A flavor

A lettuce wrap is a low-calorie, low-carb winner of a recipe. Courtesy of Don Mauer

A few years ago, when visiting my brother Tom, the chef, he made some lettuce wraps for lunch. If you're unfamiliar with a lettuce wrap, it's similar to wrapping a filling in a wheat tortilla, except Tom used a soft lettuce leaf, like bibb lettuce. Tom was doing this to help reduce calories and carbohydrates. It was terrific.

Since he passed away last year, I regret not getting Tom's recipe. So, I took it upon myself to create a lettuce wrap of my own.

Ground meat is a common ingredient used for lettuce wraps. Most of the fillings I found on my search used ground chicken. I headed to my local farmers market to see if I could find some from local free-range chickens. My poultry vendor told me she does not bring ground chicken to the market since customers don't seem to be looking for it.

However, she had ground turkey available. I purchased my Thanksgiving turkey from her last year and it was outstanding. Ground turkey it is.

Next, I headed to the web to find a wrap-filling recipe. Perhaps not surprisingly, there are many lettuce wrap-filling recipes using ground chicken, ground pork and even tofu. Ground beef was nowhere to be found, at least for Asian fillings.

Several recipes claimed to be "copycat" PF Chang lettuce wrap recipes, so I picked one from damndelicious.net. They used olive oil and a skillet to brown the chicken. I used my trusty steel wok, roasted peanut oil and ground turkey. Roasted peanut oil delivers a deeper peanut flavor.

The recipe used soy sauce, and I went with organic tamari sauce. Most soy sauces have wheat; sometimes, it is the lead ingredient. Tamari is made with soybeans only, so zero wheat.

This recipe also added Sriracha sauce, an incredibly popular sweet heat pepper sauce, to the filling. That would have been fine, except the leading brand of Sriracha sauce, Huy Fong Foods, is in its second year of production issues. I have seen a 28-ounce bottle of Huy Fong Foods Sriracha sauce selling for more than $20. Really.

I scored a bottle of Tabasco brand's version of Sriracha sauce at my local supermarket for around $3. Tabasco wins because it's available, reasonably priced and tastes great.

Believe it or not, organic hoisin sauce is available, and I just happened to have some lurking in my refrigerator. Also, I have been working with bottled, organic grated ginger that lasts (for me) far longer than fresh ginger.

For some reason, my supermarket had no butter or bibb lettuce available. Some beautiful organic red-leaf lettuce worked just as well though.

Ready, set, go.

As usual, it took longer to get the ingredients ready for my wok than the time those ingredients spent in the wok.

Was it worth the effort? Absolutely. And it delivered far fewer calories and carbs than a wheat flour-based wrap. Winner, winner.

• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe makeover requests. Write to him at [email protected].

1 tablespoon peanut oil

1 medium (4 ounces) onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 pound ground turkey

¼ cup hoisin sauce (organic preferred)

2 tablespoons tamari sauce (organic preferred)

1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar

1 tablespoon grated ginger

1 tablespoon Sriracha-style hot sauce (or to taste)

1 (8-ounce) can whole water chestnuts, drained and diced

2 green onions, root ends trimmed and thinly sliced

1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal Kosher salt

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

8 leaves butter, Bibb or leaf lettuce rinsed well and dried

Place a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat and add the peanut oil. When the oil begins to shimmer, add the diced onion and garlic and stir-fry for about 2 minutes, until it starts to soften. Add the ground turkey and stir-fry, breaking it up with the edge of a spatula, until it loses its pink color, about 5 minutes.

Stir in the hoisin sauce, tamari, rice wine vinegar, ginger and Sriracha sauce, and cook for about 2 minutes.

Stir in water chestnuts, green onions, salt and pepper, and cook until the onion is tender, about 1-2 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning.

To serve: Place about 1/3- to ½-cup of the turkey mixture into the center of a lettuce leaf and wrap the leaf around the filling.

Serves 4

Nutrition values per serving: 260 calories (44% from fat), 12.7 g fat (3.1 g saturated fat), 12.1 g carbohydrates (10.6 net carbs), 4.9 g sugars, 1.6 g fiber, 12.7 g protein, 90 mg cholesterol, 986 mg sodium.

SaltSense: Substituting low-sodium soy sauce for the tamari reduces the sodium per serving to 788 milligrams. Omitting added salt along with low-sodium soy sauce reduces the sodium per serving to 241 milligrams.

Don Mauer