frying, the last resort of the health conscious – surely this is a method that cant fail? It got me thinking and I came up with a kind of croquette. I quickly Googled the idea, and found I was far from the only one who’d come up with this sadly, but still. The beauty of this of course is that you can add flavours however you fancy. I added some potato to keep the thing bound together and the result was very good indeed. The offensive vegetable was mellowed and I actually found myself eating two or three of these. So, I though I’d share it with you.

To save time on the day, I think I might make the potato mixture the day before and cover it. It’ll just be case of skipping to the end then…

Makes 4 golf ball sized croquettes, just multiply them up as many as you need.

Ingredients:

• 6 sprouts, thinly sliced.
• 1 medium potato (any mashing variety), quartered.
• 2 pieces of streaky bacon, chopped – leave it out for a vegetarian version, or replace with goats cheese.
• A couple of springs of thyme, leaves only
• Salt and Pepper
• Breadcrumbs
• One egg, beaten

Simply peel, quarter and boil the potato until cooked in a small pan. Strain it out of the water with a slotted spoon, roughly mash and set aside.

Blanch the sliced sprouts in the same water for a few minutes until softened. Don’t overdo it or they’ll be too soggy.

In a small frying pan, quickly cook the bacon, if using. It’ll only take a minute or two.

Mix the potato, sprouts, bacon (or goats cheese), a little salt, pepper, thyme and allow to cool. If this is for the next day, cover and put in the fridge at this point.

To prepare to fry them, heat the deep fryer, or just use the frying pan with plenty of oil. Whilst heating, crack the egg into a bowl and beat thoroughly. In a second bowl, pour in the breadcrumbs.

Roll and shape the mixture into golfball sized pieces. Cover in the egg, removing any excess, then roll in the breadcrumbs until well covered.

Fry gently at about 150°C or 300°F for a few minutes until nicely brown. They can keep in the oven until you’re ready to plate up, but try and do them at the end of cooking to stop them going soft. Enjoyable sprouts – a minor miracle!