Lettuce

Lettuce in Greek cooking means cos, and maroulosalata is the spring salad in the same way horiatiki is the summer one: cos leaves shredded very finely across the rib, tossed with sliced spring onion and a lot of chopped dill, dressed with olive oil and lemon. The shredding is not a stylistic choice, it is what lets the dressing coat every strand.

It is also cooked, which surprises people. Arni fricassee, lamb braised with a large quantity of lettuce and dill and finished with avgolemono, uses the leaves as a vegetable rather than a salad, and magiritsa, the soup that breaks the Easter fast just after midnight, is built on the same combination of shredded lettuce, spring onion, dill and egg and lemon.

Soft round lettuces and bagged salad leaves do not work for either use: they have no structure to shred and they collapse into water the moment they are dressed or heated. A firm cos head, kept dry until the last moment and dressed at the table rather than in the kitchen, is the whole requirement, since lemon and salt start drawing water out of the leaves immediately.