Vichyssoise au Cresson with Smoked Salmon Sandwiches

Wednesday May 21

Though we've done Vichyssoise, either plain or with watercress or sorrel, several times since starting the blog, it strikes me that we've never given the exact (or in our case, inexact) recipe. So here it is.

Leeks (or failing to take a leek, just onions) sautéed in a mess of butter.
To which add:
thinly sliced potatoes (Yukon Golds really do work best for this). Sure you can peel them if you want to, but we prefer a less raffiné approach (i.e. butt-lazy).
Add the cress. Since it's all going to get whizzed in any case, you needn't be over-exquisite about removing the stems.
Cover with the minimum amount of water. And lots of salt.
Cook till tender.
Cool a bit and grind up in the Robot Coupe.
Add milk to get the right consistency. Plus lots of white pepper.
Cool in fridge.
Then add as much cream as you have.
More salt.
A nice bit is to drizzle on some lines of cream into each bowl and then make feather patterns with a knife (like a great la-di-dah . . .).

To flesh this out, we made open-faced sandwiches by toasting Holt's pane pugliese, spreading the toasts with cream cheese and chopped garden chives (with blossoms, it's that season), and topping them with Trader Joe's lox. A great combo, if we do say so ourselves (and we do, often).