The food lab better home cooking through science ( PDFDrive ) 956

I’d always been under the impression (and I’m not the only one) that a dressed salad eventually wilts because the acid in the vinegar attacks the leaves To test this theory, I dressed ½ ounce of fresh salad greens with teaspoon distilled white vinegar (5% acetic acid), another ½ ounce with plain water (as a control), and a third ½ ounce with olive oil, then let the leaves sit at room temperature for 10 minutes Oil-dressed greens Vinegar-dressed greens Surprise! Turns out that vinegar was not the culprit after all The greens dressed with plain oil wilted significantly faster than those dressed with vinegar In fact, the vinegarcoated greens fared pretty much just as well as those dressed with water! The truth is that salad greens, like any leaf, spend their time exposed to the elements, and as such, need to be able to protect themselves from the rain They do this via a thin, waxy cuticle: it’s like a little built-in raincoat But, this oily cuticle makes it very easy for the olive oil to penetrate the spaces between cells, causing damage to the leaf It’s the oil, not the vinegar, that causes greens to wilt (a fact that can actually be used to our advantages with certain tough greens like kale—see Marinated Kale Salads, here) So, to prevent ... vinegarcoated greens fared pretty much just as well as those dressed with water! The truth is that salad greens, like any leaf, spend their time exposed to the elements, and as such, need to be able to protect themselves from the rain They do this via a thin,... cuticle makes it very easy for the olive oil to penetrate the spaces between cells, causing damage to the leaf It’s the oil, not the vinegar, that causes greens to wilt (a fact that can actually be used to our advantages with certain tough greens... Surprise! Turns out that vinegar was not the culprit after all The greens dressed with plain oil wilted significantly faster than those dressed with vinegar In fact, the vinegarcoated greens fared pretty much just as well as those dressed