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Drawing from a well-known New York restaurant, the creative method transforms often-discarded external salad greens into a luxurious green “mayonnaise”. It’s a smart way to reduce kitchen waste while creating a condiment flavorful and adaptable.

Why Use Outer Lettuce Leaves?

Those outer greens are nature’s natural packaging, guarding the delicate inner leaves. While recycling vegetable scraps is one fundamental sustainable habit, finding creative applications for them is even more beneficial. Converting excess food into rich compost prevents landfill buildup, where they may emit methane, which is a powerful environmental concern.

It’s rather innovative if you consider over it: food decomposes and transforms into the perfect soil to nourish more crops, thus completing this cycle and respecting the process of life.

However, given more than thirty percent extra food getting produced than required, using precious ingredients efficiently becomes essential. Minimizing leftovers not only saves cash but also promotes a more sustainable lifestyle.

This Green Emulsion Method

This versatile formula functions with whatever type of lettuce and nuts. Through incorporating one entire egg, you eliminate any hassle to use up an extra egg white. The result is a creamy, nutty dressing that works beautifully with greens, grilled vegetables, grilled poultry, noodles, or grains.

Yields 2

For the Green Emulsion (Makes approximately 200g)

• 100g butter
• 50g outer lettuce leaves from two little gems, washed and dried
• 20g shelled roasted pistachios – white seeds like cashews help keep a vivid green, but any seeds will do
• 1 medium entire egg

For the Salad

• 2 little gem heads, split longwise
• Cold-pressed olive oil, as needed
• Fresh lime juice or white-wine vinegar, to taste
• One generous bunch soft greens (such as chervil), sprigs picked intact, stalks thinly chopped

Instructions

First preparing the emulsion. Heat the fat in one small pot, toss in the external lettuce greens, place a lid and wilt for approximately a minute, stirring once or twice, till they’ve wilted. Transfer the contents into a jug of an stick blender, add the nuts and egg, then process until smooth. As necessary, incorporate extra nuts to get a mayonnaise-like consistency. Keep in an sealed container in the fridge for as long as 3 days.

For assemble the dish, sprinkle each gem half with oil and lemon juice, then season generously. Coat with one tight pattern of the herb mayonnaise, then top with the herbs. Arrange on two dishes and enjoy immediately.