I got a deal on some extra lettuce this week, and I’ve been curious about lettuce soup for a while. I looked up recipes, and I found a Mark Bittman recipe that looks good (completely worth watching the video, even if only for the intro–it’s my favorite intro of his), but it cooks the lettuce. I was interesting in leaving the lettuce raw, so I made up something loosely based on a basic salad. It came out well, though a little bitter, so I added an orange to mellow out the flavor. I used a loose-leaf lettuce, but I bet a butter/Boston lettuce would be nice. It comes out, not surprisingly, tasting a lot like lettuce.
juice of 1 lemon (at least ¼ cup)
1 peeled orange
½ cup walnuts
1 head washed lettuce
5 ice cubes
salt and pepper
Toss in and blend until smooth. Makes 2 smallish refreshing servings. If you want to be a bit fancier you could garnish with some croutons or toasted nuts.
Update: Substituting in butter lettuce (aka Boston Bibb) and/or Meyer lemon makes this taste amazing (butter lettuce is less bitter and Meyer lemons are sweeter). We had great success with the “living” butter lettuce that still has the root attached.
Chinese ppl make fish or beef soupy congee and put in some lettuce! It taste really good.
This is really tasty; I added some fresh mint and crushed pink peppercorns.