How a restaurant cross-utilizes lettuce

Doug D’Avico, executive sous chef for the Union League Club of Chicago, makes the most of his ingredients.

While part of a piece of grilled romaine lettuce is used in his calamari dish, D’Avico also grills the head of the lettuce for use in other dishes. “You don’t want to buy something and throw it away; you want to utilize everything that you buy,” he says. “You can cut [the lettuce] up, grill it, mix it in with pasta or mix it back into the salad. You can make a Caesar salad with it. It just changes the way it tastes, changes the flavor.”

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