Celtuce and Pea Green Stir Fry (lettuce stems) 

What is celtuce?  It is a sort of lettuce, where you eat the stem instead of the leaves.  This delicious veggie is not always in stores, but the Asian grocery markets have it a good deal of the time. It has a very unique flavor, but not a strong overpowering one.  It is quite crunchy and delicious in a stir fry.

 

Start by chopping of the ends and peeling the Celtuce.  I chopped some in rounds about 1/3 of an inch thich, and then some in longer strips, resembling a celery stick.

 

I also chopped up some green onions and lots of garlic of course, and decided to add some darker leafy greens to this crunchy stir fry, so I grabbed a huge handful of Pea Greens and they went in as well.

I used around 1 TBSP of sesame oil along with 1 TBSP of grape seed oil, and started stir frying the celtuce, the green onions and garlic, and put the Pea Greens in for last 90 seconds.

I do love the taste of Asian mixed vegetable stir fry’s, so I mixed 1.5 TBSPs powdered soup stock (you can use chicken or vegetable), 1 TBSP of corn starch, with about 1/3 cup of warm water, and when the veggies were all cooked, I added the starchy liquid and tossed the stir fry around for another minute or two until everything was coated.  (start with half of the liquid and gauge from there, as you don’t want too much sauce coating the veggies)

All done.  Enjoy.  Very refreshing and tasty!

 

Celtuce is very low in calories, so does not count as a complex carbohydrate (which means it is “free”), but it is very high in the following:  calcium, dietary fiber, iron, manganese, magnesium, niacin, potassium, riboflavin, thiamin, Vitamin A, Vitamin B6, Vitamin C and Zinc.