cream of beenleighsoisse

We're off to Brittany (Huelgoat forest) for three days on a cheap ferry deal. Hooray. I feel very at home in Brittany, and I so need three days of hanging out, walking, reading, an occasional pavement café.

In the best Parisian restaurants, I'm told, you pay an eye-wateringly large amount of dosh for an eye-teasingly small sherry-schooner quantity of chilled Vichysoisse soup (non-European readers, this is much smaller than, say, a wine glass). The soup is delicious, and is basically cream of leek, intense and deep pea-green.

Here, for you, is my mouth-wateringly tasty very cheap Cream of Beenleighsoisse soup:

Take:

• a leek (in our case home-grown organic – the last stand of these is seeing us through 'the hungry gap' in the veg garden)
• a handful of wild garlic, available in many leafy verges right now (OK bought garlic cloves if you must; say 2 or 3)
• a bunch of watercress (ironically we have a mass on the brook below us, commercial escapees, but the stream passes through sheep fields so there is the risk of the dangerous liver fluke parasite; I had to buy it locally)

Chop the greens.
Sauté in olive oil till wilted.
Grate into it some nutmeg, and add a good grind or four of black pepper.
Make up some stock with boiling water and stir in (make up with extra boiling water if needed to a depth of 1-2 cms above).
Simmer the whole lot for about thirty minutes, then whizz in a food processor or equivalent.
Season with salt to taste.
Add cream, after letting it cool a little; or I use vegan soya cream (delicious)
If you like, add a v small shot of sherry.

Enjoy with fresh bread.