Stuff to eat. Mostly around St. Louis.
Peach & Chamomile Panna Cotta
St. Louis summer can be brutal. Oppressive humidity, days where it’s as hot as the desert, spiders. Sometimes I wonder why anyone decided to settle here.
On the other hand, we have some amazing summertime produce. Tomatoes, sweet corn, blackberries. I crush farmer’s markets all summer. And, when I’m feeling particularly outdoorsy, I’ll head over to Eckert’s in Belleville and pick my own.
The Eckert’s family has been growing peaches in the greater St. Louis area since 1837. They’ve got it down. They know what they’re doing. I picked one the other day that was literally the size of a softball. And by picked, I mean Chris Eckert handed it to me when we were out in the field.
“Pick Your Own Peach” season is in full swing, which is great news if you’ve got kids or you and your boo are looking for an out-of-the-box date. If you’re not so into picking fruit but you are into eating it, a day trip to the farm is still nice. They’ve got the country store, which is more like Eckert’s own Whole Foods, chock full of their amazing fruits and vegetables, local meat, wine, and a million jarred goods using their fruit. Peach butter? Strawberry salsa? HELLO.
I am not a pastry chef. In fact, I’m pretty terrible at making even the simplest of desserts. Ashley Rouch, however, is my opposite. She’s the pastry chef of Reeds American Table, and she’s created a dessert that is so good, it makes me feel guilty for all the mean things I’ve ever said about panna cotta. It’s a bit of work, but it’s going to blow you away. More photos follow the recipe.
Peach & Chamomile Panna Cotta
Peach & Chamomile Panna Cotta
YIELDS ROUGHLY 10 SMALL PANNA COTTAS
INGREDIENTS
CHAMOMILE POACHED PEACHES
2 cups white wine
2 cups sugar
¼ cup chamomile
¼ vanilla bean
1 strip lemon zest
9 small slightly unripe peaches, pitted and quartered
METHOD
Cut and make a cheesecloth sack (or buy from Amazon). Add the loose chamomile and tie shut. You don’t want to pick loose chamomile flowers from the poaching liquid, do you?
In a pot, combine the wine, 2 cups of water, sugar, chamomile, ¼ vanilla bean, and lemon zest. Bring to a boil.
Add the peaches to the pot, taking care not to crowd the pot. Reduce the heat to barely a simmer. Cut out a round piece of parchment paper (once again, Amazon to the rescue) and place it over the surface of the poaching liquid. Simmer until the peaches feel tender to the touch and are bright orange in color, about 7-10 minutes. (Remember: use slightly unripe peaches so they don’t turn to mush!)
Pour them into a container and put the container in an ice bath to cool. Store in the refrigerator for up to a week.
INGREDIENTS
CHAMOMILE HONEY PANNA COTTA
4 cups cream
40 g chamomile
2 cup milk
10.5 g powdered gelatin
½ cup honey
1 t vanilla extract
Chamomile Poached peaches
Pinch of Salt
METHOD
Grease and prepare your ramekins.
Heat the cream in a pot until simmering. Add the chamomile, turn off the heat, and let steep for 20 minutes. Strain the cream through a sieve, or cheesecloth, into a clean bowl, and set aside.
Pour the milk into a pot and sprinkle the gelatin evenly over the top, but do not stir. Let the gelatin soften until the grains look wet and like they are beginning to dissolve (see the photo of the pot below—the top has developed a skin), about 10 minutes. After the gelatin has bloomed, warm the milk and gelatin over very low heat, whisking occasionally, until the gelatin dissolves, 3-5 minutes. Be careful not to let the mixture boil. Once the gelatin is dissolved turn off the heat.
Whisk in the honey, vanilla, and salt. Add the chamomile infused cream and whisk to combine. Put in an ice bath (or your fridge) until completely cool.
Spray the bottom of your ramekins with cooking spray. Portion into your ramekins.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
If you want to go for the full Reeds experience, reduce the peach poaching liquid down until it’s a thick syrup, almost like honey.
Run a pastry spatula down the sides, then turn the panna cottas over onto serving plates. Drizzle with the reduced syrup, toss some pistachios on top, then add the peaches.
This post is sponsored by Eckert’s.
Corn Soup
There are two things you need to know about this post:
#1: Matt Wynn is a talented young chef in St. Louis. He’s worked at Hearth, Craftbar, Craftsteak, Niche, and Sardella. When he’s not cooking, he enjoys playing rugby and posting on Instagram.
#2: Every month or so, 33 Wine Bar hosts their Dorm Room Dinner series. A chef serves ~80 diners a meal prepared in a kitchen that really isn’t much of a kitchen, which is part of the fun. What can these cooks do with limited resources? It’s like Chopped, except you’re the judge, your opinion doesn’t really matter, and you’re paying for your meal.
At his recent Dorm Room Dinner, Matt whipped up a corn soup that put any I’ve made to shame. We bartered soup for photos.
Corn Soup
Chef Matt Wynn
YIELDS ROUGHLY 3 QUARTs
INGREDIENTS
15 corn cobs (slice off kernels)
4 sprigs rosemary
1 sprigs sage
15 black peppercorns
6 cloves garlic
2 onions, sliced thinly
1/2 lb Yukon Gold potatoes
Pinch of red chili flakes
1 lemon
METHOD
In a pot, add cobs, herbs (you can wrap them all together in cheesecloth), and cover with water. Cook this together for about 2 hours. You will know it’s ready when the cobs start to become fleshy and pods that uses to host the kernels start to deteriorate. Strain your soup using a fine mesh sieve.
In a separate pot, sweat your onions in olive oil. Once translucent, add in your potatoes and corn. Let that slowly cook down together. Season your veggies at this stage. You want the water to leech out from the onions and the kernels, while also allowing the potatoes to get rid of their starchy water content. Salt is a catalyst to making this happen. If you decide to use the red chili flakes, just remember that a little bit goes a very long way, especially at this stage of the soup. The capsaicin also helps leech out moisture from your veggies.
In Matt’s case, once he gets impatient enough or paranoid that this base will burn, he adds it to the strained corn stock. A more rational approach would be the phase when your onions and corn turn to mush and your potatoes get whiter.
Cook the veggies and the stock together for about an hour, stirring occasionally. If you want, add in a quart of cream. Once your potatoes get mushy, that’s your cue to take it off the heat.
Now comes the not-so-fun part: buzzing and straining. If you have access to an immersion blender, I would highly suggest buzzing your soup. This makes the next phase easier, which is blending it in a blender. You could also just blend it all in the Vitamix in batches. Buzz it and pass it though a fine mesh sieve. Salt to taste, then chill.
Once your soup is ready to serve, add a hit of lemon juice to boost the acid, but only before serving. If it lingers too long, then your soup will start to get slightly sour.
Garnish: creme fraiche, Aleppo pepper, basil oil, fresh mint, puffed grains, and if you have access to pretty edible flowers, use them! Or you can do nothing. YOLO.
Recipe: Beets & Mushrooms by Chef Nate Hereford
I am an obsessive watcher of Mind of a Chef, an avid reader of high-end cookbooks, and quite possibly a restaurant groupie. I'd rather sit at the Chef's Counter in a restaurant than the first row of a Cardinal's game. With that obsession comes a new addition to Whiskey And Soba: chef recipes. The best seat in town is at Niche's counter, watching executive chef Nate Hereford and his team effortlessly create edible art. Hereford's passion for continuous improvement and working with local ingredients is infectious. He's inspired me to forage for mushrooms around my yard, which has only resulted in a psychedelic experience once.
A few weeks back, after enjoying a beautiful beet dish, I told him how hard it is for me to think of vegetarian recipes outside of your typical roasted/sautéed variety—that's when it hit me. Let's have the chef of St. Louis' James Beard winning restaurant create recipes using local and seasonal ingredients to help everyone cook better.
Hereford's first dish is beets with roasted maitake mushrooms, miso yogurt, candied pecans, oregano, and a quick spruce (rosemary for the home cooks) pan sauce. It may look complicated, but any decent home cook will be able to pull this off flawlessly.
"It's January, it's cold out, I wanted something vibrant but speaking to the season. Here we have beets, a great winter ingredient that grow really well around here in winter, as well as locally cultivated maitake (Hen of the Woods) mushrooms. I thought the earthy flavors of the two things would go really well together."
Something that struck me from my first meal at Niche was the huge variation of texture in every dish. "You want texture, but you want to balance the textures in every bite. The mushrooms have one texture, the two different kinds of beets have two different textures. When I construct a dish, I want to make sure I'm really focusing on the element you’re focusing on. The pecans are going to add sweetness as well as crunch, the yogurt gives you a creaminess, and the sauce on the plate ties it all together with acid. The oregano gives a background herbal note, refreshing your palate as you eat. Typically, when we think of dishes and start to construct ideas, we try to follow that pattern. We find that it allows constant excitement when you’re eating a dish. You’re always finding new flavors, new textures, cleansing your palate."
Beets
miso yogurt, mushrooms
by Nate Hereford
Beets with Miso Yogurt, Mushrooms
YIELD: 6 | PREP: 1 HOUR | ACTIVE: 10 MINUTES | TOTAL: 1 HOUR AND 10 MINUTES
INGREDIENTS
BEETS
12 red beets
salt
canola oil
BEET SYRUP
2 C maple syrup
2 C white distilled vinegar.
2 C water
MISO YOGURT
1 C white miso
1 C greek yogurt
1/2 C whipped cream
salt
CANDIED PECANS
1 C pecans
2 egg whites
1 C sugar
salt
MUSHROOMS
Hen of the Woods mushrooms
butter
salt
fresh oregano
1 rosemary sprig
2 T white distilled vinegar
METHOD
Beets
Preheat oven to 300.
Toss beets with just enough oil to cover, salt, then wrap beets in foil. Bake until tender, checking every 30 minutes. A knife should slide in easily. It should take roughly 1 hour. Once cool enough to handle, peel the beets (gloves are advised to avoid stained hands). Once peeled, set 3 aside. Using a mandoline, thinly slice beets about 1/16 of an inch (if using a knife, do your best to cut them very thinly). Set aside.
Dice the remaining 9 beets into assorted organic shapes. Whatever your heart desires.
Beet Syrup
Combine the maple syrup and the vinegar in a pan. Bring to a simmer. Turn the heat down and slowly reduce by about 1/2. Once brought down by 1/2, add the water, stirring to combine. Slowly reduce by 1/2 again. It should taste sweet and acidic. Brush on to or spoon over larger beet chunks.
Miso Yogurt
Whip the cream with a mixer. Blend miso and yogurt until a smooth puree is formed. Place in a mixing bowl and fold in whipped cream. Season with salt to taste. Set aside.
Whipped cream is optional if you’re short on time or lazy.
Candied Pecans
Whisk eggs whites with the sugar and salt until frothy. Add in pecans. Place on a sheet tray and bake at 325, stirring every 5 minutes until done (about 30 minutes).
Mushrooms
Tear the Hen of the Woods mushrooms into chunks and roast in a hot pan with canola oil. Finish with butter, basting until butter is browned. Season with salt.
Remove mushrooms from the pan and lower heat. Add rosemary sprig to pan and briefly cook to bring out aromatics. Deglaze pan with white distilled vinegar. Pour sauce in small bowl and set aside.
Plating
Plate at your heart’s content. To do it like Nate, spoon a dollop of miso yogurt on the plate, then use the back of the spoon to make a swoosh. Place the larger beet chunks on the miso. In between the beets, place the mushroom chunks and pecans. Place oregano in 2-3 places. Lay thinly sliced beets on top, as seen below. Drizzle with the rosemary sauce to finish.
