Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Herb guide to Watercress along with all the Watercress containing recipes presented on this site, with 49 recipes in total.

e This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cornish recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Watercress as a major herb flavouring.

Watercress, Nasturtium officinale and Nasturtium microphyllum, (also known as water cress) is a fast-growing aquatic or semi-aquatic perennial plant belonging to the Brassicaceae (brassica/cabbage) family of flowering plants that have a native range extending from Europe to Central Asia.

Watercress are one of the oldest known leafy greens consumed by humans, with evidence extending well back into the Palaeolithic. Botanically, watercress is related to garden cress, mustard and radish and shares with them the chemical compounds that give it a peppery, tangy, flavour. Today watercress is mostly considered as a salad green. However, it is also used as a flavouring in soups, stews and stir-fries yielding a mild peppery note. As a result, watercress is included in this list of culinary herbs.

Watercress has hollow leaves, which allows the plant to float in its natural aquatic environment. The leaves are pinnately compound and the flowers are small, white and borne in clusters. In the wild, the plant can grow from 50 to 120cm in height. Like many brassicas, the leaves of watercress become bitter when the plant flowers.

Watercress has a spicy aroma and a refreshing, peppery-pungent taste that is quite short-lasting. Watercress owes its distinctive aroma to the presence of isothyocyanates that are formed from inactive precursors called glucosinolates as a reaction to injury (when the leaf is torn or crushed). Watercress contains gluco­nasturtiin, which yields the 2-phenylethyl isothiocyanate (C6H5–CH2–CH2–NCS). Since this isothyocyanate is volatile and susceptible to destruction by heat and moisture, the aroma of watercress is very delicate. As a result, watercress is always used fresh and never dried and it should not be boiled, baked or otherwise heated. If using watercress to flavour soups the leaves should always be added at the very end of cooking.

It used to be that watercress was always picked from the wild, or grown in damp patches in gardens. However, the Victorians introduced aquaculture (the first commercial cultivation being along the River Ebbsfleet in Kent, as grown by the horticulturalist William Bradbery in 1808), though the plant still had to be picked fresh and was only suitable for sale at local markets. Today, cress is typically grown in ponds fed by the headwaters of chalk streams. The packaging used by supermarkets (sealed plastic bags under some internal pressure to prevent crushing of contents) has allowed more widespread distribution of watercress.

Watercress is typically used in salads, as a flavouring for sandwiches, as a base for soup and to make pesto sauce.

The English word cress, (derived from Old English cærse may be derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *gras (to devour or to eat), with the stem, water to indicate its origin.

It should be noted that though the genus name for watercress is Nasturtium, watercresses are not related to the flowering plants commonly known as nasturtiums (though they have a similar flavour profile).