surface area of lettuce leaves and cut
vegetables. A thin, mobile sauce is more
effective at this than a thick, creamy one, and
oil adheres to the vegetable surfaces better
than the water-based vinegar, whose high
surface tension causes it to bead up rather
than leave a film. And because the sauce is so
spread out, it doesn’t matter as much that the
dispersed droplets be carefully stabilized.
Because water and oil are antagonists, the
salad fixings should be well dried before
they’re tossed with vinaigrette; surfaces wet
with water will repel the oil.
Making a vinaigrette dressing. The proportion
of oil to the water phase in a vinaigrette is
similar to the proportion in mayonnaise, but
in a vinaigrette the water is the phase