I think my garden is in danger of being overrun by watercress – it seems to have gone particularly mad this year. Its also about to flower and rather than have even more plants popping up everywhere I am trying to eat as much as possible now before I rip it out to discourage self seeding.
I eat a lot of watercress salad but today I decided to make soup as I also had some celery & leeks ready for harvest.
There are both Asian and European versions of watercress soup – whilst I may give the former a go with my next harvest today I made the latter. To me this soup tastes like green should taste like, fresh, delicious and somehow pure (despite the cream).
Watercress Soup (serves 2)
- 150g watercress leaves (picked off the stems)
- 1 medium onion – finely chopped
- 1 stick celery – finely chopped
- 1 large or 2 small leeks – finely chopped
- 2 tblspns olive oil
- 2 medium potatoes (about 200g) – peeled and chopped into dice
- 500ml vegetable stock
- 3 tblspns cream (this makes a creamy soup – reduce if you prefer a less creamy version)
- Salt & Pepper
Sweat the onions, leeks and celery in the olive oil until soft, do not brown. Add the stock and potatoes. Bring to the boil. Add half the watercress. Simmer until the potatoes are soft. Add most of the remaining watercress, retaining some leaves for serving, and simmer for a further minute or so. Add cream (do not boil) and season with salt and pepper then puree. Ensure the soup is still hot & serve in bowls with remaining leaves scattered on top.
I think a thicker version of this soup would make a fabulous sauce for pumpkin gnocchi, or pumpkin ravioli.
For other fabulous vegetarian soups & salads made with garden ingredients visit this months No Croutons Required.
Thanks so much for this entry. Watercress is such a healthy vegetable.
That looks and sounds really good. I might have to give it a go, I suppose I should grow some watercress first.
Growing watercress may help….. although I do think that cooked watercress tastes kind of unidentifiable so you could probably achieve the same effect with something you do grow like silver beet (I’m presuming here).
Your watercress sounds like my parsley – taking over the garden. I bit the bullet today and ripped 90% of it out. I’ve kept most of the leaves and will make a big batch of parsley pesto with walnuts. Your soup looks and sounds delicious.
Thanks, My parsley is bolting so I’ll probably be doing the same soon. I love parsley pesto. In fact I love parsley so hopefully I can keep a few plants going until the next lot get some size to them….
Lovely simple recipe that makes the most of the watercress.
I’m adapting this tonight for the thermomix. I picked all the watercress I had and it came to 20g!! Thank goodness for silver beet and celery leaves.