Stupid question about using watercress

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Quicker Thinker Upper

Assistant Cook
Joined
Dec 8, 2006
Messages
27
Hey everyone
I followed a recipe yesterday for a salad using watercress as the main ingredient. I bought 2 bags of watercress, some tomatoes, onions, etc. The recipe said to cut the watercress leaves from the stems and to discard the stems.

This took me seriously like an hour to do. :wacko: The salad turned out to be delicious, but it was way too much work to cut that many small leaves from that many stems. So my question really is to the necessity. Do you guys spend that much time trimming stems off, or was this unnecessary?
 
You have to decide that for yourself. Make the same salad leaving the stems on and see if you find it acceptable.

I would only remove the larger stems and leave the smaller ones.
 
Thanks Andy, I started to do that as my frustration increased and the minutes ticked away LOL...I didn't mind it necessarily...
 
Add cilantro and parsley to the list.
Unfortunately, I am not partial to the stems.

One trick for the leaves lower on the stems is to
strip them off toward the base of the stem with a
downward slide of the fingers.
 
Like everyone else has said - the smaller leaves would be fine. You can also hold your bunch of watercress in one hand (like a bouquet of flowers) sort of at an angle away from you. Take a VERY sharp knife and just gently slice away from you. This removes the leaves from the tougher stems. Or, take small bunches and twist the whole bunch of leaves off, leaving the tougher stems behind.
 
If the recipe you were following called for discarding all stems, then clearly the author was going for a particular look and feel for that dish, and that's perfectly legitimate.

Personally, I generally use all but the tough stems, but there are times when a dish I'm preparing will have me snipping off all the stems (more for presentation than anything else.) All to say, the tender stems are perfectly acceptable unless you prefer to have a stem-less dish. :)


G
 
it's worth the effort since the stems tend to be bitter and chewy. Yes, I always discard the stems.
 
Back
Top Bottom