Watercress Soup

Ingredients

• 400g watercress
• 100g shallot (3) or onion (1)
• 1 clove of garlic
• 250g potato (2)
• 100ml milk
• 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
• 20g unsalted butter
• 4 teaspoons of double cream

Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 45 minutes
Serves: 4

Method

1. Peel and chop the potato and onion into cubes, peel and finely chop the garlic, wash the watercress.
2. Heat the oil and butter over a low-medium heat in a large saucepan. When the butter has melted, add the onion.
3. Cook the shallot or onion for about 5 - 10 minutes until it has become soft and translucent.
4. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes, add the potato and cook for a further 2 minutes, then pour in the stock.
5. Bring it to the boil, season with salt & pepper and cook for roughly 15 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked (when a knife goes through it easily).
6. Add the milk, give it a stir, then put in all the watercress, pressing it down into the liquid.
7. Cook it for 1 minute to wilt the watercress then turn off the heat.
8. Ladle some of the contents of the pan into a liquidizer, until the liquidizer is ¼ full and then blend it for about a minute until it is a uniform green with no bits.
9. Pour the contents of the liquidizer into a sieve over another clean pan and then refill the liquidizer to ¼. (Filling a liquidizer with too much hot liquid can cause the liquid to explode out of the top in a spectacular fashion, regardless of the strength of your liquidizers lid. It is best to err on the side of caution and do several small batches, rather than cover yourself and your kitchen with boiling hot soup.)
10. When all of the soup has been blended and pushed through a sieve, reheat the soup, check the seasoning and then ladle it into bowls. Spiral, drizzle or blob 1 teaspoon of double cream into each bowl and serve.

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Useful Information

Can it be frozen? Yes.
Can it be prepared in advance? Yes, it can be finished up to 2 days in advance.
Will leftovers be nice? Yes, for up to 2 days.

Notes