Asian Lettuce Wraps

We have been doing a lot of cooking off late based on the weather and the seasonal availability of fruits and vegetables. This changing season from winters to summers is beautiful because you still have a lot of winter vegetables available as nice and fresh, but also have much more options of dishes to choose from beyond the soups and curries preferred in winters.

Lettuce wraps just fit nicely in this season. They are not a very prominent dish in Indian restaurants but we just loved this snack when we tried it in the Cheesecake Factory in US. Its lovely to have these cold crispy lettuce loaded with lovely Asian spices. Just awesome! Presenting our version of this great party snack. You can really tweak with this recipe easily and use your imagination of topping and sauces to make the wraps.


Ingredients 

Lettuce leaves (7-8) (Iceberg lettuce preferred)
7-8 cherry tomatoes
250 gm paneer / tofu / chicken (cut in small pieces)
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped red and yellow bell peppers
1 tsp ginger and garlic paste
1 tsp chilli garlic paste
1/2 tsp brown sugar
1/2 cup salted peanuts
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
1/4 cup sweet chilli sauce
1/4 cup green chilli sauce

Method

Make the lettuce leaves crisp 
1. Wash the leaves and keep them in iced water for about 30 minutes. Make sure you put enough ice so they don't melt completely in those 30 minutes. Make sure you wipe off the leaves with kitchen towel just before serving

Prepare the basic filling
2. In a pan, start to sauté the ginger and garlic paste in a bit of oil

3. Add the onions and cook for about 5-10 minutes till they start to brown

4. Add the bell peppers and cook for another 5 minutes

5. Add the chilli garlic paste, brown sugar and salt to taste

5. Now add the paneer / tofu / chicken and cook till they are well done. Time will vary based on the ingredient used


Prepare the peanuts
6. Crush the peanuts to bit sized pieces and add the chilli flakes

Prepare the cherry tomatoes
7. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half and lay them out on a baking sheet. Sprinkle a bit of salt and bake for about 8-10 minutes (you can also briefly pan fry them)


Plating
8. This is where it becomes a great party snack and folks can make the wraps themselves - lettuce leaves, basic chicken or paneer filling, peanuts and the sauces



2 comments:

  1. This looks wonderful, I am craving simple, low carb meals like this right now!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Sue. We are too fans of low-carb meals, especially for dinners

      Delete

 

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This blog is from the kitchen of Neha Gupta and Mridul Karkara. We go about our days pretending to be HR Managers and Business Consultants respectively, though in reality, just thinking about our next big meal! This food blog is a representation of our experiments in the kitchen and for the simple joy of cooking and sharing!

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