Once again, I take you back with me to a Palm Springs trip. This particular recipe was used for our Palm Springs Memorial Day 2015. There were about 8 of us on this trip. It was a great house with a round pool and a round living room, very Palm Springs. It seemed like miles to get from one end of the house to the other. I’d say it was a successful house for the group but we never stay in the same house twice.
For lunch one day, I made a lettuce wrap. I found the recipe on pinterest which was a post from damndelicious.net and it seemed easy, so I attempted it.
My only problem was that I should have made double the amount and fed them with lots of other items like egg rolls, potstickers, and rice to make it complete meal for them. I was thinking this was a light lunch item. It was a bit too light. The group loved the flavor of this but it wasn’t enough food and I made it too late in the day so I think they were starving and starting to get restless! I think each person only got about one lettuce wrap, so you can see why they all weren’t that happy that afternoon. Nobody complained, but you can tell I needed to serve more when they were grazing for whatever snacks they could find. (That might have also been the reason why some don’t remember ordering their food for dinner cause there was not a lot soaking up any of the Margarita-drink of the day.)
Here’s the menu board that I usually set up each morning in Palm Springs
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 pound ground chicken (I used turkey – would be ok to use chicken, turkey or beef)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 onion, diced
- 1/4 cup hoisin sauce (I bought mine from Trader Joe’s)
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoons freshly grated ginger
- 1 teaspoon Sriracha, or more, to taste
- 1 (8-ounce) can whole water chestnuts, drained and diced
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 head butter lettuce
Instructions from DamnDelicious.net
- Heat olive oil in a saucepan over medium high heat. Add ground chicken and cook until browned, about 3-5 minutes, making sure to crumble the chicken as it cooks; drain excess fat.
- Stir in garlic, onion, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, ginger and Sriracha until onions have become translucent, about 1-2 minutes. Stir in chestnuts and green onions until tender, about 1-2 minutes; season with salt and pepper, to taste.
- To serve, spoon several tablespoons of the chicken mixture into the center of a lettuce leaf, taco-style.
Notes – I think I left the Sriracha out of the recipe and let everyone spice up their individual servings. AND Make sure you know your audience before you plan the meal. Don’t want them to get hungry on you!
We’re on our way back next week for a Palm Springs vacation, so I’m planning on much more food! Stay tuned for more recipes.