Growing good-tasting sprouts is easy and fun
isn鈥檛 picturesque, but farming the kitchen counter does provide an inexpensive source of fresh produce. That鈥檚 especially welcome in winter, when supermarket lettuces are a couple of bucks a head. Or more.
Bean sprouts are a familiar staple of Asian dishes, but that only hints of their culinary potential. Sprout gourmands offer -- soups, appetizers, and salads to breads and entr茅es.
, which comes from in San Francisco, has 15 ingredients, which is truly outrageous, but it鈥檚 also outrageously good. OMG, as Tweeters like to say.
Plenty of choices
And mung beans are only the beginning. Other candidates for sprouting? Alfalfa, radish, fenugreek, clover, onion, buckwheat, lentil, broccoli, mustard, garden peas, garbanzo, cress, cabbage, soybean, sunflower, and more.
Whatever the crop, make sure that seeds are untreated and have tested negative for bacteria like salmonella. That means you probably shouldn鈥檛 use seeds left over from last summer鈥檚 garden.
Seeds specifically for sprouting are available at many organic food stores and from online merchants. By far the best site is . Beans, grains, grasses, brassicas, nuts, exotics, it has them all 鈥� plus meticulous instructions on how to sprout each crop.
It鈥檚 also a first-class source of general information about sprouting and is stocked with all the equipment thingamabobs you might 鈥� or might not 鈥� need.
Sprouting containers
Most serious counter-top sprouters settle the what-to-sprout quandary by growing several crops at the same time. Deciding what to sprout in is also a dilemma for beginners.
After trying , from multitiered containers to trays to hemp bags, I鈥檝e come back to where I began: a wide-mouth canning jar with a piece of screen mesh and a jar ring to keep it in place. Cheap, easy to clean, and takes up little counter space.
If you don鈥檛 have a bit of mesh and a ring 鈥� you can buy them from Sprout People 鈥� leave the jar top open. (Sprouts need good air circulation, so don鈥檛 seal the jar with a lid.)
If your high-tech leanings aren鈥檛 fulfilled by a canning jar, buy an Easy Sprout Sprouter. The directions in the package are a little vague, but the are excellent.
Believe it or not, the health value of sprouts is controversial, probably because some disciples have made outrageous claims that can鈥檛 be substantiated. Who wouldn鈥檛 raise an eyebrow at 鈥淲isdom Blend鈥� (fenugreek, lentils, kamut wheat, Adzuki beans), which promises that the buyer will 鈥渂ecome as wise as the ancient ones.鈥�
However, it鈥檚 accurate to say that . Amounts differ, but all contain protein, vitamins, and minerals, but no fat and few calories. 鈥淲onder food鈥� may be an overstatement 鈥� you鈥檇 have to eat immense quantities to get a day鈥檚 worth of protein or any vitamin 鈥� but sprouts merit a place on all nutrition-conscious dinner plates.
Coming soon: Part II, How to sprout seeds
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Karan Davis Cutler blogs regularly at Diggin鈥� It. She's a former magazine editor and newspaper columnist and the author of scores of garden articles and more than a dozen books, including 鈥淏urpee - The Complete Flower Gardener鈥� and 鈥淗erb Gardening for Dummies.鈥� She now struggles to garden in the unyieldingly dense clay of Addison County, Vt., on the shore of Lake Champlain, where she is working on a book about gardening to attract birds and other wildlife. To read more by Karan, click here.
