Nigel Slater, TV cook, bestselling cookery author and food columnist for The Observer, has joined the RHS grow your own campaign.
In this new series for 2009, Nigel focuses on the best produce for growing and cooking
Next month: beetroot
Nigel's lettuce recipes
Discover Nigel's lettuce recipes:
Lettuce
Easy to grow and a staple part of home-grown crops, lettuces are a must in any garden.
Lettuce is something I eat almost every day: sometimes with other leaves, such as peppery watercress, or long ‘rabbit ears’ of white chicory; on other occasions tucked inside a sandwich with a slice of farmhouse cheese; or used to wrap a meatball instead of the more usual Middle Eastern bread.
Sometimes, I want to enjoy lettuce – mine or one from the farmer’s market – for its own sake, to celebrate its delicate flavours and to eat in an uncomplicated fashion. This is when it gets little in the way of dressing, often just some oil and lemon juice, and is served in a plain white bowl where you can admire the graceful beauty of its almost transparent leaves. When you have grown your own, this often seems the most appropriate way to reflect its success.
I find the loose-leaved ‘cutting’ lettuces easier to grow successfully than the tight ‘heading’ cultivars. The most successful by far has been ‘Frisée de Beauregard’ (syn. ‘Reine des Glaces’) and dandelion-shaped ‘Lingua di Canarino’ (canary’s tongue), with its spiked leaves and thick stems that crunch under the teeth. Their stalks have plenty of milky sap, the leaves are strong enough not to wilt too quickly after dressing and they have a good flavour; I find some of the iceberg lettuces verging on the tasteless. They are not, however, big enough to wrap up my Thai fishcakes, so I resort to large-leaved market-bought lettuces for that.
Sowing and thinning
Whatever the season, I always have some lettuce seedlings on their way.
The lettuce I need for early spring eating was sown in late autumn, starting life in small pots in the cold frame, spending most of the day with the lid partially open. I always marvel at how such tender leaves can sometimes survive the coldest weather with the smallest amount of protection. Hearting lettuce such as hardy ‘Nansen’s Noordpool’ (available in the UK as Arctic King) has previously done well for me under a cloche and has been ready for picking in May.
I sow generously, thinning the seedlings as they grow to make a ‘seedling salad’, which is a delicate bowl of leaves, most of them no bigger than my thumb, using whichever cultivars need thinning. Mixed with young sprouts of mustard and cress, or chard and beetroot thinnings, they make a beautiful addition to any dish, especially when piled on top in a loose and colourful mound. At this point in their lives they are too fragile to dress with anything but the simplest dressing, and tend to clump together if tossed with a thick or creamy mixture. A squeeze of lemon juice or walnut oil will make their flavours sing.
Once the seedlings have developed in strength and vigour, I plant them out into mixed borders; I am not too fussy about where they go, but need them to be visible so that I can swiftly deal with the ever-hungry slugs and snails that seem to enjoy the hospitality of my garden so much. Wicker cloches help keep any young fox cubs from ruining the young lettuces as well.
Into the kitchen
Making a salad is one of those kitchen tasks that I take my time over, separating the leaves from one another carefully and washing them thoroughly but with extreme tenderness.
A fine leaf salad is not something to be thrown together in haste. Breaking a lettuce stalk to reveal the milky sap has always been one of those kitchen details – like making a pea pod ‘pop’ – that is quietly pleasing. Once you see the thin white sap oozing from a freshly snapped lettuce stalk it is easy to understand its Latin name Lactuca (lac in Latin meaning ‘milk’).
You can cook with lettuce too, although it is not always greeted with open arms. The leaves have a pleasing effect on peas, either in the classic petit pois à la Française, where the two are gently simmered together with a little butter and stock or water to make an elegant side dish, or as I often do, in a more rustic braise with carrots and small onions. Either way it needs little cooking – 10 minutes at most.
I particularly value the larger leaves as something crisp and fresh in which to wrap spicy meat patties and small fishcakes, especially when they are heavily spiced. The crunch of a butterhead or cos lettuce leaf with the softness of a small patty of meat is excellent, as is the contrast between the refreshingly cold lettuce and spicily hot meatball. I often tuck a few leaves of cooling mint or coriander in, too.
It is hard to imagine a life without lettuce, to miss its cool simplicity and gentle crunch. I would miss the little pots of seedlings too, especially at this time of year when there is so little else happening.