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Preparing
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Mâche
Valerianella locusta · Leafy green
40 pairings
Mâche (Valerianella locusta), also called lamb's lettuce or corn salad, is a small cool-season salad green that grows in tight, ground-hugging rosettes of dark-green, spoon-shaped leaves. Tender, mild and faintly nutty, it is prized as a delicate winter and early-spring salad.
Picking a good onedrag
Just cut, rosettes springyYellow, matted, slimy
Shop freshThe all-rounder: salads, a green bed, a garnish.Everyday best
Leaf colourGreen, one or two outer leaves paling
The rosetteSoft in the hand, rosette still whole
Crown and baseCut clean at the crown, cut face pale
Smell at the leafFaintly green, the nuttiness gone
What to look for, from just cut, rosettes springy to yellow, matted, slimy.
Keeping ittap a band
A domestic fridge holds it about 8× longer than the counter.
Humidity
95-100%
Near-saturated, 95-100%: a lidded box or a damp cloth. Mache wilts long before it rots, and dry fridge air limps a rosette inside a day.
Airflow
Vented bag, not sealed
A vented bag, never knotted shut: sealed it sweats and the crowns go slimy. The long keeping times you read of come from gas-flushed packs.
Yellows beside the fruit bowl
It makes almost none itself but is highly sensitive: ethylene off apples, pears and bananas strips the chlorophyll and yellows the leaves.