Salmon with garden cress sauce

Garden cress is full of vitamins but due to a very spicy taste isn’t liked by some people. It used to be called “the poor man’s pepper”. This was because it was used as a substitute for pepper by those who couldn’t afford the expensive spices that were shipped in from Asia. Today, garden cress is mainly eaten as a part of salads or in sandwiches, but sometimes it is used to cook soups and main dishes. Cress gives any dish a very distinct, peppery flavor but heating it lessens this effect and gives the final dish a very pleasant tanginess.

Garden cress, or Řeřicha in Czech, is sold in little boxes that contain shoots of the plant. What you do is cut off the green parts and use them. If you don’t throw away the box with the leftover shoots new plants may grow from them, but that doesn’t always happen. I guess it depends on the quality of the shoots or on how long they have been standing around.

Ingredients:
2 x 250gr salmon fillets
1 tablespoon of chopped tarragon
2 heaped tablespoons of garden cress
3 tablespoons of sour cream
1 small clove of garlic – thinly sliced
150 ml of white wine
Salt, pepper
Oil

Heat up a pan with some oil and fry the seasoned salmon for 2-3 minutes on every side, depending on how thick the fillets are. Remove the fish from the pan a put onto a heated plate. In the same pan sauté the garlic for a minute and add the wine. Let evaporate until there is about 1 tablespoon of liquid left. Add the sour cream, cress and tarragon. Cook until sauce thickens, season with salt and pepper. Pour sauce over the fish and serve!