Garden Salad

Method

1. whisk3 min
   cold, in a small bowl
   mayonnaise + sour cream + buttermilk + dill + chives + garlic powder + onion powder + lemon juice + salt + black pepper — add the buttermilk last and in a stream, because dumping thin acidic liquid into mayonnaise all at once breaks the emulsion and you get curds floating in whey instead of a pourable dressing
2. rest20 min
   refrigerated
   dressing, so the dried alliums hydrate and the dill bleeds into the base; whisked and used immediately it tastes flat and chalky, and it is also too thin — it thickens noticeably as it sits
3. prep7 min
   cold water, then dried completely
   romaine washed leaf by leaf and spun or towel-dried until no water beads remain, then chilled — this is the whole salad. Water on a leaf is a barrier the fat in the dressing cannot cross, so a wet salad tastes of nothing and puddles at the bottom of the bowl, and cold leaves stay turgid and audibly crisp
4. slice5 min
   tomato + cucumber + carrot + bell pepper + red onion, keeping the tomato wedges separate on a paper towel to drain — tomato seed jelly is the main source of stray water once the salad is built
5. mix2 min
   wide bowl, immediately before serving
   chilled romaine + two-thirds of the dressing tossed with hands or tongs from the bottom up until every leaf is glossed, then + drained tomato + cucumber + carrot + pepper + onion + any optionals folded through once. Dress at the last moment: salt in the dressing pulls water out of the leaf cells by osmosis, and within fifteen minutes a dressed salad goes limp and the bowl fills with pink liquid. Serve the remaining dressing on the side