washing
With all that surface area there’s plenty of space for dirt or even worse chemical residue which means it’s important to wash your leaves and herbs. While the number of options of prewashed packaged salad leaves is ever expanding, not everything in a packet has been washed, so make sure you read the packaging.
For relatively clean looking leaves, I pop them in the basket of my salad spinner then run them under the cold tap for a little while. For dirtier or more suspect looking leaves, I fill up the sink or a basin with cold water, plunge the leaves in and shake them around a bit. Then remove the leaves, discard the water and repeat until the water looks clean.
drying
You’ve heard about oil and water not mixing right? Well, if you want your tasty oil-based dressing to stick to your leaves, you need to make sure they’re nice and dry.
1. salad spinner method
The easiest, quickest way to get leaves dry is to use a salad spinner. Even though I buy some prewashed leaves, I still find my salad spinner indispensable for herbs and the odd, unwashed lettuce.
2. tea towel method
If you don’t have a spinner, the other option is to wrap the leaves in a clean, dry tea towel and swing them in a big circle above your head.
3. paper towel method
If you don’t like feeling like a circus clown in the kitchen (see tea towel method), there’s always the pat-dry-using-copious-amounts-of-paper-towel method. Time consuming and not exactly environmentally friendly, but better than wet leaves.
back to: 5 Minute Salads Overview.
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