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From The Desk Of Frightened Rabbit: My Favourite Vegetable

Frightened Rabbit bandleader Scott Hutchison knew that he was sinking into an abyss—mentally, emotionally, even spiritually—after the 2013 release of Pedestrian Verse, the Scottish group’s breakthrough album. But he couldn’t gauge the true depth of his situation until he began seeing his followers in a dreary new light. But the singer finally got help, from some rather unusual sources. All of which led to the fifth Frightened Rabbit epistle—the aptly dubbed Painting Of A Panic Attack, produced by the National’s Aaron Dessner. Hutchison and his bandmates—Grant Hutchison, Billy Kennedy, Andy Monaghan and Simon Liddell—will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature.

BrusselsSprout

Grant Hutchison: As you can tell from my rather imaginative headline/title, I’m going to talk about my favourite vegetable. I think this is a vastly overlooked subject in the world of music, and a lot more should really be done to explore the issue. It’s definitely a better question than, “How did you come up with the band name?” or “What’s it like being in a band with your brother?”

So here comes the big reveal. My favourite vegetable is the Brussels sprout. Yes, yes, I know that’s possibly the most controversial choice I could have made, but just hear me out and maybe give them a try. One of my reasons for picking this was that I’m led to believe an avocado is technically a fruit on account of the stone in the middle. This would have been my choice, but I play by the rules. “Why didn’t you just do ‘my favorite fruit’?” I hear you cry. Come on now, we all know the chaos that would have ensued had I written an article on how my favourite fruit is avocado.

Now then, back to the sprout. One of the things this little guy has going for it is versatility. One of the best curries I’ve ever had was a sprout curry made by Billy, and I’ve had roast sprouts on many an excellent pizza. My brother serves them up at Christmas with pancetta and cream. I’m vegetarian so don’t eat that, but it smells bloody brilliant! If treated correctly, you can put sprouts in almost everything, and I usually do. Fried up with some mustard as the side to a main dish, boiled and whizzed up as part of a burger mix, peeled and thrown in a stir fry alongside some other worthy greens. There really is no end to what the sprout is willing to go through to end up in your mouth. My favourite has to be the roasted sprout, due to the ratio of difficulty to taste satisfaction being so damn high!! Here’s how I prepare mine. I really think you should give this a shot. I’m not a very accurate cook, so quantities are not set in stone!

Ingredients
1 bag of Brussels sprouts
1 or 2 medium chilis
2 or 3 garlic cloves
Juice of half a lemon
Olive oil
Maldon sea salt
Black pepper

• Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius
• Peel the top leaves off the sprout, chop of the bottom and cut in half
• Finely chop one medium chili (go for two if you like it spicy) and 2/3 cloves of garlic. I’m a huge garlic fan, so again this is open to interpretation depending on your taste.
• Place these ingredients in a bowl and cover with olive oil and shake it aboot!
• Put the contents onto a baking tray, sprinkle with Maldon sea salt (very important) and black pepper and place in the oven
• When the sprouts are starting to sizzle, take them out and sprinkle some lemon juice over them
• Place back in the oven until they start to go brown and crisp just a little. Again this is down to preference on exactly how long you leave them.

Stick these on a salad or in a curry or just straight in to your mouth. Enjoy!!