Watercress & Garlic Velouté with Poached Egg, Black Pudding & Wild Garlic Flowers

This time of year is about all the great green wild foods we have popping up everywhere we look. We've already shown you how to make Wild Garlic Pesto, so today we're going to make a swanky soup with stuff we can find on the local river bank. Remember tho, you shouldn't be out foraging unless you know exactly what your looking for but luckily for you we've chosen two of the easiest to find & cook with.

Velouté is french for velvet, all puree soups should have this velvet texture. We've kept this recipe simple but tasty, its a posh soup but without the fuss.

Recipe:

6 shallots
3 clove garlic
50g butter
1 peeled potato
500ml nage
100g watercress
20g wild garlic
100ml milk
1 egg
50g black pudding
Olive oil
Wild garlic flowers
Salt

Slice and sauté the shallot in the butter with a little splash of oil and salt until soft then add the garlic and cook out for another 5 minutes on a low heat. Chop the potato into small chunks and add to the shallot along with the nage & another pinch of salt. 

Cook until soft, roughly 10 minutes then add the watercress and wild garlic. Place into the blender and blend until smooth.

 The liquid will be bright green and you'll need to refresh it to keep it bright green. You do this by pouring it into a tub thats submerged in a bath of ice water. This will cool the liquid quickly and keep the vivid colour, if not then it will go grey in colour rapidly.

Poach your egg in some  vinegar water and grill your black pudding and place them into your bowl. Heat up your velouté, add a little milk and foam with a hand held stick blender  pour into the bowl, add a little olive oil and garnish with some wild garlic flowers.

@TheChefsLarder

@ChefTemple