Finally! Something to do with lettuce!

[telophase]

Besides sandwiches and salads!

Stir-Fried Garlic Lettuce from epicurious.com.

We made this Sunday night and it was delicious. It was also a bit on the greasy side, so we'll try less cooking oil next time (the sesame oil added to the flavors, so it stays). But the CSA gives us giant heads of lettuce, more than we can consume before it goes bad, and this is a good way for us to use them up.

The recipe calls for hearts of romaine and what we had was a giant head of green-leaf lettuce, but it worked just fine.

We paired it with Chinese Pepper Steak from Serious Eats because we had a pound of flank steak in the freezer, and that turned out fantabulous as well. Also a bit greasy, but I'm not sure how to cut down the oil in this one, since you need to cook everything in batches. Probably best to pair with non-oily things, then.)

Doubt we managed to achieve wok-hei, but we did manage to set off the fire alarm, so that's a step in the right direction!

edit: I'll add that we only used 3/4 of a tablespoon of freshly ground pepper in the pepper steak sauce because I got tired of grinding it, and it was just on the edge of too much pepper for me. We made a note to try half a tablespoon next time and see what it's like.

edit edit: Aha! from the comments:

For those with the issue of too much pepper, this will explain that.

“1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper”

The recipe doesn’t explicitly say it but I assume a coarse grind for this application. When using fine ground (what most of you have at home) as opposed to fresh *coarse* ground you will actually have *more, or most precisely more suraface area of pepper in the sauce and it will be overpowering.

I’ve been a Chef for over 10 years and have had to translate fine ground to coarse ground black pepper more than once. It’s approximately 1 tsp Fine Ground Pepper (what most home cooks have) = 2 tsp Normal/Restaurant Ground Pepper (used in most commercial recipes) = 1 Tbsp Coarse Ground (For Garnishing, Pepper Sauces, or Steak Seasoning)

Comments

[golden_bastet]

Thanks for this - I've had "cooked" lettuce once before (Pork Top Loin Roast With Asparagus, Spring Onion and Butter Lettuce - think it was Xmas or New Years - which was quite tasty), so I'm always on the lookout for something like that. We'll have to try that!

Quick But Sad Childhood Story: when I was a kid when dinosaurs ruled the earth, I was playing with dolls. One of them said, "I'm going to put the lettuce in the freezer to firm it up a bit." The Sib, who was making dinner, heard all this. (At that time, we would have been talking iceberg.) Needless to say, dinner was a bit of a disaster that night.

[telophase]

Mmm, that sounds good. (The link was b0rked, but I assume it was this one).

Haha! XD

edit: We've got this lettuce soup and this wilted lettuce salad on our radar to try with future shipments of giant heads of lettuce.

[golden_bastet]

Just to follow up:

1. Yes, that's it - sorry about the link, glad you were able to find it.

2. We just had the pepper stead and garlic lettuce. Besides being out of Shaoxing wine AND sherry so ending up using Fundador brandy (bought for a dessert recipe), and forgetting to put the sauce on the lettuce (LOL), it turned out pretty well - quite tasty. We will have to try this again. Thank you for that! :D

[telophase]

Awesome! We haven't been able to find Shaoxing wine around here (the place that probably has it is an hour's drive away, not worth going to right now), and were also out of sherry so we ended up using Marsala just because we have two bottles of it thanks to buying it for a recipe, forgetting we had it, and buying it again. Perhaps not quite the taste the recipe author intended but still good!

[adafrog]

That lettuce thing sounds interesting.

[telophase]

I'm usually leery of cooked lettuce, since it's usually more delicate than most cooking greens, but this one was successful. We've got this lettuce soup and this wilted lettuce salad on our radar to try with future shipments of giant heads of lettuce.

[adafrog]

Cool. Good luck with the other recipes.