WATS WITH LETTUCES

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 135, 4 December 1935, Page 19

WATS WITH LETTUCES

PLEASANT AND TONIC

"I suppose nobody who has ever possessed a lettuce bed has been able to eat all the lettuces before they bolted—that is, while they were in their prime and perfect state of heartiness, which is the glory of the lettuce, observes a writer in an exchange. And nothing is a commoner sight than to see rows of gawky or sprawling lettuces which have not. yet perhaps actually run'to seed, but are heartless, coarse-stemmed, and dark red at the edge of each leaf.. In that condition we are apt to give them "up as hopeless so far as our tables are-concerned.

"To do this is. the greatest mistake, as they can be suitably used in several ways. One'of these is to turn them into lettuce soup, stewing the washed lettuce first'in salted water, then cutting up or sieving it and adding milk and butter,.or milk, cream, and butter, till there is; enough liquid to serve, with judicious seasoning, as a first course.

','But easier, and even better, is braised lettuce, either by itself as a vegetable or as a foundation, in the manner of spinach—which, it greatly resembles both in flavour and other properties—for poached 'eggs. ■ • ;:

"To braise them remove any bad outside leaves and any really tough pieces of stem and cook with no more water than will moisten all the leaves, precisely as with spinach, adding at the same time enough butter to accomplish the process of braising.

"Cook slowly, with the lid of the saucepan on. It should not take longer than from five to ten minutes once the vegetable begins to steam and the butter' to melt. Salt and pepper are added at the end, and, if liked, the whole can-be cut across with a knife several, times to keep it from looking untidy. Even the stems cooked in this way, so long as the vegetable has no seeds, are deliciously tender, with a slightly bitter .taste which is both pleasant and tonic. .

'The rosette type of lettuce known as Tom Thumb is particularly suitable for braising when past its first youth. But so are all the round lettuces. The long, or 'Cos' lettuce, is more apt, when its heart is' gone,; to shoot up rapidly into what is all "stem and seed, so that nothing can be done with it. But few things are better than a somewhat wellgrown and stout-hearted 'Cos' lettuce braised whole, and by. cooking it -. in this way there is no waste of the darker outside leaves, as there is if only the heart can be used for salads, for every bit can go to the braising."