I'm single and living in Europe so there is just no way I have fridge space to store multiple heads of lettuce! That said, whilst I lived in an apartment (with a west-facing balcony) I came across the perfect-for-me solution to tasty salads in summer. I would grow large pots of mixed lettuce from seeds sown a week or so apart (normally I would have 3-4 going at once) on the balcony and buy one head of a crunchy lettuce at the market every week. I could get 4 or 5 large mixed salads for 1 each week by combining both! Crunch from the market/store lettuce, different flavours from the young greens in pots! Now that I am in a house with a garden, I still do it the same way, so I know it really works for me! Yes, I could grow my own heads of crunchy lettuce in my garden but succession sowing to get a head a week is a pain and would take up too much space in my little veg plot. Plus I like the fact that I can get different varieties of crunchy lettucesfrom the market throughout the summer so my salads are never boring!
I also want to say, lettuce is extremely easy to grow on a windowsill. If you can’t find it at the supermarket try growing it! Thank you for this really informative video
I recently met Helen at a fish counter at a Market Basket supermarket in the Boston area. Such a treat to meet someone you’ve seen so many times on UA-cam. She was very pleasant. Thanked her for all the great advice, and wished her luck.
That's the main reason I don't eat much lettuce as well. I walk into the store, see how expensive boxed lettuce is compared to how bad the quality is and decide to make a cucumber salad instead.
I live rurally and eat a lot of garden grown lettuce & greens. I wash freshly picked lettuce in cold water and drain it in my dish drain. I do not worry about the lettuce drying completely. Then i take a long unbroken length of paper towels and lay the lettuce leaves across the towels. Once arranged to cover the paper towels as well as possible, I roll the towels like a rug. I place each roll in a plastic bag which I do not close. Once the bag has as many rolls as it will hold, it goes OPEN in the crisper drawer. Keeps for weeks. I use plastic bags for bread; kinda like bakery bags, but you could use ziplock bags, clean shopping bags, or even small unscented trash bags.
Me too!! Only we are semi-rural. I use a giant cheesecloth & centrifugal force (outside) to speed up the drying process. I also started using two white towels that are lettuce only during Covid. The price fixing & gouging that paper towel manufacturers have & are engaged in affected our budget too much.
I can get a clamshell box of 4 small lettuces at my local Aldi. I store them in the box, just as they come, and they last a long time (for lettuce, around 2-3 weeks). When I want a salad, I pick leaves from each head, put the box back with the heads pointing up, and wash the leaves in my salad spinner. Since I live and cook solo, this is the best solution I have found. Side Note: I remember that Market Basket from when I lived in Lexington!
Easy, very easy to respond. There are special suppliers and special varieties and mixes only supplied to restaurants in porex boxes with dry ice. Normally those veggies are the best looking ones, perfectly selected and in season.
my parents always use rags instead of paper towel. I think that if you're the kind of person who has a lot of rags, there's no reason to waste paper towel because they work just as well used the same way.
Your parents are a head of there time, long gone are the days paper towels only contain wood fiber pulp they are made with Chlorine for bleaching & Formaldehyde which is used “to improve the wet-strength and other “valued” characteristics of paper and paper products.
I worked in a family-style restaurant in college... the lettuce was kept in a big bucket of ice water in the water-in cooler. We'd scoop it out, drain it and call it "fresh" garden salad.
Several years ago I made a basic salad from a head of romaine lettuce and assorted veggies for a potluck. I recieve so many compliments, which puzzled me. After several more potlucks where others brought the salads, I realized the difference between mine and thiers was the lettuce, theirs was bagged.
Thank you Helen for touching this topic. I have been doing the same for years, mainly because I get too lazy to wash things right before I want to eat them, or wash things in batches every day. When you wash produce the same day you purchase them and store them properly, you have ready food for days to come. Also, I don't like putting dirty things in my fridge, so I wash every item that goes in, even bottles, cans, jars, UHT boxes etc. All other things like charcuterie, I decant into glass airtight containers. I find that this practice greatly reduces the need to clean your fridge unless you have a spill, and it prevents foods from spoiling easily, because you reduce the microbial load of everything you put in.
I hope/pray for a wife with that attitude...definitely the best way to go, but much more effort of course. If you have a life partner they are incredibly lucky!
@@joeybagodonuts6683 That is very kind of you. I am sure you will get an amazing life partner. But if you find someone you disagree with, you can always be the gatekeeper of the fridge 😉
@@annabaker4857 Sure, the only difference is I have been doing it since 2008 or sth. not because of some "pandemic". And I have never used anything but bleach to mop my floors or clean my toilet. Plus, always been no shoes in the house. I understand that many people around the world learned the true concept of "microorganisms" after the pandemic, but I am not one of them. I am a vet, and have been in big pharma clinical research for years. I never mentioned bleaching cereal boxes, if you did that, that is on you 🤣 In that case you might have washed your polyester clothing in 90C and have had everything fall apart, which was what the stupid news was advising back then.
The other problem you hadn't mentioned was about "pre-washed" greens being contaminated with e.coli and other bacteria and making people sick. (There are a couple of large-scale farms -- one in Salinas, CA, for e.g. -- which are located too close to feedlots and the animal feces contaminates the produce, causing periodic recalls when lots of people fall ill. When you wash your own produce you can reduce that danger.) I have also found paper towels being a great extender of shelf-life for my greens. Thanks for another informative and entertaining video....that dressing looks yum and looking forward to trying it!
Even if not near a facility that would cause contamination, ag is filled with labor abuse. How is this relevant to contamination? Without the time to take bathroom breaks, workers will be forced to in the field! I am a farmhand, thankfully at a place that has decent labor practices and a bathroom on site. We harvest with washed hands and santized equipment. We do not prewash our produce, because it's more sanitary for you to do it at home, than for us to bulk wash and risk contaminating the whole batch. Always wash your fresh produce!
I love lettuce and I love salads, and Helen’s lettuce prep is exactly what I do. However, not all lettuces are crisp, so yes, if you prize a crisp texture, butter lettuces and some other varieties are not for you. Me, I loves ‘em. Two things: I braise all the bruised leaves the day I bring lettuce home and eat them with rice. Delicious! Also, I add lots of shredded or very thinly sliced vegetables to my salads: red cabbage, cucumber, carrots, radishes, mushrooms, zucchini, sweet pepper, celery, and onion, as well as thawed baby peas and cherry or grape tomatoes. I have a firm belief that a garden salad must have at least 10 different vegetables in addition to the greens mix. Which is not to say I don’t appreciate either a wedge or honeymoon salad - love those, too. I really, really like lettuce.
I make a big bowl of salad every 3 days. In the winter I only use romaine lettuce. In the summer I pick different varieties from the farmer’s markets or cut them fresh from our garden. The way I make my salad is I prepare all the ingredients and lay them on one of my bigger cutting boards…julienne carrots, baby tomatoes cut in quarters, julienne red cabbage, sliced pepper (any color), cucumbers cut in small pieces, golden berries, pomegranate seeds. On another cutting board I cut the herbs..ex dill, tarragon, parsley, mint etc after cutting I push them to the side and cut the lettuce I am using and mix the herbs with the salad making sure every bite will have some herbs. Then I start to layer my salad….just like you would layer lasagna. A little salad at the bottom of the bowl, a pinch full of all the other ingredients on top, another layer of salad, a pinch full of the other ingredients….and continue until you have nothing left making sure to top of your salad has a big handful of everything to make it look pretty. Do not stir the salad. Leave it as is! On top I sprinkle sunflower and pumpkin seeds, hemp hearts and nutritional yeast. Guests will have a little bit of everything when they dig in. I have on hand several bottles of dressing I let guests decide what salad dressing they want.
In a perfect world…the best lettuce you will ever taste…you would grow for yourself and harvest to order. There’s just something special about lettuce cut right after “50° and raining” that can’t be described.
I was happy to see you discuss paper towel to manage water. I figured that out by myself and have been using them to add to the storage life of many veggies: green onions, celery, carrots, zucchini… it has been a game changer for me.
A grocery store near me started selling lettuce that still has the root and some dirt, kind of like those "living herb" packs. After being frustrated by many boxes of 50/50 mix going bad in days, I can't remember throwing out one of these things. They just stay crunchy and nice if you pull from the outer leaves in each meal. The only sad part is that they do need washing. They will have dirt on them. It's still very worth it.
When I was growing up, we always bought head lettuce, but usually red leaf and maybe romaine or butter. It wasn't until I was finishing college that I lived with anyone who would exclusively eat boxed and bagged lettuce mixes! I got out of the habit of buying lettuce as my available prep time dwindled. There were a couple years where we would go to a produce swap/giveaway every week or so, and I experimented so much more with salad variety and head lettuce. I was surprised how much I loved radicchio and fennel salads with beets and radishes, very chunky and intensely flavored. Or even eating endives by the head as a snack! Now that I have a good garden space again, I'm excited to branch out and try more fresh veg!
A restaurateur once told me he rinsed his lettuce in lemon juice before washing it because it was a natural disinfectant. He washed in water afterwards so I don't think it could have added much to the flavour.
Helen, We have been using the warm water method instead of cold icy water to make our lettuce last longer with ''stems'' only in the warm water, the old ways are sometimes the best.
Because of the trauma of harvesting, the root will grow very bitter lettuce from the replanted head. It actually has a toxicity level that makes my rabbits sick to eat, but I don’t think it's effects have been tested in humans. I only recommend you replant the base of the lettuce head if you want to get seeds. And then you'll need 3-10 plants of the same kind for good pollination and strong genetics in the seeds. And some patience 😅
Butter lettuce I don't think is supposed to be crunchy. I use it for little wraps. I agree red lettuce sucks. A simple wedge salad of iceberg in the summer meets my crunch requirements. Bacon and blue cheese!
Excellent and informative video as always! I have found that exact brand of artisan lettuce pack at Aldi in multiple different states and have been buying it for years! It has totally rekindled my love for lettuce-based salads. If I don't feel like washing the lettuces right away I just cut a sliver off the bottom of the stem ends and fill the plastic package with 1/2" of water, and the lettuce stays fresh for weeks.
Issue with hydroponic plants is typically lack of stimulation from the wind, plants just grow flimsier when they're in mostly still air the whole time.
@@firstlast446 its true. That's what gives the same plant strain, a different flavour profile when they are grown in different countries. Cacoa for instance, grown in Ghana or south America.. Putting circular fans in a grow operation isn't a big deal. It's necessary to circulate the air, as usually fresh air is vented in, then exhausted out the other end. I did hydroponics 20 years ago. Most growers grow for yield and a quick harvest
@@jazztheglass6139 They all put in fans the issue is the fans never stimulate the plants enough especially not throughout the whole place. Simple airflow is not the same as wind. Adding trace nutrients is a much simpler addition to operations that any good growers nowadays do.
I’m laughing at this. Usually, I admire this channel. But, of course, you buy a whole lettuce! In Canada, we can buy your regular “wild” (!) lettuce head or, like Tanimura, we have our local Windset from the greenhouse. We call them living lettuces. I love soft butter lettuce! Don’t like iceberg unless with Chinese cuisine. And hydroponic lettuces, strawberries, tomatoes are delish!
I know that I might sound crude, but I love your non-bs and sound analysis - it's nice to have a professional arguing what I have been told was a dumb lack of taste. Lots of love from Denmark 🤗
(but I really don't like mayo - I think it's an acquired tasted, and even after all these years I'm yet to acquire it - I simply use skyr instead, and just use more (olive) oil and my guests are polite enough to only pay me compliments)
Love your videos Helen! I AM in the Boston area and look forward to a day when i can participate LIVE! Thanks for the shopping tip - you read my mind. Market Basket is a treasure!
Organic versus regular - it’s the pesticides used (that also kill pollinators). The thinner the skin, absorption of whatever is sprayed on it increases so lettuce would be most vulnerable. Always good to support organic farms.
I agree 100% with the boxed greens assessment, as I have always found them too expensive and usually not that good. Fortunately for me I'm quite happy with a very plain salad of, usually, green leaf lettuce. Every so often I go wild with a butter lettuce salad, and fatoush if I'm really feeling adventurous. I have room in my fridge, so once I wash lettuce and spin it dry, I drain the water from the bowl, leave the lettuce in the basket, and store it in the spinner in the fridge. It keeps very well but I don't know for how long because I manage to eat all of it within a few days. My favourite dressing for leaf lettuce is Italian: a judicious amount of salt, a reasonable amount of good olive oil, a splash or two of good red wine vinegar, then toss well. If a puddle forms at the bottom of the bowl you overdid it, so scale it back next time. For butter lettuce I like a cream dressing from an old book of mine: 120 ml table cream (20% mf), 120 ml neutral oil, 5ml Dijon mustard, salt to taste (not too much), 45 ml tarragon vinegar, then shake well. A little goes a long way, and it keeps for at least a week. I haven't seen tarragon vinegar in grocery stores where I live, so rather than buy it on line just for this I substitute good white wine vinegar.
Lucky for me, one of my local supermarkets sells green and red leaf lettuce heads for between $1.99 and $2.99 per pound year round. I get to buy a few heads of each every week and chop them up for a week's worth of salads for lunch. I like to strip out the stiffer veins and all of the trim goes into my compost pile or to the worms! The store also has great fresh spinach bunches and other really good lettuces when we want variety.
Hello from Salinas, CA. I love Tanimura and Antle lettuces. T&A. was the label used years ago when signage was more rudimentary than it is now. We all chortled at the suggestive nature of it. I read that when TV became a thing (1950's) Salinas named their station KSBW because this region is fondly referred to as "Salad Bowl to the World". I can't count the number of produce powerhouses here like Dole, Church Brothers and Taylor Farms. EarthBound Farms is in the next county of Monterey. You've probably had Driscoll Berries. Ocean Mist produces so many, many crops but the Artichokes are one of my favorites. I really enjoyed this episode, and, learned a few things too! Thanks.
I bought a few Aerogarden (and similar style cheaper) units to grow my lettuce at home. I stagger their plantings, so I have fresh young lettuce available all the time. And I get to try many different types not available at the store as well.
I have been using warm water to freshen up lettuce, spinach, rosemary even flowers etc from early childhood watching mum do it. The theory behind it is that the warm water opens up the cell walls more efficiently than cold water, allowing the stems, leaves, flowers etc to absorb more liquid more quickly thus stay fresher and last longer.
I will never make this much effort for lettuce and salads, but i enj5the video regardless :)) looking forward to the next ones about war water and crunchy quinoa!
Well the internet must have been listening to me when I said I give up on lettuce salads today. But I’m happy you made this video! I’m going to try this!
I hate to be that person, but it's still ideal for me to buy boxed lettuce, as I'm often eating all of it within 2 days of buying it, and I almost never have the room or time to store and prepare whole heads of lettuce, and I'm usually eating it out of a small bowl, which makes the smaller baby leaves a better option
Market Basket strikes again! The one closest to me (Somerville) is always chaotic, but it's worth the trip anyway because the quality and variety of produce is consistently better than any other supermarket in the Boston area. The greens and herbs are miles better than what I can get at Whole Foods or (if I'm truly desperate and it's the only thing still open) Star Market. I don't know of another non-Asian supermarket that regularly stocks fresh makrut lime leaves and galangal!
Market Baskets are the best full service Supermarkets in New England! Their profit margins are much lower than the others. This family owned chain treat their employees right; they even went on strike for two months in 2014 when one faction of the family tried to oust the other, in this non-union chain.
These videos are always great. I eat salad everyday and love it, but I’ve succumbed to the convenience of boxed lettuce about 80% of the time. This is good inspiration to get back to the variety and freshness of buying whole heads.
The salads and veggies grown organically in your backyard taste better than in any restaurant. Home-growing is a better option unless you live in an apartment without access to garden space.
The other thing I sometimes do-is just skip the lettuce in my salads. A chopped salad from vegetables with longer staying power can be delightful. Like you, I’m in New England and the lettuce at the supermarket is sometimes underwhelming.
Sohla's first job was making salads so I trust her salad knowledge and she's given me so many ideas. But this video was just great because of the washing/storage technique. :D
I used to buy heads of leaf lettuce, radicchio, romaine, chickoree, and frizee. Id wash it all at once and tear it to size and store it in my huge mega tupperware bowl. A couple salads a day, and it was gone by weeks end.
Отличный канал. Очень вдумчиво отношение к продуктам и готовке. Фокус не на какой-то паре рецептов, но на основополагающих вещах, которые помогут готовить вообще, а не только какой-то конкретный рецепт.
Asian (Chinese) speaking here.. I honestly don't see the bruised lettuce as a waste, I just rinse them free of dirt, keep them aside from the unbruised leaves and juliennne them to add to noodle stir fries or even fried rice. The high heat of the pan/wok plus the sauce negates the bruised texture since the julienned lettuce wilts almost instantly even when added at the end, and any excessive bitterness that would ruin a salad is welcome in the stir fry since it adds an extra, (minor) flavor component against the sweet, salty, acidic and umami of the stir fry sauce and the wok hei.
@@Nina_DP oh great idea re: using in stocks! I've also read that if you happen to be out of celery, the bottoms of rormaine lettuce can act as a replacement in a mirepoix for a stock/soup
Thank you for another awesome video! You answered all the questions I didn’t know I had!! I will make a salad TODAY! You go in a rabbit hole, and we all benefit!!
👍🏻 Thanks Helen, very informative as always. But now I'm convinced that lettuce is far too finicky (and expensive) for my home. Where i live, cabbage is cheap, constantly available, and stays fresh forever in the fridge. So i keep a constant supply of cabbage that provides all the juicy crunchiness that my salads need, while also supplying an ever-ready base for stir-fries, and soups. I love lettuce, but not at home. On the other hand, cabbage achieves all the good that lettuce does, plus so much more, for so much less. _Vive le cabbage!_
I have gotten really into dandelion greens ever since watching Jacques Pepin's recipe for a salad made with it (and lardons, croutons, eggs, garlic, etc...basically a salade Lyonnaise). I have to have it once a week. I never knew what to do with that bitter lettuce green but in combination with the ingredients above: delicious! I prefer to buy produce that is not packaged in plastic.
I use flour sack towels. Less waste and they hold up where paper towels can rip or break down. I also find that once lettuce is cut off the base, it starts to brown at the ends…just me? I store the heads whole.
Great video! Just one comment about organic salad greens--if you keep an eye on food recalls due to bacterial contamination, organic salad greens are way over-represented due to e.coli contamination. My theory, unsupported by anything more than my own experience as a gardener, is that it is too easy for a bit of incompletely composted manure to slip by when growing on a commercial volume. I stick to the regular, not labelled as organic salad greens because I greatly dislike food poisoning.
As soon as I get any lettuce home, box or not, I put in ice water with vinegar. After a few minutes I drain and spin. It tastes good and lasts much longer than if I didn't. When I drain the prewashed I always find insects, so I never trust eating lettuce I didn't wash.
Interesting video. I've never liked boxed lettuce. Over the years, just because I feel that the taste is lousy, I've quit eating lettuce when I can't get it at the farm markets or garden. In the cold weather months, I don't eat salads at all, and I only eat greens like spinach, arugula and kale that I'm going to cook. This video may give me cause to try supermarket lettuce again (but in much smaller quantities than you're preparing!)
May I, as a producer of Mesclun, comment your Video? We produce non crunchy Mesclun according to the requirements of restaurant chefs. They ask for tender, small and non crunchy leaves, compared to the varieties imported from Italy. Second, lettuce becomes bitter only during the long summer days. The same chicory varieties are sweet in winter and very bitter from mid spring till September. I produce for my local market 17 varieties of Lettuces and Chicories in the mix, 10 for Fall and Winter and 7 for Spring and Summer.
I treat my lettuce like flowers too. Those boxed lettuce products with the red leaves (I no longer buy)? Pull out those red leaves asap because they turn to slime almost overnight.
I think red lettuce is great for cooking, say like in a pilaf or omelet. It has more texture than spinach and the subtle bitterness works great in a rich dish.
I'm single and living in Europe so there is just no way I have fridge space to store multiple heads of lettuce! That said, whilst I lived in an apartment (with a west-facing balcony) I came across the perfect-for-me solution to tasty salads in summer. I would grow large pots of mixed lettuce from seeds sown a week or so apart (normally I would have 3-4 going at once) on the balcony and buy one head of a crunchy lettuce at the market every week. I could get 4 or 5 large mixed salads for 1 each week by combining both! Crunch from the market/store lettuce, different flavours from the young greens in pots! Now that I am in a house with a garden, I still do it the same way, so I know it really works for me! Yes, I could grow my own heads of crunchy lettuce in my garden but succession sowing to get a head a week is a pain and would take up too much space in my little veg plot. Plus I like the fact that I can get different varieties of crunchy lettucesfrom the market throughout the summer so my salads are never boring!
Thanks so much Helen! This is the closest I've come to being an internet celebrity and it's very exciting, haha.
Thanks for sending me down this rabbit hole. Your question has improved my salads tremendously :)
Adam you're famous🎉
Hi internet celebrity! 🎉❤
An uncut lettuce leaf is just a launching pad for salad dressing that will land on your shirt. 😂
I also want to say, lettuce is extremely easy to grow on a windowsill.
If you can’t find it at the supermarket try growing it!
Thank you for this really informative video
I recently met Helen at a fish counter at a Market Basket supermarket in the Boston area. Such a treat to meet someone you’ve seen so many times on UA-cam. She was very pleasant.
Thanked her for all the great advice, and wished her luck.
I wish I could afford a refrigerator large enough to store all that lettuce.
That's the main reason I don't eat much lettuce as well. I walk into the store, see how expensive boxed lettuce is compared to how bad the quality is and decide to make a cucumber salad instead.
Oooh... i get romaine and get a lettuce keeper! Keeps lettuce fresh MUCH longer @@onam3000
😂🤣😅
I live rurally and eat a lot of garden grown lettuce & greens. I wash freshly picked lettuce in cold water and drain it in my dish drain. I do not worry about the lettuce drying completely. Then i take a long unbroken length of paper towels and lay the lettuce leaves across the towels. Once arranged to cover the paper towels as well as possible, I roll the towels like a rug. I place each roll in a plastic bag which I do not close. Once the bag has as many rolls as it will hold, it goes OPEN in the crisper drawer. Keeps for weeks. I use plastic bags for bread; kinda like bakery bags, but you could use ziplock bags, clean shopping bags, or even small unscented trash bags.
Me too!! Only we are semi-rural. I use a giant cheesecloth & centrifugal force (outside) to speed up the drying process. I also started using two white towels that are lettuce only during Covid. The price fixing & gouging that paper towel manufacturers have & are engaged in affected our budget too much.
I can get a clamshell box of 4 small lettuces at my local Aldi. I store them in the box, just as they come, and they last a long time (for lettuce, around 2-3 weeks). When I want a salad, I pick leaves from each head, put the box back with the heads pointing up, and wash the leaves in my salad spinner.
Since I live and cook solo, this is the best solution I have found.
Side Note: I remember that Market Basket from when I lived in Lexington!
Yes, that quartet of little Aldi lettuces is in my fridge right now!
Aldi sells the same Tanimura&Antle too, not just another variety quartet. Recognized it immediately!
Easy, very easy to respond. There are special suppliers and special varieties and mixes only supplied to restaurants in porex boxes with dry ice. Normally those veggies are the best looking ones, perfectly selected and in season.
This is absolutely not how the average restraunt does it.......
Dry ice would freeze whatever it’s packed with, so I highly doubt it…..😒
my parents always use rags instead of paper towel. I think that if you're the kind of person who has a lot of rags, there's no reason to waste paper towel because they work just as well used the same way.
Your parents are a head of there time, long gone are the days paper towels only contain wood fiber pulp they are made with Chlorine for bleaching & Formaldehyde which is used “to improve the wet-strength and other “valued” characteristics of paper and paper products.
Right on - we use old kitchen towels
I worked in a family-style restaurant in college... the lettuce was kept in a big bucket of ice water in the water-in cooler. We'd scoop it out, drain it and call it "fresh" garden salad.
Even at high-end restaurants I don’t think anyone seriously expects they’re harvesting the greens in their backyard just before service.
Several years ago I made a basic salad from a head of romaine lettuce and assorted veggies for a potluck. I recieve so many compliments, which puzzled me. After several more potlucks where others brought the salads, I realized the difference between mine and thiers was the lettuce, theirs was bagged.
Thank you Helen for touching this topic. I have been doing the same for years, mainly because I get too lazy to wash things right before I want to eat them, or wash things in batches every day. When you wash produce the same day you purchase them and store them properly, you have ready food for days to come. Also, I don't like putting dirty things in my fridge, so I wash every item that goes in, even bottles, cans, jars, UHT boxes etc. All other things like charcuterie, I decant into glass airtight containers. I find that this practice greatly reduces the need to clean your fridge unless you have a spill, and it prevents foods from spoiling easily, because you reduce the microbial load of everything you put in.
I hope/pray for a wife with that attitude...definitely the best way to go, but much more effort of course.
If you have a life partner they are incredibly lucky!
@@joeybagodonuts6683 That is very kind of you. I am sure you will get an amazing life partner. But if you find someone you disagree with, you can always be the gatekeeper of the fridge 😉
I mean, this was all of us back in the 'early days' of 2020. Lol. We were bleaching cereal boxes and bags of chips.
@@annabaker4857 Sure, the only difference is I have been doing it since 2008 or sth. not because of some "pandemic". And I have never used anything but bleach to mop my floors or clean my toilet. Plus, always been no shoes in the house. I understand that many people around the world learned the true concept of "microorganisms" after the pandemic, but I am not one of them. I am a vet, and have been in big pharma clinical research for years. I never mentioned bleaching cereal boxes, if you did that, that is on you 🤣 In that case you might have washed your polyester clothing in 90C and have had everything fall apart, which was what the stupid news was advising back then.
I found my twin. Seriously, I have been cleaning everything that goes in my fridge too for years. No shoes in the house either lol
The other problem you hadn't mentioned was about "pre-washed" greens being contaminated with e.coli and other bacteria and making people sick. (There are a couple of large-scale farms -- one in Salinas, CA, for e.g. -- which are located too close to feedlots and the animal feces contaminates the produce, causing periodic recalls when lots of people fall ill. When you wash your own produce you can reduce that danger.)
I have also found paper towels being a great extender of shelf-life for my greens. Thanks for another informative and entertaining video....that dressing looks yum and looking forward to trying it!
I always wash the prewashed.
Even if not near a facility that would cause contamination, ag is filled with labor abuse. How is this relevant to contamination? Without the time to take bathroom breaks, workers will be forced to in the field!
I am a farmhand, thankfully at a place that has decent labor practices and a bathroom on site. We harvest with washed hands and santized equipment. We do not prewash our produce, because it's more sanitary for you to do it at home, than for us to bulk wash and risk contaminating the whole batch. Always wash your fresh produce!
I love lettuce and I love salads, and Helen’s lettuce prep is exactly what I do. However, not all lettuces are crisp, so yes, if you prize a crisp texture, butter lettuces and some other varieties are not for you. Me, I loves ‘em.
Two things: I braise all the bruised leaves the day I bring lettuce home and eat them with rice. Delicious!
Also, I add lots of shredded or very thinly sliced vegetables to my salads: red cabbage, cucumber, carrots, radishes, mushrooms, zucchini, sweet pepper, celery, and onion, as well as thawed baby peas and cherry or grape tomatoes. I have a firm belief that a garden salad must have at least 10 different vegetables in addition to the greens mix. Which is not to say I don’t appreciate either a wedge or honeymoon salad - love those, too.
I really, really like lettuce.
I want to come to your house!😂
I make a big bowl of salad every 3 days. In the winter I only use romaine lettuce. In the summer I pick different varieties from the farmer’s markets or cut them fresh from our garden.
The way I make my salad is I prepare all the ingredients and lay them on one of my bigger cutting boards…julienne carrots, baby tomatoes cut in quarters, julienne red cabbage, sliced pepper (any color), cucumbers cut in small pieces, golden berries, pomegranate seeds.
On another cutting board I cut the herbs..ex dill, tarragon, parsley, mint etc after cutting I push them to the side and cut the lettuce I am using and mix the herbs with the salad making sure every bite will have some herbs.
Then I start to layer my salad….just like you would layer lasagna. A little salad at the bottom of the bowl, a pinch full of all the other ingredients on top, another layer of salad, a pinch full of the other ingredients….and continue until you have nothing left making sure to top of your salad has a big handful of everything to make it look pretty. Do not stir the salad. Leave it as is!
On top I sprinkle sunflower and pumpkin seeds, hemp hearts and nutritional yeast.
Guests will have a little bit of everything when they dig in. I have on hand several bottles of dressing I let guests decide what salad dressing they want.
In a perfect world…the best lettuce you will ever taste…you would grow for yourself and harvest to order. There’s just something special about lettuce cut right after “50° and raining” that can’t be described.
On the question of shelf-life it's now well known that iceberg lettuce can last longer than prime ministers.
I was happy to see you discuss paper towel to manage water. I figured that out by myself and have been using them to add to the storage life of many veggies: green onions, celery, carrots, zucchini… it has been a game changer for me.
Honestly the best channel about cooking
A grocery store near me started selling lettuce that still has the root and some dirt, kind of like those "living herb" packs. After being frustrated by many boxes of 50/50 mix going bad in days, I can't remember throwing out one of these things. They just stay crunchy and nice if you pull from the outer leaves in each meal. The only sad part is that they do need washing. They will have dirt on them. It's still very worth it.
Helen you did the work. All this knowledge for free 🤗
Decades ago, Alton Brown instructed me to think of my hand as a large, soft fork. I have never made salad the same way since.
When I was growing up, we always bought head lettuce, but usually red leaf and maybe romaine or butter. It wasn't until I was finishing college that I lived with anyone who would exclusively eat boxed and bagged lettuce mixes! I got out of the habit of buying lettuce as my available prep time dwindled. There were a couple years where we would go to a produce swap/giveaway every week or so, and I experimented so much more with salad variety and head lettuce. I was surprised how much I loved radicchio and fennel salads with beets and radishes, very chunky and intensely flavored. Or even eating endives by the head as a snack!
Now that I have a good garden space again, I'm excited to branch out and try more fresh veg!
A restaurateur once told me he rinsed his lettuce in lemon juice before washing it because it was a natural disinfectant. He washed in water afterwards so I don't think it could have added much to the flavour.
Helen, We have been using the warm water method instead of cold icy water to make our lettuce last longer with ''stems'' only in the warm water, the old ways are sometimes the best.
You can also regrow the base of the lettuce. I've had some slightly wilted and let it sit in a tray of water it bounced back with roots.
Because of the trauma of harvesting, the root will grow very bitter lettuce from the replanted head. It actually has a toxicity level that makes my rabbits sick to eat, but I don’t think it's effects have been tested in humans.
I only recommend you replant the base of the lettuce head if you want to get seeds. And then you'll need 3-10 plants of the same kind for good pollination and strong genetics in the seeds. And some patience 😅
Butter lettuce I don't think is supposed to be crunchy. I use it for little wraps. I agree red lettuce sucks. A simple wedge salad of iceberg in the summer meets my crunch requirements. Bacon and blue cheese!
No, it’s not 😂 kind of built into the name…butter…it’s soft and tender. One of my favorites!
Excellent and informative video as always! I have found that exact brand of artisan lettuce pack at Aldi in multiple different states and have been buying it for years! It has totally rekindled my love for lettuce-based salads. If I don't feel like washing the lettuces right away I just cut a sliver off the bottom of the stem ends and fill the plastic package with 1/2" of water, and the lettuce stays fresh for weeks.
Great tip :)
Issue with hydroponic plants is typically lack of stimulation from the wind, plants just grow flimsier when they're in mostly still air the whole time.
It's the micro nutrients, trace elements that are found in soil.
The plant variety strain must be matched with the above to get a good result.
@@jazztheglass6139 nah
@@firstlast446 its true. That's what gives the same plant strain, a different flavour profile when they are grown in different countries. Cacoa for instance, grown in Ghana or south America..
Putting circular fans in a grow operation isn't a big deal. It's necessary to circulate the air, as usually fresh air is vented in, then exhausted out the other end.
I did hydroponics 20 years ago. Most growers grow for yield and a quick harvest
@@jazztheglass6139 They all put in fans the issue is the fans never stimulate the plants enough especially not throughout the whole place. Simple airflow is not the same as wind. Adding trace nutrients is a much simpler addition to operations that any good growers nowadays do.
I’m laughing at this. Usually, I admire this channel. But, of course, you buy a whole lettuce! In Canada, we can buy your regular “wild” (!) lettuce head or, like Tanimura, we have our local Windset from the greenhouse. We call them living lettuces. I love soft butter lettuce! Don’t like iceberg unless with Chinese cuisine. And hydroponic lettuces, strawberries, tomatoes are delish!
Omg this was an amazingly helpful video. No more box lettuce for me and I know how to make Green Goddess dressing!❤
I know that I might sound crude, but I love your non-bs and sound analysis - it's nice to have a professional arguing what I have been told was a dumb lack of taste. Lots of love from Denmark 🤗
(but I really don't like mayo - I think it's an acquired tasted, and even after all these years I'm yet to acquire it - I simply use skyr instead, and just use more (olive) oil and my guests are polite enough to only pay me compliments)
Well researched and so very informative! I feel guilty buying plastic boxes that will go into a landfill. Now I will buy whole heads. Thank you!
Love your videos Helen! I AM in the Boston area and look forward to a day when i can participate LIVE! Thanks for the shopping tip - you read my mind. Market Basket is a treasure!
Whoaaaa happy to see your channel again! You taught me everything I know about the kitchen. Your chopping tutorials saved me!
Organic versus regular - it’s the pesticides used (that also kill pollinators). The thinner the skin, absorption of whatever is sprayed on it increases so lettuce would be most vulnerable. Always good to support organic farms.
I agree 100% with the boxed greens assessment, as I have always found them too expensive and usually not that good. Fortunately for me I'm quite happy with a very plain salad of, usually, green leaf lettuce. Every so often I go wild with a butter lettuce salad, and fatoush if I'm really feeling adventurous.
I have room in my fridge, so once I wash lettuce and spin it dry, I drain the water from the bowl, leave the lettuce in the basket, and store it in the spinner in the fridge. It keeps very well but I don't know for how long because I manage to eat all of it within a few days.
My favourite dressing for leaf lettuce is Italian: a judicious amount of salt, a reasonable amount of good olive oil, a splash or two of good red wine vinegar, then toss well. If a puddle forms at the bottom of the bowl you overdid it, so scale it back next time.
For butter lettuce I like a cream dressing from an old book of mine: 120 ml table cream (20% mf), 120 ml neutral oil, 5ml Dijon mustard, salt to taste (not too much), 45 ml tarragon vinegar, then shake well. A little goes a long way, and it keeps for at least a week. I haven't seen tarragon vinegar in grocery stores where I live, so rather than buy it on line just for this I substitute good white wine vinegar.
Lucky for me, one of my local supermarkets sells green and red leaf lettuce heads for between $1.99 and $2.99 per pound year round. I get to buy a few heads of each every week and chop them up for a week's worth of salads for lunch. I like to strip out the stiffer veins and all of the trim goes into my compost pile or to the worms! The store also has great fresh spinach bunches and other really good lettuces when we want variety.
Hello from Salinas, CA. I love Tanimura and Antle lettuces. T&A. was the label used years ago when signage was more rudimentary than it is now. We all chortled at the suggestive nature of it. I read that when TV became a thing (1950's) Salinas named their station KSBW because this region is fondly referred to as "Salad Bowl to the World". I can't count the number of produce powerhouses here like Dole, Church Brothers and Taylor Farms. EarthBound Farms is in the next county of Monterey. You've probably had Driscoll Berries. Ocean Mist produces so many, many crops but the Artichokes are one of my favorites. I really enjoyed this episode, and, learned a few things too! Thanks.
I bought a few Aerogarden (and similar style cheaper) units to grow my lettuce at home. I stagger their plantings, so I have fresh young lettuce available all the time. And I get to try many different types not available at the store as well.
Very excited about the new crispy quinoa recipe!
I have been using warm water to freshen up lettuce, spinach, rosemary even flowers etc from early childhood watching mum do it. The theory behind it is that the warm water opens up the cell walls more efficiently than cold water, allowing the stems, leaves, flowers etc to absorb more liquid more quickly thus stay fresher and last longer.
We have been using the same way to do our vegies with stems of course, the old ways are sometimes the best.
I will never make this much effort for lettuce and salads, but i enj5the video regardless :)) looking forward to the next ones about war water and crunchy quinoa!
You sure hit the nail on the head about grocery store lettuce being pathetic. At least in my little town. I'll try the rejuvenation trick! Thanks!
I always chop mine up first, then wash. Then let it sit in clean water. This way it only takes ten minutes to re-hydrate!
OMG. I thought it was my taste or that I sucked at making salad.
Thank you so much, again. Just brilliant research and explanations.
very interesting video. I usually just take arugula, which is usually okay. Might try some of the tips here
Well the internet must have been listening to me when I said I give up on lettuce salads today. But I’m happy you made this video! I’m going to try this!
I hate to be that person, but it's still ideal for me to buy boxed lettuce, as I'm often eating all of it within 2 days of buying it, and I almost never have the room or time to store and prepare whole heads of lettuce, and I'm usually eating it out of a small bowl, which makes the smaller baby leaves a better option
Market Basket strikes again! The one closest to me (Somerville) is always chaotic, but it's worth the trip anyway because the quality and variety of produce is consistently better than any other supermarket in the Boston area. The greens and herbs are miles better than what I can get at Whole Foods or (if I'm truly desperate and it's the only thing still open) Star Market. I don't know of another non-Asian supermarket that regularly stocks fresh makrut lime leaves and galangal!
Market Baskets are the best full service Supermarkets in New England! Their profit margins are much lower than the others. This family owned chain treat their employees right; they even went on strike for two months in 2014 when one faction of the family tried to oust the other, in this non-union chain.
Thanks for all your advice! I love interesting salads!
Very informative. Thank you. I’m holding you to your word about the warm water and quinoa videos lol. 😊
Thank you I love to learn from you. And I just last week bought, after a looong while, a head of salad instead of a box :D Perfect timing
These videos are always great. I eat salad everyday and love it, but I’ve succumbed to the convenience of boxed lettuce about 80% of the time. This is good inspiration to get back to the variety and freshness of buying whole heads.
This is helpful and timely! I eat a lot of lettuce in the summer! I especially appreciate the price comparison.
The salads and veggies grown organically in your backyard taste better than in any restaurant. Home-growing is a better option unless you live in an apartment without access to garden space.
Always worth learning from Helen!'s comprehensive approach to teaching!!
Helen, thank you so much ! 👍👏👍👏
wow. something so simple...
Would love an in depth discussion about chilies, dried and fresh. ;)
The other thing I sometimes do-is just skip the lettuce in my salads. A chopped salad from vegetables with longer staying power can be delightful. Like you, I’m in New England and the lettuce at the supermarket is sometimes underwhelming.
I used to make all my salads out of kale and chard for years. I am just discovering lettuce now.
This is great! And I can't wait for the warm water video!
Wish I were in the Boston area. Love your videos and I'm sure I'd love your classes too.
Wow. I have the exact same salad spinner 🤣😁
It's one of the oldest tools in my kitchen :) Still works!
This is AMAZING! You are going to save people so much money and reduce food waste.
I love the Tanimura & Antle brand of lettuce....great assortment of lettuces (I'd probably never try if not for this assortment)...always a great buy.
GREAT INFORMATION 😇👍🏾
Sohla's first job was making salads so I trust her salad knowledge and she's given me so many ideas. But this video was just great because of the washing/storage technique. :D
I used to buy heads of leaf lettuce, radicchio, romaine, chickoree, and frizee. Id wash it all at once and tear it to size and store it in my huge mega tupperware bowl. A couple salads a day, and it was gone by weeks end.
Such a helpful video! Love your content, Helen! It's always smart, practical, and delicious!
Отличный канал. Очень вдумчиво отношение к продуктам и готовке. Фокус не на какой-то паре рецептов, но на основополагающих вещах, которые помогут готовить вообще, а не только какой-то конкретный рецепт.
Asian (Chinese) speaking here.. I honestly don't see the bruised lettuce as a waste, I just rinse them free of dirt, keep them aside from the unbruised leaves and juliennne them to add to noodle stir fries or even fried rice. The high heat of the pan/wok plus the sauce negates the bruised texture since the julienned lettuce wilts almost instantly even when added at the end, and any excessive bitterness that would ruin a salad is welcome in the stir fry since it adds an extra, (minor) flavor component against the sweet, salty, acidic and umami of the stir fry sauce and the wok hei.
Great idea. I put (washed & dried) bruised lettuces in a bag in the freezer. Use them when making stocks or smoothies.
@@Nina_DP oh great idea re: using in stocks! I've also read that if you happen to be out of celery, the bottoms of rormaine lettuce can act as a replacement in a mirepoix for a stock/soup
Thank you for another awesome video! You answered all the questions I didn’t know I had!! I will make a salad TODAY! You go in a rabbit hole, and we all benefit!!
👍🏻 Thanks Helen, very informative as always. But now I'm convinced that lettuce is far too finicky (and expensive) for my home.
Where i live, cabbage is cheap, constantly available, and stays fresh forever in the fridge. So i keep a constant supply of cabbage that provides all the juicy crunchiness that my salads need, while also supplying an ever-ready base for stir-fries, and soups.
I love lettuce, but not at home. On the other hand, cabbage achieves all the good that lettuce does, plus so much more, for so much less.
_Vive le cabbage!_
I have gotten really into dandelion greens ever since watching Jacques Pepin's recipe for a salad made with it (and lardons, croutons, eggs, garlic, etc...basically a salade Lyonnaise). I have to have it once a week. I never knew what to do with that bitter lettuce green but in combination with the ingredients above: delicious! I prefer to buy produce that is not packaged in plastic.
Fascinating video! Such great information. I’m going to watch again. I’ve subscribed.
that is why I use either Little Gems or clam shell living lettuce. Some brands are better and last longer than others.
I use flour sack towels. Less waste and they hold up where paper towels can rip or break down.
I also find that once lettuce is cut off the base, it starts to brown at the ends…just me? I store the heads whole.
Very informative! Thank you for this video.
Very useful. Thanks.
Great video! Just one comment about organic salad greens--if you keep an eye on food recalls due to bacterial contamination, organic salad greens are way over-represented due to e.coli contamination. My theory, unsupported by anything more than my own experience as a gardener, is that it is too easy for a bit of incompletely composted manure to slip by when growing on a commercial volume. I stick to the regular, not labelled as organic salad greens because I greatly dislike food poisoning.
As soon as I get any lettuce home, box or not, I put in ice water with vinegar. After a few minutes I drain and spin. It tastes good and lasts much longer than if I didn't. When I drain the prewashed I always find insects, so I never trust eating lettuce I didn't wash.
Interesting video. I've never liked boxed lettuce. Over the years, just because I feel that the taste is lousy, I've quit eating lettuce when I can't get it at the farm markets or garden. In the cold weather months, I don't eat salads at all, and I only eat greens like spinach, arugula and kale that I'm going to cook. This video may give me cause to try supermarket lettuce again (but in much smaller quantities than you're preparing!)
Thank You Helen.
Water with a little vinegar in it will crisp up almost all greens in the matter of a very few minutes(not an hour for certain).
Thank you for being you. ❤
I had wilted carrots, and AI suggested soaking them in water. I did and it was a huge improvement.
Commenting for the engagement points! Thanks for the excellent content, as always!
As someone from So Cal and a lover of farmer’s market produce, I had to laugh… no salt in wounds from me! You get better crab cakes than we do!😂
Oh so visually delicious thanks for sharing!
That looks delicious.Thanks for the lesson😋
Thank you Helen, this is a huge help.
May I, as a producer of Mesclun, comment your Video? We produce non crunchy Mesclun according to the requirements of restaurant chefs. They ask for tender, small and non crunchy leaves, compared to the varieties imported from Italy.
Second, lettuce becomes bitter only during the long summer days. The same chicory varieties are sweet in winter and very bitter from mid spring till September. I produce for my local market 17 varieties of Lettuces and Chicories in the mix, 10 for Fall and Winter and 7 for Spring and Summer.
Superb
Mmmmm! Yup, got it. Thank-you.
Ha, Market Basket in Waltham is my place too (also Wegmans in Burlington)!
This is great advice!
Great tips, guess I'm upping my salad game, also where can one get that awesome beast of a citrus juicer?
amzn.to/4bAd6g3 (affiliate link, commission earned, but this is my juicer :)
I treat my lettuce like flowers too. Those boxed lettuce products with the red leaves (I no longer buy)? Pull out those red leaves asap because they turn to slime almost overnight.
Great video. Thanks!!❤
I think red lettuce is great for cooking, say like in a pilaf or omelet. It has more texture than spinach and the subtle bitterness works great in a rich dish.