| It's a small, soft-stemmed plant with small leaves, that grows in moist
places. it has a mild, kind of grassy flavor. It's good in salads, or
in place of lettuce in sandwiches. You can lightly cook it in a wok
like spinach, which makes the flavor stronger. Somewhere (although I
haven't been able to find it lately) I have a recipe for a really tasty
fish sauce for broiled fish that is mostly chopped-up (food processor)
watercress. Some people really like cream-cheese-and-watercress
sandwiches (more than I do, anyhow).
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| It does make a real nice light salad green - my favorite, actually -
and it's not as expensive as its trendy image would make you think.
If you're into nouvelle cuisine, it's good as a cool vegetable sauce:
puree it real fine in a food processor and add it to a reduced chicken
or veal stock with some heavy cream (low heat, here). Adjust salt and
pepper to your taste (you could have added some garlic, onion, leek,
shallot or herbs to the puree for other flavors, but too much will
drown out the watercress). Serve it over a vegetable appetizer such as
a "terrine" (kind of a vegetable mousse), souffle, or "millefeuille"
(vegetables cooked between layers of puff or flaky pastry or filo).
Makes a great summer first course. Chilled white wine (Burgundy,
chardonnay, fume blanc or champagne) is "required" for this course (if
you're getting elegant, might as well go all the way).
I apologize for getting carried away, but the beautiful warm sunny
weather got to me today. :-)
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