Watercress and potato soup, from the March chapter of Elisabeth Luard's A Cook's Year in a Welsh Farmhouse. The recipe given is actually for sorrel and potato with the suggestion to substitute watercress if you have no sorrel to hand. It turned out velvety and peppery, and with that chlorophyll-rich vivid green (the picture above was taken before the addition of some double cream or crème fraîche, the one below after) it looked and tasted wonderful.
The book is illustrated with great photographs by Clare Richardson but also with Elisabeth's own watercolours, some of which you can see here, so leafing through it is as much a pleasure as cooking from it.
It looks lovely! I've had this on a number of occasions, but I've never really warmed to it I'm afraid. No reflection on the cooks or the recipe (though I'm not a fan in general of double cream in soup).
Posted by: Dark Puss | 23 March 2012 at 07:38 PM
It was very well-received here, I'm glad to say, though I'd like to try the sorrel version - and of course you could omit the cream and preserve that lovely vibrant green.
Posted by: Cornflower | 23 March 2012 at 07:48 PM
Great! It's the potato I don't particularly like in soups.
Posted by: Dark Puss | 23 March 2012 at 07:52 PM
Really? I shall have to remember that!
Posted by: Cornflower | 23 March 2012 at 07:55 PM
Or you could call my bluff! :-)
Posted by: Dark Puss | 23 March 2012 at 07:57 PM
That's an idea.
Posted by: Cornflower | 23 March 2012 at 07:58 PM