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Microgreens provide macro taste to your average salad
• by Pat Eby - Photo by Pat Eby
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Not to be confused with sprouts, microgreens are shoots of vegetables, flowers or greens and are harvested when the plants are 3 or 4 inches high. These little shoots add punch to salads as well as flavor and garnish to just about any main or side dish. The leaves and graceful stems are pretty, too.
Sam Hilmer and Joanna Duley will sell trendy, flavorful microgreens all winter, thanks to the recent addition of a grow room at their Claverach farm and vineyards in Eureka.
Here’s what you might expect in the farm’s microgreens mix: arugula, bull’s blood beet, cress, mizuna (a Japanese salad green), red and yellow chard, red Russian kale, red mustard and shungiku. What’s that last one again? “Chrysanthemum shoots,” Duley clarified. “They are unique, delicious.” (As befits a farm like theirs, the packaging of the mixes is biodegradable – made from corn oils – and can be added to the compost pile.)
Claverach sells its mix of microgreens at Ladue Market and The Wine Merchant in Clayton. Kenny Whiteman of Ladue Market has 10 or 15 regular customers who call for microgreens. “The taste is so fresh, so clean. Plus they have a great appearance,” he said. “Our customers love them.”
In addition to the mixes, Claverach sells pea tendrils, sunflowers and radish shoots. When chefs prefer the pea shoots blanched white, the trays are covered to prevent chlorophyll from developing, similar to white asparagus cultivation. “It’s a flavor choice, white or green,” said Hilmer. “Appearance and texture, too,” added Duley, with her artist’s eye. “The stems are white, the leaves tinged yellow. They’re more delicate and, at the same time, crunchier.”
Although the greens are trendy, the farmers’ interest in them is longstanding. “I tasted sunflower shoots in salads in Australia seven years ago,” said Hilmer. The list of St. Louis restaurants using Claverach salad greens, microgreens and wines suggests his tastes and his knowledge of food trends is spot on.
Duley has been working with Hilmer for the past five years, expanding the farm and the vineyards of Norton, Chambourcin and Traminette grapes. “I started working in food right out of art school,” she said. She learned to grow vegetables working with Paul Krautmann at Bellews Creek Farm.
This past summer, Hilmer and Duley added a custom grow room for the microgreens. Located in the farm’s 19th-century picture-postcard red barn, the grow room reflects the farm duo’s values. It’s built with recycled materials. Tall commercial windows salvaged from Scott Air Force Base allow plenty of light. Antique pocket doors that had been stored in the barn for years close off the washing room from the grow room. The plywood covering the walls began as pineapple crates.
The room isn’t just politically correct, however. It’s built to function efficiently. A new cooler built into the barn will store the greens. Tables made of wooden frames topped with hardware cloth hold the growing trays. Fluorescent grow lights allow the microgreens to flourish even in winter’s darkest days.
Other good things from Hilmer and Duley include fine Claverach wines and verjus, an acidic liquid made from unripe fruits and grapes that hasn’t been particularly popular since the Middle Ages. Cutting-edge chefs are using Claverach verjus to deglaze. And all this from two young farmers who love food, working right outside St. Louis in Eureka. It’s positively inspiring.
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