Fried Lettuce in the pan
The Protein.
The Happy Couple.
You read correctly.
A new favorite dish of ours is sauteed lettuce. It works on a few levels. 1) It acts perfectly as a bed for any fish or poultry dish, when you’ve just had way too many beds of spinach lately. 2) It is technically a vegetable, creating just the slightest hint of healthiness for your plate. 3) Different lettuces have very different tastes and textures. Typically lettuce will taste a bit bitter and cool, which goes very well with a peppery spice on any main dish. Shown in the photos is Frisee, a member of the Chicory family. Frisee has a bright green color and has a bit of a bitter taste to it, and this variety is much leafier than its cousin, the endive (which is my favorite, and probably the most expensive type of lettuce). The endive is similarly bitter but the texture and graceful shape make it a more elegant experience. 4) Probably the most useful reason why this is a great addition to a meal – it’s CHEAP! You can really dash up a plate without adding much cost at all. We got an enormous head of Frisee at Whole Foods for $2.50.
So what you do is (obviously) thoroughly wash the lettuce, then cut off any real white part of the stalk. Simply throw some olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper in a pan, let it heat up and throw in your lettuce. It’ll give of a brilliant sound of the watery lettuce colliding with the oil. Be sure not to put it in very wet though, or it’ll pop too much and you’ll start a grease fire. (!) After the lettuce has shrunk and wilted a bit, turn the heat off, because you don’t want to liquefy it. A nice crispy center is essential for this to be successful.
But what you’re left with is a nice, green bed for fish or poultry, and enough room on the plate to add another veg or a carbohydrate like herb-ed potatoes or cous-cous. Shown in this series of photos, we sauteed a piece of salmon with a simple salt, pepper, and garlic mix (can you see a trend emerging?) and they make a beautiful, tasty compliment to each other.
[...] Pan-seared endive (similar to this) [...]