Lettuce Make Salads
by Judi Sandall
Chef School Review Columnist
Chefs create wonderfully tasty designer salads with different kinds of exotic greens—radicchio, arugula, watercress, dandelion, mizuna—but the foundation for most green salads is still one of the following four types of lettuce:
- Romaine—tall, rigid, densely-packed green leaves that turn lighter as you get to the heart of the matter
- Crisphead—head lettuce with thinner, densely-packed light green leaves
- Butterhead—smaller head lettuce with smooth and light tender leaves
- Leaf—in varieties from red to dark green, with curly or ruffled leaves
Salad Plus
Lettuce reigns supreme not only in the culinary salad world but also as an accompaniment to other meals. A lettuce leaf adds crunch to classic sandwiches like BLTs, and often serves as a convenient bowl for chicken or crab salad. Creative chefs even use lettuce to wrap a variety of ingredients, substituting it for crepes or tortillas for calorie-counting consumers. Lettuces such as romaine are packed with nutrients—Vitamins A, C, and K—rather than calories.
Simple Salad
From a simple steakhouse wedge of iceberg with blue cheese dressing to a classic Caesar salad with romaine, parmigiano-reggiano, and garlic croutons, a salad can accompany a great meal or can be the main course all by itself. As more health-conscious diners select salads as entrées, today’s chefs strive to be more creative in their salad offerings.
Not-So-Simple Salad
If inventing new salads sounds like a tasty endeavor, you might have a future as a garde manger chef, in charge of salads. As garde manger, you’ll have creative license to create your own masterpiece—a grilled Portobello mushroom topped with warm goat cheese and asparagus on a bed of greens, drizzled with strawberry vinaigrette, for example. Culinary school can provide you with the expertise you need to understand the complementary and contrasting tastes that go into tossing that perfect salad.
About the Author
Judi Sandall is a technical writer and a regular Chef School Review columnist. She is a graduate of the State University of New York, with a BA in English Literature.
Source(s)
Lettuce Growing Tips
ToledoBlade.com
WHFoods
Posted on June 25, 2007 at 12:31 PM
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