Stuff to eat. Mostly around St. Louis.
Wild Mushroom Agnolotti / Sidney Street Cafe
People are always like, “Spencer, you go out to eat all the time!”
The truth is: I don’t. I’m just like you—I only go out to restaurants 4 or 5 times a week.
Some nights—usually when I see Kevin Nashan’s adorable face on the ‘Gram—I’ll snag a seat at Sidney Street Café’s bar and just throw down an order of their wild mushroom agnolotti. No, it’s not too fancy for a weeknight dinner. The bar is there for a reason. No one will judge you and your jeggings—unless you don’t order the agnolotti. Then they’ll know you’re some kind of a-hole. An even more baller move would be to eat this, then walk over to Peacemaker and have even more food. They call that “The Full Spencer.” They also call it “excessive.”
Agnolotti, of course, is a pasta, typically filled with something delicious, but also sometimes something bad. But not this one! This one started out as their Pasta of the Day special nearly four years ago, and it turns out it was so special, it’s never going away. Just like me. Chef Bob Zugmaier fills a homemade pasta dough (Do I even need to say that? Does anyone reading this thing Sidney Street is buying premade pasta dough?) with a farce made from local mushroom and quark—an Eastern European fresh cheese—then finishes them in a pan with Chinese black vinegar, shirodashi, and a bit of butter. The pasta is then topped with crispy kale and pickled sour cherries.
The result is exactly why Sidney Street won a James Beard award. The pasta itself is wonderful with that creamy, earthy filling, but it's the pan sauce that makes this dish an absolute winner. Chinese black vinegar, a.k.a. black gold, is what you typically dip dumplings into. It’s the best vinegar. Go to Global Foods or Pan-Asia and buy some immediately. It serves as the sharp base, then it’s cut with the sweetness of the shirodashi, and ultimately mellowed by God’s greatest gift, butter. The dish is almost Vista Ramen-esque, straddling that line of Asian and European.
So…this pasta is good. You should eat it. Thanks for your time.
Wild Mushroom Agnolotti
black vinegar pan sauce, pickled sour cherries, crispy kale
Grilled Mushrooms with Sesame
Most of my home cooking inspiration comes from meals I’ve had out at restaurants. That’s my favorite part of eating food made by talented chefs—that wow factor they manage to impart on simple ingredients.
Nate Hereford, chef of the now closed Niche restaurant, turned me on to Hen-of-the-woods (also known as maitake) mushrooms a few years back. Up until that point, I was barely ever eating mushrooms. Every recipe seemed to taste the same. He proved me wrong. So wrong. That mushroom, cooked in a chorizo-spiced butter, is still the greatest I’ve had.
It was a meal at Publico this fall that inspired the recipe below. Chef Brad Bardon grilled maitakes directly over the coals of the restaurant’s hearth, leaving the edges of the mushroom crispy and charred, but the inside tender. Bardon paired it with a spicy red chimichurri and creamy tortilla grits. I loved it, but wanted to make a less labor intensive version at home, because I’m lazy.
My version gets tahini instead of grits and a spicy red harissa instead of chimichurri. It’s simple as can be, but a welcome change to your standard sauteed mushroom dish.
The measurements aren’t precise on this—do what fits your tastes best. You can find Hen-of-the-woods/maitake mushrooms at most groceries these day. I typically buy mine at Whole Foods or one of the Asian groceries.
Grilled Mushrooms
harissa, tahini, sesame seeds
SERVES 4 OR 5 AS A SIDE
METHOD
If you’re using a charcoal grill, which I prefer, get your fire started. I prefer all the coals to be on one half of the grill, so that side is extremely hot. If you’re using a gas grill, pre-heat it on high.
Pull or slice the mushroom into smaller portions, keeping the base intact. You are going to be grilling these, so you want to have something large enough that it won’t fall through the grate or burn completely. If you have a full maitake in front of you, compare to my photos.
Place the maitake wedges on a baking sheet and pour olive oil all over them, then flip them and do it again. You’re going to want to use more olive oil than you think is necessary to keep them moist; they soak it up like a sponge. Season liberally with salt and pepper.
Once the grill is hot, put the mushrooms down. They only need to cook for 3-4 minutes per side. Expect flare ups because of the oil. If any threaten to char too much, move them to a less hot part of the grill.
Remove from the grill. Spoon tahini onto the plate, then put the mushrooms over. Dollop harissa on top. Drizzle with just a tiny bit of sesame oil, then finish with sesame seeds.
Farmhaus
Even I make mistakes sometimes. Earlier this summer, I had a fantastic dinner at Farmhaus. I came ready, camera in hand. As the Vietnamese chicken wings hit the table, I picked up my Nikon D750, got into position, then...nothing. For the first time in my food blogging career, I forgot to put the battery in my camera. Embarrassing.
Not one to make the same mistake twice (except for all the times I've done that), I triple checked my camera before last week's trip to Farmhaus. Battery, memory cards, lens: it was all there.
Not documenting a meal at Farmhaus is a shame. Farm-to-table dining has grown in St. Louis, but nowhere makes me feel that more than Farmhaus. Their relatively simple menu changes with what's in season or what chef Willmann caught on his fishing trip.
Places like Niche and Sidney Street are also using seasonal ingredients, of course, but the food at Farmhaus has a more casual, homey feel to it. This includes the staples; you'll always find the bacon-wrapped meatloaf and "breakfast", but the dish components are different every time (I still look back lovingly at the time they had blood sausage with their Breakfast plate).
Their roasted Ozark Forest mushroom salad is a must-order for us. The thing has huge hunks of Baetje Farms' mild goat cheese, toasted pecans, roasted mushrooms, and a warm bacon vinaigrette. Fucking up a salad with those ingredients—especially a bacon vinaigrette!—would be hard.
It seems that we came on a day where chef Kevin Willmann and his team had just gotten a big shipment of a blue crabs in, seeing as 3 of the apps had them in them. Our flight of crab started with blistered shishito peppers and crab claws, topped with katsuobushi (bonito flakes) and a citrusy ponzu sauce. I never had anything quite like this in Japan, but I could totally see it being served at a bar in Tohoku.
I can't believe I've never had fried crab claws before. The so-called "crab cocktail fingers" were lightly battered and served with a citrusy yuzu mayo. I'm totally stealing this idea.
The "West Indies", a dish composed of lump crab meat, compressed watermelon, corn, jalapeños, and lime was my least favorite of the whole meal. I love simplicity, like the fried claws, but this just didn't have any strong flavors to it. It reminded me of something I'd make with leftovers after a crab boil.
I'm fairly certain the porchetta bao have been on the Farmhaus menu in one form or another for quite some time, but I'd never had them before. Time to change that! It was like eating a corned beef and sauerkraut sandwich at a non-Kosher Asian deli.
The guy at the table next to us didn't like his. I wish he'd given them to me.
Even though Farmhaus has a number of meat options, I always, always go for their fish entrees. They've just got 'the touch' with seafood. The meaty Gulf red grouper was grilled beautifully, served with a local vegetable succotash and spoonbread (I would happily eat a plate of just Farmhaus spoonbread). The sauce was a preserved tomato creme, which paired perfectly the fish and veg.
Farmhaus' pastry chef, Sarah Mispagel, killed it with her sweet corn cake dessert. Growing up, we'd often have cornbread with dinner, which I would smother with blackberry jelly and/or honey. This is essentially that, made into a fancy little dessert with blackberry ice cream and sunflower seed streusel. There was nothing left.
Every time I eat at Farmhaus, I think to myself, "I should eat here more often." That sentiment still stands.