Grilled Lettuce

Is there a more pointless ingredient than lettuce? That was rhetorical - the answer is no. There is nothing more pointless than lettuce. It is nothing but magnolia walls, daytime TV, Michael Mcintyre flavoured banality. Lettuce is a chef's way of cheating you out of a tasty garnish. Lettuce coasts by and lets everyone else take up the slack. Lettuce should be ashamed of itself.

I am not a fan of lettuce.

On the other hand, if something is seriously reduced in price and not yet entirely inedible, I'm probably going to get it. That's just the way I roll. And that is how it came to pass that I had two little gem lettuces in the fridge, with few ideas about what to do with them. A salad would have been bleak  and disappointing without stronger flavours to go with it, so that was out of the question. I've heard that you can braise them, but I honestly wouldn't have known where to start. But what else can you do?

Griddle them, that's what.

Now, I know I use this griddle pan an awful lot, so I hope I'm not putting off readers who don't have one. A large, heavy frying pan will do just as well, but mine is at the bottom of the cupboard and it's really large and really heavy and I'd have to pull out a load of saucepans before I could even get to it, so I'm griddling instead.

I took one little gem lettuce and washed it without removing the stem, so all the leaves remained attached. After shaking it dry, I cut it in half and lightly brushed it with chilli oil and a sprinkle of salt. I then cooked them on the hot griddle for about 3-5 minutes each side, until the bottom part of the leaves started looking translucent and the outer leaves were nicely charred.

I am happy to say that the lettuce, on this occasion, redeemed itself. The charred bits were particularly delicious, and the whole thing was bitter, tasty and interesting.

These would be excellent served whole as a side to a main instead of a regular, boring, lettuce fucking salad.