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Stewed Lettuce
Trim off the outside leaves of some lettuce, blanch in boiling water, rinse in cold water and tie together in twos. Line a saucepan with buttered paper, put in the lettuce with some herbs, a few chopped onions, season, cover with stock. When boiling remove the saucepan to the side of the fire and let it simmer for two hours. Take the lettuces out, untie and put on a hot dish; reduce the liquor in which they were cooked, strain through a sieve and pour over. Serve while hot.
A classic braise of the French kitchen, written for a coal range where a pan could be nudged off the hot plate to hold a bare simmer. Two things need translating: the vessel setup and the cooking time.
- Choose the right lettuceThis wants firm, tightly folded heads — romaine hearts or Little Gem — not soft butterhead or loose leaf, which collapse to nothing. Two heads per person is not excessive once they cook down.
- Buttered paperA cartouche of parchment, buttered on the side facing the food, cut to sit inside the pan. It keeps the lettuce from catching and holds the steam close. The recipe specifies only 'buttered paper'; parchment is the modern equivalent.
- Tie together in twosBlanched lettuce is limp and falls apart in the braise. Fold each head over on itself, pair two, and bind with kitchen twine at both ends so they lift out whole.
- Blanch brieflyThirty seconds to a minute in hard-boiling salted water, then straight into ice water. Squeeze gently to expel the water before tying, or the braising liquid will be thin and grassy.
- "Remove to the side of the fire"That is a bare simmer — the lowest burner setting. Full boil will shred the heads.
- Two hours is longCheck at 40 minutes; most romaine hearts are silky by an hour. Braise longer only if the ribs still resist a knife tip.
- Reducing the liquorStrain, then boil hard to a light syrupy glaze — you want a few tablespoons per serving, not a soup. A knob of cold butter whisked in off the heat gives it body.
- Stock and seasoningVeal or chicken stock; the herbs are unstated but thyme, parsley stem and a bay leaf are the standard braising bundle. Salt lightly at the start since the liquid is reduced at the end.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities; reckon on two heads per person as a vegetable side, traditionally served alongside roast lamb, veal or poultry.
Braised lettuce belongs to the French repertoire that Oscar Tschirky's Waldorf kitchen worked in almost entirely — laitues braisées, a standard garnish for roast and sauced meats, and the same technique turns up in Escoffier and in the English cookery books that followed him. The buttered paper lining is a survival from the era before non-stick or heavy-clad pans, when a thin tinned-copper or iron saucepan over a coal fire needed a barrier to keep delicate vegetables from scorching, and the instruction to "remove the saucepan to the side of the fire" is a plain description of how heat was controlled on a range with one hot spot and a cooler perimeter. Oscar's book, published in 1896, collected the working methods of a hotel kitchen rather than home cookery, which is why the recipe assumes stock on hand and gives no quantities at all.