The methods for cooking and preparing sprouts for food and beneficial purposes include raw or cooking preparations. Let's discover the tasty ideas and the detailed description of the tastes and individual flavors of the most used shoots.

Origin of the use of sprouts

The use of sprouts for food purposes is as old as humanity itself but the first texts that document its use date back to 5000 BC, texts of traditional Chinese medicine that enhances its anti-inflammatory and reinforcing properties, especially indicated in cases of vitamin deficiencies.

Studying the history of man, we note that in the colder periods or in the areas most subjected to the lash of the frost, but also during the marches towards war, the populations used more shoots to cope with the high consumption of proteins, vitamins and enzymes from the metabolism under stress.

One of the best known population in the world for their incredible physique and longevity is the Hunza . This population, which lives in the northern part of India, has as its essential base of its own nutrition the shoots. In fact, even in these places the living conditions are extremely rigid and the forms of agriculture and cultivation have not developed much except in the growth and sprouting of the seeds.

The story goes that the Roman legionaries kept seeds in small pockets of cloth that in contact with the heat of the body and the humidity germinated becoming a food rich in nutrients, convenient to transport and extremely energetic.

In many traditional recipes in the world there are sprouts as ingredients such as for the production of bread and focaccia. Or in mixed salads, mixed with other vegetables, even cooked or simply alone in a mix of sprouts.

Raw preparations

Surely, to keep all the nutrients and beneficial substances of the sprouts raw consumption is absolutely the best . Remember that it is necessary to pay attention to toxic shoots, therefore raw consumption is reserved in particular for safer shoots such as cereals (wheat, rye, barley etc ...), while some legumes such as green soy "Mung", lentils and alfalfa are always used raw and moderated in quantities. Furthermore, the mustard, sunflower and sesame sprouts are excellent eaten raw.

Sprouts can be consumed individually or in a mix of sprouts that make the taste and composition of nutrients even more pleasant and complete.

You can prepare different mixed salads for each season, which together with countless vegetables and other natural foods can be the basis for adding our precious raw sprouts.

Creams and smoothies, pâté and extracts are other ways to obtain from the raw sprouts endless preparations of accompaniment for dishes of various courses.

You can learn more about the properties and uses of radish sprouts

Hot preparations

Hot preparations range from the quick blanching of sprouts, to frying, stewing, cooking and other thermal processes that use sprouts as individual ingredients or mixed with other foods.

The easiest way after the heat treatment to consume them is to add a little oil and season to taste with salt and spices . While if we think of more elaborate preparations for different types of dishes we can create sauces with tomatoes and vegetables, flans or croquettes in which the sprouts become ingredients of the dough, fillings or just creams and pates to accompany the dishes.

A first course could be a good spaghetti with a dressing of sauteed sprouts with tamari, minced garlic, capers and pitted olives. For a delicious second course we could prepare an omelette with sprouts : we will start by jumping in a little oil, the sprouts of watercress with a finely chopped leek and adding the eggs to prepare the omelette (veg version: cecifritata with chickpea flour) it is obtained by preparing a chickpea flour mixture instead of eggs).

Vegetable, cereal or legume soups or other ingredients see the addition of sprouts at the end of cooking, leaving the sprouts to burn only for a few minutes. For this preparation, legume sprouts are used in particular.

Finally you can also prepare sweets with sprouts for really energizing breakfasts and snacks; just add them in yogurt or make creams and puddings by inserting them with pastry ingredients.

We remember however that not all the sprouts are edible and that toxic sprouts exist. Precisely for this reason it is advised to blanch the sprouts of some legumes such as peas, soy and chickpeas. While for the bean sprouts due to the presence of anti-nutritional substances, cooking is required for at least 15 minutes. We recommend that you read the Toxic Sprouts article in this regard.

The taste of sprouts

• Alpha alfa or alfalfa is sweet, delicately tasty. Excellent raw for mixed salads and for many preparations and mix of sprouts.
• Watercress: a slightly spicy taste that makes the dishes particular and of distinct taste
• Radish : spicy and strong taste that livens up the dishes
• Grain: like the wheat in seed the taste is sweet and reminds of the taste of roasting or black or walnut rice
• Lentils: delicately light taste that is often due to the light burn of the sprouts. Suitable to be added at the end of cooking to dishes such as soups and soups
• Rocket: the taste is slightly spicy and bitter
• Green soy : sweet taste reminiscent of grass and the texture is tender