Shoots for the stars: Briton grows microgreens for top French chefs
saint-jean-en-val (France) — Fuchsia-coloured lights glow over a miniature garden where tiny plants pack a wealth of flavour and nutrients headed for the tables of Michelin-starred French chefs.
British producer Chris Kilner nurtures his ‘microgreens’ on a farm in Saint-Jean-en-Val, a village only a couple of hours from France’s gastronomic capital Lyon.
“Our clients determine what we grow,” says the soft-spoken Kilner, 47. “They’re very demanding.”
Unlike sprouts that are grown in water and eaten whole, Kilner’s come up in soil and are snipped just at the right time for maximum impact on the palate.
They don’t hang around for long. Some are only a week old when they are harvested, and none grow for more than two months.
Kilner plucks a tiny leaf to check on progress, like a vintner fussing over ripening grapes.
“Everyone knows what rocket tastes like, but around day 11 its taste is suddenly more precise,” Kilner says as he bites into the heart-shaped, lilliputian green. “You recognise it clearly when you taste it. It’s perfect, with no bitterness.”
The practised chef can conjure licorice from agastache microgreens; shiso is redolent of anise or cumin, depending on the variety; the big blue star-shaped flowers of the borage plant give off the fresh, crunchy quality of the cucumber.
Microgreens, the young seedlings of edible vegetables and
herbs, can exude the most startling flavours — mustard, wasabi, pepper, citrus, capers and even oysters — and in such high concentrations that they substitute easily for their counterparts on the spice or condiment rack. One thing is certain: the microgreen is not for decoration.
“It’s an ingredient unto itself; you can’t do without it,” said Dorian Van Bronkhorst, head chef
at the Michelin-starred Atelier Yssoirien restaurant in the town of Issoire, in the Auvergne region near Kilner’s farm. “It’s a flavour enhancer that adds finesse and colour, as well as acidity or sweetness.”
The self-taught entrepreneur is a former robotics engineer who helped develop the humanoid robots Nao and Pepper for Aldebaran Robotics. —