Watercress soup

This would be my mom's recipe. I may as well rename this blog to something like "things that other people cook and Alex takes pictures of". Or, "things that Ed cooks" might be more appropriate. Although he didn't cook this soup, but he did cook the steak that followed...

Anyway, I'd never thought of putting watercress in a soup, but the cream mellows any bitterness, plus she sauteed the watercress first. Approximately:

3-4C chicken stock (homemade is best)
2-3C watercress
1/4C cream
1 onion
1 potato
Cheese for grating on top
flour and butter for a roux

For the stock, we boiled a chicken leg with a bay leaf, some mustard seeds, cumin seeds, a carrot (broken into pieces) and an onion (chopped into pieces) for about an hour. Then we drained it and let it cool enough to skim off some of the fat.

I didn't observe the making of the roux, but the way I would do it is to saute the onion first in some butter, then add another tablespoon or two of butter once its sweated, then add an equal amount of flour, cook it for a while, then add some of the chicken stock, and then add the whole mess back to the pot with the chicken stock. The potato should be already in the soup boiling away - cut it into little pieces to make it cook faster. Then saute the watercress in the same pan, add it to the soup, and then blend the soup. Add the cream, a little bit at a time until it looks properly creamy. Then serve it, we had some grated pecorino on top, and it was good.