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Modeled after a well-known NYC eatery, this creative technique turns often-discarded external salad leaves into a luxurious herbaceous emulsion. It’s an smart approach to minimize kitchen waste while creating a condiment tasty and versatile.

Why Use External Salad Greens?

Those external leaves serve as nature’s protective packaging, shielding the delicate inner lettuce. While recycling vegetable trimmings is a basic sustainable habit, finding new applications for these parts is even more beneficial. Turning surplus food into rich compost avoids landfill buildup, where it may release methane, which is a powerful environmental concern.

This is quite innovative when you think about it: produce decomposes and becomes that ideal growing medium to feed more plants, thereby closing this loop and respecting the process of life.

Yet, with over 30% extra food getting produced than needed, using precious ingredients efficiently is crucial. Minimizing leftovers not only conserves cash but also promotes a increasingly sustainable lifestyle.

The Green “Mayonnaise” Method

This versatile formula functions with any type of lettuce and seeds. By incorporating one entire egg, one eliminate any need to use up an extra egg white. This outcome is an creamy, rich sauce that works beautifully with salads, grilled veggies, grilled chicken, pasta, or grains.

Yields two

To Make the Green “Mayonnaise” (Yields about 200 grams)

• 100 grams unsalted butter
• 50 grams external salad greens from two romaine or butter lettuce, rinsed and dried
• 20 grams peeled roasted nuts – light-colored nuts like blanched almonds help keep the bright green, but any nuts will work
• 1 medium whole egg

For the Salad

• Two little gem heads, halved lengthways
• Cold-pressed olive oil, as needed
• Lemon juice or white-wine vinegar, to taste
• 1 small bunch fresh greens (like dill), leaves left whole, stalks finely minced

Instructions

First making the mayonnaise. Melt the fat in a small pot, add the outer lettuce leaves, place a lid and cook for approximately 60 seconds, stirring a couple times, till they’ve wilted. Transfer this contents into a jug of an stick processor, include the nuts and whole egg, then process until smooth. As necessary, add more seeds to get a thick consistency. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.

For assemble the dish, drizzle each lettuce portion with olive oil and lemon juice, then salt generously. Dress with one tight drizzle of the herb mayonnaise, then top with the greens. Place on 2 plates and enjoy right away.