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Drawing from an acclaimed NYC restaurant, this creative method turns typically wasted external lettuce greens into an smooth herbaceous “mayonnaise”. It’s a ingenious way to minimize food waste while creating a condiment delicious and adaptable.

Why Use External Salad Leaves?

These external greens serve as the plant’s protective wrapping, guarding the delicate inner lettuce. Although recycling vegetable trimmings is one basic zero-waste habit, finding creative uses for these parts is even more beneficial. Turning excess ingredients into fertile soil avoids dump buildup, where it can emit methane, a powerful climate issue.

It’s rather radical when you think over it: food rots and transforms into that ideal growing medium to feed more crops, thus closing this loop and respecting nature’s process of life.

Yet, with over 30% surplus food getting made than needed, consuming precious ingredients wisely becomes crucial. Minimizing leftovers not only saves cash but also supports the more eco-friendly way of living.

This Herb-Infused Emulsion Recipe

This adaptable formula functions with whatever type of lettuce and seeds. Through using one entire egg, one eliminate the hassle to use up an leftover white. This outcome is an smooth, nutty sauce that pairs beautifully with salads, grilled veggies, seared chicken, noodles, or rice.

Yields two

To Make the Green Emulsion (Yields about 200 grams)

• 100g unsalted butter
• 50g outer salad greens from two romaine or butter lettuce, rinsed and dried
• 20g shelled salted pistachios – light-colored seeds like pine nuts assist keep the vivid color, though any seeds can do
• One small entire egg

For the Side

• Two little gem lettuces, halved longwise
• Cold-pressed olive oil, as needed
• Lemon juice or white-wine vinegar, as desired
• 1 small handful fresh herbs (such as chives), leaves picked whole, stalks thinly chopped

Instructions

First preparing the emulsion. Heat the fat in one medium saucepan, add the outer lettuce leaves, place a lid and cook for about a minute, mixing a couple times, till they’ve wilted. Pour this mixture into a jug of an stick processor, include the nuts and whole egg, then blend till smooth. If needed, add more nuts to achieve a mayonnaise-like texture. Store in a airtight jar in the refrigerator for as long as three days.

For prepare the salad, drizzle each gem half with olive oil and lemon juice, then salt liberally. Coat with one tight drizzle of the herb mayonnaise, then scatter with the herbs. Arrange on two plates and enjoy right away.