Thai Lettuce Wrap Recipe

Bored of old flavors or just curious how Thai chicks sizzle around? Let’s try this Thai Lettuce Wrap for true love to be found!

Lettuce wrap isn’t a lettuce sandwich over the sink. Thai lettuce wraps are especially far from mundane dining experience that a hastily put together bread and slices of lettuce can provide.

At times when junk food is so widespread and readily available, only a few of us have to resort to stuff their bread with lettuce only, but there were times when such meals were everyday items for many who couldn’t afford a bit of excitement for their sandwiches.

Luckily, many things have changed and we had the luxury of swinging over the other side where people could forgo salads or any vegetables, entirely and happily munching on scurvy inducing refined carbs and processed meat only diet.

Fun fact is that many of us doing so fine and more importantly so little that we don’t even need to eat anymore the high energy providing carbs but could get along with the rest of the stuff happily.

Unfortunately, our keep alive mechanism hasn’t been briefed about the advances of the past century and can’t just let those sweet things go so easily. We are constantly nagged about stuffing some starch around our protein and vitamins, even if our energy requirements lag far behind of a professional hunter, gatherer or semi-professional athlete.

If we manage to survive a meal without carbs and stay long enough around the kitchen, we can’t help but wonder about the possibilities the fridge or it’s best friend, the pantry could offer.

Lowering our guard, even just for a second, we find ourselves easily tearing up heavy mental barriers placed in front of us by yesterday night’s guilty promises. When the ravaging starts, our consciousness just floats around on clouds of the cajoling kindness of endorphins until nothing is left behind but the mess, we have to clean up again while reflecting on our inability to resist.

We aren’t made to resist though, or at least not in the world we had been created to survive. We are made to take in as much as possible and enjoy life at its fullest as long as we can. The problem is that since we have figured out the shortcuts for joy, life became a bit overfilled.

Apparently, we have reached levels where we have to decide that if we want to live longer, we have to take precautions and pave the way that helps us along.

Some folks are lucky to get everything they need drilled in them from birth and comes naturally, but we who have been bread and breed on Western expectations and more importantly diet, have a harder time adjusting to the realities of our body from the realities of what the consumer-centric world, we created, is expecting from us.

Getting a nutritionally rich, yet calorie poor diet, has never been easier to obtain, yet it goes so hard for many of us that it requires hacking our own mind.

After all who in their right mind would say no to perfectly browned buttery burger buns in exchange for paper thin tasteless leaves of lettuce without a few drops of tears at the corner of our eyes or swearing eternal revenge against the whole family of its creator.

Luckily, we don’t have to mourn over the unfairness of life every time a bun-less meal is provided nor hatch plans for assassinations once we figure out how to convince our mind about what’s good for our body.

To train ourselves, we need a little practice and more importantly a bunch of naturally nutritious food that we haven’t ruined before, with our view of life.

But if that takes us over 100 then let’s bite the bullet or the lettuce and get over with.

Ingredients

Sauce

2 tablespoons / 40g Peanut butter
1 tablespoon / 10g Ginger (freshly grated)
2 tablespoons / 30ml Soy sauce
⅓ cup / 35g Cilantro (finely cut)
¼ cup / 35g Red pepper (finely cut)
Chili sauce to taste (Highly recommended)
½ cup / 100ml Water for cooking (optional)

Wrap

1 tablespoon / 15ml Cooking oil
1 lb / 500g Chicken (diced small)
1 teaspoon / 5g Salt
¼ teaspoon / 0.1g Black pepper
½ cup / 150g Green onion or scallion (finely cut)
½ cup / 35g Garlic (crushed or finely cut)
2 medium / 150g Carrots (shredded)
3 cups / 150g Cabbage (shredded)
2 medium / 150g Carrots (shredded)
3 cups / 150g Cabbage (shredded)
1 head / 500g Romaine lettuce or any that can hold the filling

How to make Thai lettuce wrap

Sauce

Paste together, peanut butter, shredded ginger, soy sauce, cilantro, finely cut red pepper or red pepper flakes and optional chili sauce. We can use our trusty knife to cut everything up finely, a food processor with a couple of short interval cutting periods or a mortar and pestle to achieve our favorite consistency.

Filling

Cut up the chicken into small cube like pieces. Mix with salt and pepper now if possible.
Prepare the vegetables by cutting up the green onions and garlic into small pieces then shred the carrot and cabbage.
Heat oil to high and sear the chicken. If salt and pepper were left out, this is the time to do it. Once put in the skillet, don’t move them until one side is browned and only then move it around if we have time for a bit more of flavor development on the other sides. Don’t pile meat on top of each other, cook it in batches if necessary.
Add finely cut green onion, garlic and stir-fry until the onion collapses a bit, for about 3 minutes.
Mix in the shredded carrots and cabbage. Keep stir-frying until cabbage collapses into half of its size, for about 5 – 10 minutes.
Mix in the sauce and keep cooking until the flavors come together for another 5 – 10 minutes. Add a bit of water in case moister texture is required. Serve on leaves of lettuce with extra soy sauce on the side.