Watercress has officially been crowned the king of vegetables by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, scoring a perfect 100 on their 'powerhouse' list. Hippocrates would be thrilled - he grew the stuff near his hospital for medicinal purposes, and Pliny the Elder swore by it for anxiety and coughs. Over the centuries, its peppery leaves have been used to treat everything from fever and scurvy to intestinal worms and baldness. (Results for baldness may vary.)
Today, watercress is still a nutrient-rich superfood, packed with vitamins C, K, and A and antioxidants. But despite its ancient pedigree and top-tier nutrition, it remains stuck in a culinary rut - best known as a soup base or a second-tier salad component. It's highly perishable (widespread distribution had to wait for railways) and harder to find than blander but sturdier rocket. The Watercress Company growers are clearly tired of this disrespect, so they've unleashed 17 recipes to prove watercress can do more than just float sadly in broth.
Only the first three are soups. Felicity Cloake's traditional version is simple (watercress, onion, milk, cream, butter, salt, flour) with a blanching trick to preserve that bright green color. Raymond Blanc adds leeks, potato, and spinach; Margot Henderson goes rogue with garlic, dashi made from konbu seaweed, and short-grain rice as a thickener.
Beyond soup, watercress gets fancy. A mussel risotto uses the same ice-water technique to keep the puree vivid. Salads get a mustardy upgrade: Yotam Ottolenghi pairs it with lentils, asparagus, and pecorino; John Torode tosses it with apples and thinly sliced goose in dijon vinaigrette - perfect for leftover goose, 'which is sometimes a difficult meat to use up.' Love and Lemons mixes watercress with fennel, orange segments, mozzarella, avocado, and pistachios. And Claire Thompson's watercress, clotted cream, and strawberry salad (with shallots and sugary hazelnut brittle) sounds like the result of a rear-end collision en route to a picnic, but the sweet-sharp contrast is apparently intentional.
Watercress can replace spinach in Angela Hartnett's goat's cheese tart or stand in for cabbage in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's bubble and squeak. It makes a pesto with hazelnuts and parmesan for Florence Knight's tagliatelle, or Tom Hunt's off-piste version with hemp seed, orange, and blue cheese - so unconventional he puts 'pesto' in inverted commas.
For the adventurous: watercress mayonnaise or tzatziki (served with lamb), or fried in tempura batter - a technique that originated with Japanese immigrants in Hawaii before watercress was known in Japan. And finally, two desserts from watercress.co.uk: a watercress sorbet with Granny Smith apples, sugar, and lemon juice, and a watercress and vanilla cake. It's basically an ordinary vanilla sponge with 125g of chopped watercress thrown in, but don't overlook its powerful health properties. You can have your cake and eat your vegetables too.