🔗 Share this article

Modeled after a well-known NYC restaurant, the innovative technique converts often-discarded outer salad leaves into an luxurious green “mayonnaise”. This is an smart way to minimize kitchen waste while producing a condiment tasty and flexible.

The Reason Use External Salad Greens?

These external leaves serve as the plant’s natural packaging, guarding the tender inner lettuce. While composting produce trimmings is one basic zero-waste practice, discovering creative applications for these parts is additionally impactful. Turning excess ingredients into fertile soil prevents dump accumulation, where they may release greenhouse gases, which is a potent climate concern.

This is quite radical if you think about it: food rots and transforms into that perfect growing medium to feed more plants, thus completing this cycle and respecting the cycle of growth.

However, with more than 30% extra produce getting made compared to required, consuming precious ingredients efficiently is essential. Reducing waste not only conserves cash but also supports the increasingly sustainable lifestyle.

The Herb-Infused Emulsion Recipe

This versatile recipe functions with whatever variety of lettuce and nuts. Through incorporating a whole egg, one avoid the hassle to repurpose an extra white. This result is a smooth, nutty sauce that pairs beautifully with salads, roasted veggies, grilled poultry, noodles, or grains.

Yields two

To Make the Herb Emulsion (Yields about 200g)

• 100 grams butter
• 50g external salad greens of 2 little gems, rinsed and dried
• 20g shelled salted nuts – light-colored seeds like pine nuts help maintain the bright green, though whatever nuts will work
• One medium whole egg

For the Salad

• Two little gem heads, split longwise
• Cold-pressed olive oil, as needed
• Lemon juice or apple cider vinegar, as desired
• 1 generous bunch fresh herbs (such as chervil), sprigs left intact, stalks finely minced

Steps

First making the emulsion. Heat the fat in one medium saucepan, add the outer salad greens, place a lid and cook for about a minute, stirring once or twice, till they have wilted. Pour this mixture into a container of an stick blender, include the nuts and whole egg, then process till smooth. If needed, add more nuts to achieve a mayonnaise-like texture. Store in an airtight jar in the fridge for as long as 3 days.

For prepare the dish, drizzle each lettuce portion with oil and acid, then salt liberally. Coat with a tight drizzle of the green emulsion, then top with the greens. Place on two plates and serve immediately.