A green salad is a wash in plenty of water, a serious spin-dry and a vinaigrette at the last moment. A badly dried salad waters down the vinaigrette and goes limp.
Fresh, crisp leaves, a tight heart, no brown edges.
Cut the core and separate the leaves. Plunge them into plenty of cold water, stir, leave a minute: the sand sinks to the bottom. Lift the leaves out from the top, without pouring the water over them. Spin in a salad spinner, or in a clean tea towel you swing around.
Three minutes.
Washed and well dried, in a container with a sheet of paper towel, three to four days in the fridge.
The Caesar salad: the romaine washed, dried and torn.