Plant This, Eat That: Pickled Lettuce!
We’re doing things a little differently this Friday, friends. Instead of information gleaned from a stack of press releases (and the stack is growing and growing and …), you’re receiving a recipe. Recipes are good to have around, especially this time of year when a garden or the pots lining your deck are full of harvestable produce.
Like mine are.
As you can see, my lettuce needs harvesting so the other items in this small spot can finally get some space to grow. (Those “other items” are parsley and peppers, by the way.) If you’re a gardener, you likely have a lotta lettuce to make use of, too. Here’s an option: Pickle it.
That’s right. Pickle it.
When an Epicurious email with a recipe for pickling iceberg lettuce drops into your inbox, you open it. Because who ever heard of such a thing? Epicurious is so very skilled at clickable headers. I clicked.
The full recipe is for Vegetarian Muffuletta Sandwiches with Pickled Iceberg Lettuce. Keep the muffuletta, I just want to try the pickled lettuce on a sandwich of my own choosing, thank you very much.
A few things to note:
I tweaked the recipe to suit what I have on hand, as I do. I’ll include the original and what I used as a substitute.
I was “angry cooking.” I was a little muffled, let’s say, about something that had happened earlier in the day. When I angry cook I sometimes always mismeasure. But being active in the kitchen is a way for me to calm down, so I am okay with the inaccuracies.
I also made half a batch. But I’m including the full batch numbers here.
The lettuce pictured above was not harmed during the making of this recipe. I had a had of store-bought Romaine that needed using up, pronto.
½ cup red wine vinegar—I had just half the amount of red wine vinegar so made up the rest with balsamic.
1 cup water
3 garlic cloves, minced—angry cooking meant I didn’t mince as much. I should have.
1 tablespoon granulated sugar—I only had raw sugar
1 tablespoon fennel seeds—no fennel but I do have star anise, so why not?
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon pimentón (smoked Spanish paprika)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 medium head iceberg lettuce, cored with leaves separated—I used Romaine.
Place vinegar, water, garlic, sugar, fennel seeds, oregano, smoked paprika and salt in a small saucepan over high heat. Bring the mixture to a boil, stir to dissolve sugar and salt. Turn off heat.
Place one lettuce into a large bowl and pour some of the hot brine onto the leaf. Lay down another leaf and more brine. Repeat with the leaf layering until done. Add any extra brine into the bowl. Take a wooden spoon and try to dunk all the leaves under the liquid. Poke them down every now and then as the leaves and liquid cool to room temperature.
Once cool, layer them into a sandwich! The original recipe calls for draining the lettuce leaves and patting each dry before putting them into the sandwich. I did not. I let each leaf drip a bit before applying to the rest of the sandwich. The leaves I didn’t use I kept in a container to use for future sandwiches.
So, how was it? I wouldn’t call it a pickle in the traditional sense. I would say it’s a lettuce leaf with a seasoned vinegar. They are still crunchy, a bit wet (hence why the say to pat dry I suppose), but I think that just brings more flavor to the sandwich.
The sandwich was roasted eggplant slices with melted mozzarella, tomato and mayo on softly toasted rustic bread.
Give it a try. Maybe follow the exact ingredients and see what you get before angry cooking without the right components. What’s the craziest thing you’ve pickled? Tell us about it below!
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