Home › Vegetables › Cabbage Lettuce with Gravy (Take four full cabbage)
Cabbage Lettuce with Gravy (Take four full cabbage)
Take four full cabbage lettuces, trim off the loose outside leaves, throw the heads into boiling water five minutes, then drain and press them gently to press out the water. Cut them in halves and arrange neatly on a dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, tie the two halves together. Stand them in a saucepan, cover with one quart of water. Add about one pound of beef, or any fresh meat or pieces of meat left over will answer, add one onion, one blade of mace and a bay leaf; cover the kettle and cook gently one hour. When done, lift carefully with a skimmer, cut the string and arrange the halves neatly on a dish, giving to each piece an oval and compact look. Lightly press it together with a spoon. Put one tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan, add a tablespoonful of flour; boil rapidly the stock in which they were cooked until reduced to one pint; add this to the butter and flour, stir continually until it boils. Strain over the lettuce leaves and serve garnished with squares of toasted bread.
A braise of whole lettuce heads in meat stock, in the French manner. The technique is sound; only the vocabulary and the hour-long cooking need attention.
- "Cabbage lettuce"An older term for any lettuce that forms a firm head, as opposed to loose-leaf types. Butterhead varieties such as Bibb or Boston are the closest match; romaine hearts also hold their shape well through blanching and braising.
- Blade of maceMace is the lacy outer covering (aril) of the nutmeg seed, sold whole in curved "blades" or ground. Equivalences vary; a blade is usually reckoned at somewhere between a quarter and a half teaspoon of ground mace, though unlike a whole blade the ground spice cannot be strained out at the end.
- The blanch is the hingeThe blanch matters -- Five minutes in boiling water wilts and softens the heads so they can be pressed, halved and tied into compact bundles; unblanched they are stiff and awkward to shape. Press out the water gently with the flat of the hand rather than squeezing.
- An hour is longLettuce braised a full hour turns to olive-drab pulp. Twenty to thirty minutes at a bare simmer gives tender heads that still hold shape. If you want a strongly flavored stock, simmer the beef and aromatics first and add the lettuce for the last half hour.
- The beef is flavoring, not a courseThe meat is flavoring, not a course -- A pound of beef or, as the recipe allows, any fresh meat or leftover pieces, is here only to build the quart of cooking liquid. Good unsalted beef stock reduced to one pint accomplishes the same thing; keep the onion, mace and bay in the pot either way.
- Reducing and thickeningOne tablespoon each of butter and flour to one pint of liquid is a thin gravy that just coats. Cook the roux a minute before adding the hot reduced stock, then simmer two or three minutes so it does not taste of raw flour, and strain.
- Kitchen stringUse plain cotton twine, not synthetic, and cut it away before the lettuce goes to the dish as directed. The halves are then pressed back into an oval with a spoon.
- YieldFour heads give eight halves, which serves four as a vegetable course or side. The toast squares are croutons cut small; fry or toast them dry so they stay crisp under the gravy.
Braised lettuce belongs to the French kitchen repertoire as laitues brasées, where blanched heads are folded, tied, and stewed in stock with a little meat and aromatics, then napped with the reduced cooking liquid. The mace and bay, and the frugal instruction that "pieces of meat left over will answer," combine French method with domestic economy.