Beef or chicken in lettuce leaves… I’m not sure about this!

The National Mark Cookery Calendar for May recommends beef or chicken in lettuce leaves – I guess like stuffed cabbage leaves or stuffed vine leaves, but lettuce… well maybe…

• minced cooked beef or chicken
• finely chopped fried onion
• large whole washed lettuce leaves
• cooked rice
• chopped tomato
• herbs
• stock
• butter or bacon fat

1. mix the beef/chicken, onion, rice, tomato, herbs, moistening with a little stock if necessary
2. place spoonfuls of the meat mixture onto the leaves and roll up neatly, tying with cotton
3. melt the butter or bacon fat and brown the lettuce leaf parcels
4. arrange in an oven-proof dish, cover with stock
5. place a piece of grease-proof paper over the parcels and stock, put on the lid and cook in a slow oven for two hours
6. put on the lid

Two hours does seem an awfully long time for ingredients which are already cooked – I could imagine it all disintegrating into a mush, maybe a nice tasting mush but a mush all the same… I’d cook for twenty minutes I think – or as long as it takes to heat through!