Above is one of our favorite lettuce head varieties.  Marty says he’ll only tell you what it is if you come volunteer on his farm!  If you’ve eaten enough salad already, a big gorgeous head like this one is perfect for making lettuce wraps.

I recently modified this recipe to include many veggies that have been included in recent (or very near future) Global Gardens and City Gardens CSA shares!   A little bit of a more involved recipe, but so worth it.  The original recipe was from Sarah Barsness Gowin, also the author of our Making West Home in Idaho, Refugee Stories and Recipes Cookbook.

Ingredients

• 1 pound chicken.  I like to grill or bake a whole chicken, then chunk it up for use in recipes.
• 2 T. olive oil
• 2 T. hot chili oil or 1 t. red pepper flakes.  I used some frozen hot peppers I had.
• 2 T. fresh ginger root, minced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 c. shredded cabbage
• 1 c. shredded bok choi (I used a red cabbage/bok choi combo.  You don’t really need both.)
• 3 shallots or spring onions.  Or half of a regular onion.
• Handful of snap or snow peas (the whole pod)
• 1 c. chopped carrots
• 1/2 c. plum sauce or duck sauce
• 1 c. loosely packed cilantro leaves.  (The recipe calls for basil, but we don’t have that in the garden yet!)
• 1 T. fish sauce
• 1 gorgeous gigantic lettuce head with big leaves, such as butterhead or red iceberg

Slice chicken breast into strips.  (Try a chicken from one of our friends at the Saturday market, like Peaceful Belly or Meadowlark Farms.)  Heat oil in a skillet and cook chicken for 2 minutes.  Add chili oil/pepper flakes, ginger, garlic, peppers, cabbage, bok choi, carrots, peas, and scallions.  In this case I added everything at the same time.  Slice the carrots thinly so that they don’t take longer to cook than everything else.

Stir fry for another 2 minutes.  Add plum sauce and toss one minute, add cilantro leaves and fish sauce, turn to coat.  Serve chicken and cooked veggies in a bowl with chopped cucumber for topping and lettuce for wrapping.  Spoon filling onto lettuce and fold to eat like a taco!

You can also add some dipping sauces.  We used a peanut sauce and a sweet chili sauce, both bought from the Asian section because I didn’t have time to make them.  I did thin them down a little with some rice vinegar though, both were too thick for dipping.

If you like the look of this recipe but don’t want to make it, Bittercreek Alehouse serves a fabulous version of lettuce wraps, sometimes using lettuce we’ve sold them!

— Katie