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 dispersed in droplets, and the oil is the continuous phase This emulsion is much less crowded with droplets, and accordingly a vinaigrette is more fluid than mayonnaise Untraditional Vinaigrettes Nowadays the term vinaigrette is used very broadly to mean almost any kind of emulsified sauce enlivened with vinegar, whether water-in-oil or oil-inwater, cold or hot, destined for salads or vegetables or meats or fish You can make an oil-in-water version simply by changing the proportions: reducing the oil content and diluting the vinegar with other watery ingredients to provide more of the continuous phase without excessive acidity Creamy but thin oil-in-water vinaigrettes can spread and cling reasonably well, and have the advantage over a classic vinaigrette of being slower to discolor and wilt lettuce leaves (Oil seeps through breaks in the waxy leaf cuticle and spreads into the leaf interior, where it displaces air and causes the leaf to darken and ... oil-in-water version simply by changing the proportions: reducing the oil content and diluting the vinegar with other watery ingredients to provide more of the continuous phase without excessive acidity... droplets, and the oil is the continuous phase This emulsion is much less crowded with droplets, and accordingly a vinaigrette is more fluid than mayonnaise Untraditional Vinaigrettes Nowadays the term vinaigrette is used very broadly to mean... thin oil-in-water vinaigrettes can spread and cling reasonably well, and have the advantage over a classic vinaigrette of being slower to discolor and wilt lettuce leaves (Oil seeps through breaks in the waxy leaf cuticle and spreads into the leaf interior, where it