Ok so I would like to talk about Lettuce (Ice Berg).
This topic is prompted by the poor job many restaurants/kitchen do in preparing lettuce.
Many people think lettuce is a simple thing to use for sandwiches, salads, tacos, and other dishes. Yet many fail to prepare it properly so I am going to give a quick run down of how it should be done.
Grab the head of lettuce, remove the rusted parts (brown looking coloration from cutting or bruising) and remove the wilted or black leafs until you have a nice clean head. Now slam the head down hard on the “stump” part and remove the core (it will come out nice and clean this way).
Take the head with the core removed and wash under cold water all around and turn it upside down so you can fill the head up with cold water where the core was removed. The water will flow into the head between all the leaf layers. Now turn it right side up and force the water out with a strong up and down motion. Repeat again if you need to. By doing this it will remove any dirt or other material from the inside of the lettuce.
Now it is ready to cut, but first a quick note on cutting vs ripping. If you are going to use the lettuce in the first 24 hours you can cut it. If you are going to use the lettuce over a 2-3 day period rip it with your hands. Doing so will prevent the lettuce from becoming rust colored.
Cutting must be done as follows depending upon the use.
For a Salad:
Cut head in half, put the flat side down, than cut each half into 1” strips, turn 90 degrees and cut again at 1”. This gives you 1” x 1” squares of lettuce which are nice bit size pieces that people can simple stab with a fork and enjoy. Everything in a salad should be 1x1” or a little smaller. Too small and it is a mess, too big and people will have to cut it (hard and annoying to do in a bowl) and/or they get dressing and salad on the sides of the mouth and face.
For Sandwiches/Hamburgers:
Pull the head apart so you have nice large leafs. When you are ready to make the sandwiches you can fold or tear into pieces that will fit nice on the sandwich. Many places will do shredded or pieces of lettuce and this just makes a mess when you try to eat it.
For tacos:
Cut the lettuce into ¼” strips. This gives you nice shredded pieces that are long the lay down in the taco and don’t fall out while you are trying to eat it. It also helps to hold the other parts of the taco in place so chunks of meat/tomato/cheese/ etc in place while you are eating it.
