My garden has produced an abundance of lettuce (mainly butter lettuce) this year but there’s a limit to how much salad I can eat. What else can I use them for?
Julian, by email
“Start thinking of lettuce, and especially butter lettuce, as bread or a taco shell,” says Jesse Jenkins, author of Cooking with Vegetables, and happily this is a “highly adaptable” strategy, too. Sure, you could pile in grilled spicy pork belly and herbs, but this dinner fix also works well “with everything a big green salad does: a piece of nicely grilled protein, some sauce, a few pickled crunchy things, all wrapped in a big, beautiful green leaf”. But why stop there? “I also like to use butter lettuce to wrap cheese toasties,” Jenkins says. “It catches all the fatty goodness and acts as a barrier between the crunchy bread and the roof of your mouth.”
Lettuce is also a great carrier of flavour, so braising is another potential ploy. “Start with a base of onion and garlic,” suggests Yohei Furuhashi, head chef at The Lavery in London, then separately brown some chicken thighs and add them to the onions with a little thyme, a splash of wine and some chicken stock. Then tear in some lettuce and simmer for 10-15 minutes to “let all the flavours come together”.
