Belgian-Asian fusion at it’s best! Up next: lo mein waffles. I’m being silly. I have no idea if Brussels sprouts are actually even a Belgian thing. Maybe Brussels sprouts in Chinese food have been done before. Whatever the case though, my addition of Brussels sprouts into this dish was a bit random. I purchased them with the intent of using them in an entirely different dish. But when I got to my little neighborhood produce mart I found that all of the Brussels sprouts they had in stock were huge. Like, as in, the biggest Brussles sprouts I’d ever seen. I wondered if they could even be called “sprouts” at their size. (Does anyone know what Brussels sprouts mature into? Belgian cities, perhaps? With the size of these things, I’d buy that.) So the initial dish I planned on using these in wouldn’t work, because it would’ve called for whole, or at least halved, Brussels sprouts, and these would have looked more like whole or half heads of cabbage in the photos. I was at least pleased to find that my giant veggies retained the texture and flavor of the normal-sized versions. If I sliced them really thin, perhaps nobody’d know they started out giant (had I not just announced it publicly on the internet). I’m kind of thankful for the interference with my initial plan, because while I can make that dish anytime, I might have never come up with this one under different conditions, and it turned out awesome. Fried rice is great. Brussels sprout fried rice with spicy tofu is better. This dish has all the flavors and textures. A little crunch and bitterness from the sprouts, a little sweet from maple (because I had to add maple to any Brussels sprout-centric dish), a little salty and savory from soy sauce, and then some spicy in the baked tofu, which rounds everything off beautifully. Like this recipe? If so, please stop back and leave me a review and rating below if you try it! Also be sure to follow me on Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram, or subscribe to my newsletter for more recipes like this one!
