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Drawing from a popular NYC restaurant, this creative method converts usually thrown-out external salad greens into an luxurious herbaceous “mayonnaise”. This is a ingenious approach to cut down on kitchen waste while producing something flavorful and flexible.

Why Use Outer Lettuce Leaves?

These outer greens are the plant’s natural wrapping, shielding the tender inside leaves. While composting vegetable scraps is one basic sustainable habit, discovering creative uses for them is even more impactful. Turning surplus food into rich soil prevents dump accumulation, where it can release methane, which is a powerful climate issue.

It’s rather radical if you think about it: produce decomposes and transforms into the ideal soil to feed more plants, thus closing this loop and respecting nature’s process of growth.

However, given over 30% surplus food getting produced compared to needed, using precious ingredients wisely becomes essential. Minimizing waste not only saves money but also promotes the more sustainable lifestyle.

This Green “Mayonnaise” Method

The versatile formula works with whatever type of salad greens and seeds. Through using one whole egg, one avoid the need to use up the extra egg white. The result is a creamy, rich sauce that pairs beautifully with greens, grilled vegetables, grilled poultry, noodles, or rice.

Serves 2

To Make the Green Emulsion (Yields approximately 200 grams)

• 100g unsalted butter
• 50 grams outer lettuce leaves of two romaine or butter lettuce, rinsed and dried
• 20 grams shelled salted pistachios – white nuts like pine nuts help maintain the bright green, but whatever seeds can do
• 1 small whole egg

For the Side

• 2 little gem heads, split longwise
• Extra-virgin oil, to taste
• Fresh lime juice or white-wine vinegar, to taste
• One small bunch soft greens (like chives), sprigs picked intact, stems finely minced

Steps

Begin by preparing the emulsion. Melt the butter in one medium pot, add the external salad greens, place a lid and cook for approximately a minute, mixing once or twice, till they have wilted. Pour the contents into the jug of a immersion blender, include the nuts and whole egg, then blend until creamy. As necessary, add more nuts to get a mayonnaise-like texture. Store in an sealed container in the fridge for as long as 3 days.

To assemble the dish, sprinkle each gem portion with olive oil and lemon juice, then season liberally. Coat with a tight drizzle of the green mayonnaise, then top with the greens. Place on two plates and serve immediately.