There’s a lot more to lettuce than salad | Kitchen aide
My garden has produced an abundance of lettuce (mainly butter lettuce) this year but there’s a limit to how much salad I can eat.What else can I use them for? Julian, by email“Start thinking of lettuce, and especially butter lettuce, as bread or a taco shell,” says Jesse Jenkins, author of Cooking with Vegetables, and happily this is a “highly adaptable” strategy, too.Sure, you could pile in grilled spicy pork belly and herbs, but this dinner fix also works well “with everything a big green salad does: a piece of nicely grilled protein, some sauce, a few pickled crunchy things, all wrapped in a big, beautiful green leaf”.But why stop there? “I also like to use butter lettuce to wrap cheese toasties,” Jenkins says.“It catches all the fatty goodness and acts as a barrier between the crunchy bread and the roof of your mouth.
”Lettuce is also a great carrier of flavour, so braising is another potential ploy.“Start with a base of onion and garlic,” suggests Yohei Furuhashi, head chef at The Lavery in London, then separately brown some chicken thighs and add them to the onions with a little thyme, a splash of wine and some chicken stock.Then tear in some lettuce and simmer for 10-15 minutes to “let all the flavours come together”.Julian might also give his abundant greens a quick stir-fry “with olive oil and garlic, then mix with cooked lentils, herbs and chilli and serve with salmon”, Furuhashi says.Alternatively, get a thrill from the grill, says Alice Power, head chef at The Black Swan at Oldstead near York.
“Halve or quarter lettuces, and get them on the barbecue,Pair with stone fruit and grilled halloumi or chicken, and that will feel very different from a standard salad,” Dressing-wise, the aim is to balance the smokiness, which can done in myriad ways: “Go sweet and fruity, or creamy and herby, or something quite spicy,” Power says,Otherwise, it’s a truth universally acknowledged that few problems can’t be remedied by soup, and tackling an excess of lettuce is no different,“Take any Asian-style broth with chilli, coriander and chicken, then add the lettuce and it will soak up all that juice,” Furuhashi says.
Power, meanwhile, would chill out by blending said lettuce into gazpacho or a chilled green and herby soup,Asimakis Chaniotis, of Myrtos in London, on the other hand, takes inspiration from a fricassee of lettuce with lamb, which is usually eaten in Greece at Easter,“As it’s summer, I’ve been making a version with fish,” he says, and at the moment that means pink bream,He starts by sweating onions and garlic, then adds lettuce and herbs (parsley, mint, dill, basil, chervil) and cooks for just a minute or two,Cook some fish, and serve with an avgolemono sauce (AKA whisked egg yolks, lemon juice and cornflour), which Chaniotis fancies up by turning it into a foam.
All that said, sometimes the simplest solution comes from a change in mindset, Power says: “Start thinking of lettuce as a lighter-style leaf, such as spinach,” and stir it through sauces and pasta at the last minute.“Or shred lettuce and add to a courgette and herb risotto,” she says.“That would be nice at this time of year.” And who am I to disagree?Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com
Why Shabana Mahmood’s outlook on prisons is wrong | Letter
Shabana Mahmood’s tenure as justice secretary is more problematic than your profile suggests (Shabana Mahmood: justice secretary and rising star of the Labour party, 16 August). First, she has endorsed yet another prison-building programme, a policy that has failed so dismally for the past 200 years. If the answer to the current crisis is more prisons, then she, like her predecessors, is asking the wrong question.Second, she has said prisons should be regarded as being of “national importance”. Why should they be seen as more important than developing welfare-oriented, radical alternatives to custody, or abolishing the structural inequalities that are central to who is criminalised and imprisoned?Third, the profile mentions that her plans include chemical castration for sex offenders
Action to tackle number of asylum seekers coming to UK is important step to ‘restoring order’, says Cooper – as it happened
The home secretary has said the government’s action to tackle the number of asylum seekers coming to the UK had been an important step to “restoring order”.Responding to new immigration statistics, Yvette Cooper said Labour had overseen increased numbers of returns of asylum seekers not granted asylum and pointed to the reduced spending on asylum.According to the PA news agency, Cooper said:We inherited a broken immigration and asylum system that the previous government left in chaos. Since coming to office we have strengthened Britain’s visa and immigration controls, cut asylum costs and sharply increased enforcement and returns, as today’s figures show.The action we have taken in the last 12 months – increasing returns of failed asylum seekers by over 30%, cutting asylum costs by 11%, reducing the backlog by 18% and our forthcoming plans to overhaul the failing asylum appeal system – are crucial steps to restoring order and putting an end to the chaotic use of asylum hotels that we inherited from the previous government
Stella Creasy and Richard Tice call for scrutiny over which EU laws UK ditches
Stella Creasy and Richard Tice are pushing for Labour to allow a Brexit scrutiny committee to be formed in parliament, after the Guardian revealed environmental protections had been eroded since the UK left the EU.The Labour and Reform UK MPs argue that there is no scrutiny or accountability over how Brexit is being implemented. Creasy, the MP for Walthamstow and chair of the Labour Movement for Europe, said the UK needed a “salvage operation” to clear up the environmental and regulatory havoc caused by Brexit.The analysis by the Guardian and the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) has found that since Brexit the EU has brought forward 28 new, revised or upgraded pieces of environmental legislation that the UK has not adopted, and the UK has actively chosen to regress by changing four different pieces of legislation including on protected habitats, pesticides and fisheries.Creasy said the prime minister, Keir Starmer, needed to move more quickly to repair relations with the EU and realign on environmental law
Labour-run councils consider legal challenges to asylum hotels
Labour-run councils are considering legal challenges to stop hotels from housing asylum seekers after a landmark ruling prompted officials to consider increasing the use of former military sites as emergency accommodation.Wirral and Tamworth councils said they are exploring high court injunctions to remove claimants after the Conservative-run authority in Epping Forest won a temporary high court injunction to remove people from the Bell Hotel.The developments come after the Home Office minister, Dan Jarvis, said the government is looking at alternative options if there is a flurry of successful challenges from councils.Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, is determined to stick to her plan after the Epping ruling and its consequences, a source said.“We have a plan and we’re sticking to it to close asylum hotels by the end of the parliament
How Labour can build a stronger British economy | Letters
If Rachel Reeves is serious about ensuring that Labour’s second year in power is all about a stronger economy that rewards working people across the country (In our first year Labour fixed the foundations – now we must build a stronger economy for a renewed Britain, 13 August), she needs to rethink what your editorial called the UK’s “broken growth model” (6 August). The growth that Britain needs is an increase in economic activity that improves social and environmental infrastructure nationwide. This involves a huge increase in secure, well-paid jobs to rebuild a more resilient future economy.The last thing that is required is Reeves’s obsession with more deregulation of the City and pressuring savers into investing in the stock market. What is needed instead is a massive increase in a socially and green-oriented bond market that will provide secure returns for savers
Reeves leaves no stone unturned as she mulls reforms for property tax
Rachel Reeves is in favour of radical tax reform – or at least she was in 2018. “We need a radical overhaul of the tax system because our current system of wealth taxation isn’t working,” she argued in her pamphlet The Everyday Economy.Seven years later, in her second year as chancellor, Reeves appears to be returning to some of the themes in that pamphlet, especially as it relates to the UK’s convoluted and unpopular system of taxing property.The Guardian revealed on Monday the chancellor was considering scrapping stamp duty (used in England and Northern Ireland) and replacing it with an annual levy based on the value of someone’s home and the time they bought it. On Tuesday, the Times reported that Reeves was also considering imposing the UK-wide capital gains tax on higher-value primary properties, even though the prime minister, Keir Starmer, ruled out doing so before the election
England get the party started on a night that shows just how big this World Cup could be | Andy Bull
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Serena Williams built her legacy on defiance. Why lend it to Ozempic culture? | Bryan Armen Graham