CakePHP: How to use a view element inside of a controller

cakephp, cakephp-2.0, php

Solution

Easy:

$view = new View($this, false);
$content = $view->element('my-element', $params);

Also:

DON'T DO THAT ANYMORE!!!

Problem

I'm trying to figure out how to use one of my view elements inside of a controller... I know, I know: "Don't do that!" (99% of the time this is the correct answer) But I think I actually have a good reason. The action is handling an AJAX request which returns markup. The returned markup is a list which I display everywhere else using an element. So in an effort to keep my code DRY, I think it's appropriate to do this here. Is this possible?

Original source