Vegetable
Garden Cress
S tier
Garden cress is the everyday name for Lepidium sativum sold as sprouted mats or cut baby leaves—bright green, sharply peppery, and ready almost as soon as seed wets. Flavour is hotter than baby lettuce and cleaner than raw arugula for many palates. Classic on buttered bread with eggs. Snip and serve raw; do not cook beyond a final sprinkle. Grow densely for cut-and-come-again snips. The default cress when recipes do not specify watercress.
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History
Garden cress was a routine English kitchen-garden quick green.
Victorian sandwiches and breakfasts popularised garden cress widely.
Punnets of growing cress sold in European groceries for home snipping.
Garden cress stayed essential to egg-and-cress and garnish culture.