My Food Geek

Haymarket is the quintessential old-Boston market. A melting pot of people, food, and cultures all nestled on a small back street right next to Faneuil Hall. If your only experience with buying produce is at the supermarket Haymarket may frighten you a little. There’s a few nuances that seem to be unknown to the public. With that in mind, here’s 8 things you may not have known about Haymarket. (and may just help you out along the way)

1. Haymarket is not a farmer’s market. The produce you buy here is surplus produce that is sold to local supermarkets that you may already visit. The produce may come from halfway around the world or right down the street; if you care, ask.
2. Don’t touch the goods. The vendors are more than happy to choose and bag your produce for you. I know this sounds scary, but they aren’t trying to sell you bad items, they just want their displays kept nice.
3. The vendors may seem scary but they are actually quite nice. Take a minute to talk to them and you’ll find out for yourself.
4. You can barter. Want a box of tomatoes, a case of onions, 25 watermelons, make an offer. You’d be surprised at the deals you can get if you just ask.
5. Friday mornings will get you the best variety. If you get there early enough, you can beat the chefs to all the good stuff.
6. Saturday afternoon will get you the best deals. The vendors don’t want to haul this stuff away - this is a good time to try #4.
7. Cash is king. This is a market not a grocery store. Bring cash or you’ll only go home with memories.
8. Hours of operation: Friday and Saturday - Dawn to dark. Rain, snow, wind, hail, sun, this place never stops.

Saturday was the eater’s 30th birthday.

The eater gets to try many of the desserts I make, and from experience, I was pretty sure she didn’t want a cake for her birthday. I tried to think of something interesting to make, but I was just drawing blanks, so I did what any normal guy would do, I asked. She thought long and hard about different things I made and finally mentioned puff pastry; at that moment I instantly knew what to prepare.

I decided to make a variation of the classic Napolean or Mille-Feuille that I saw a classmate of mine make back when I was in pastry school; an Apple Puff Pastry Pyramid. This dessert is comprised of three major building blocks: puff pastry, calvados cream, and apple compote. The finished pastry looks rather striking, and, if you can cut it, makes for a wonderful presentation on the plate. The separate layers of pastry, apples, and cream form layer after layer of visual delight.

I followed the recipe in The Professional Pastry Chef pretty much to the letter. The only real change I made was the omission of calvados since I was unable to procure any sort of apply liquor other than Pucker brand (yuck!). To a newcomer, the recipe may look rather daunting: home made puff pastry, cooked custard, apple compote, and strange shapes. Complex pastries, like this one, are easily broken down into parts and tend not to be all that difficult in the end. The hard part is usually coming up with the complex flavors or an unusual way to prepare an already tried and true dessert. This dessert is a good example of the latter. Follow each step carefully and there really shouldn’t be any problems. Resist the urge to take shortcuts or risk the pastry chefs dilemma, “Make it nice or make it TWICE.”

This pastry is best prepared with a quick puff pastry or, if in a pinch, store bought puff pastry. I tend to like the rich buttery flavors of homemade puff pastry, so that’s what I made here. Since puff pastry seems to be a huge mystery to many, I’ll detail the process I use to make puff pastry. If you can make pie dough and have used a rolling pin before, you can make puff pastry. Just a few ingredients, a mixer (or your hands), and a few minutes of your time and you’ll never go back to the store bought stuff again.

Quick Puff Pastry
454g unsalter butter
454g bread flour
pinch of salt
1/2 cup cold water

Dissolve salt in cold water and reserve.

Place flour in the bowl of mixer fixed with bread hook attachment.

Chop butter into small cubes and add to the butter.

Mix flour and butter at the lowest speed and slowly add water until the dough
just comes together. When the does is done, it should resemble well-made pie dough.

Turn dough out onto countertop and form into a 10 inch square. The dough may be
a little bit crumbly at this point but don’t worry, just press it all together.
Wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

Remove dough from refrigerator. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough into a 7-by-16-inch rectangle about 1/2 inch thick. With a short side of the rectangle facing
you, fold the dough as you would a business letter: fold down the top third towards you and then fold the bottom third over the top. This is a single turn.

You want to perform 5 single turns total. If the dough gets a little too soft or rubbery, return it to the refrigerator for another 20minutes to let it firm up.

At this point, you can roll out the dough into any shape you want or store in the freezer for up to a month.

In the end, I think the pastry came out pretty good. The recipe is quite clear and, other than assembly, isn’t all that difficult. I neglected to get any good photos of the pastry layers but they did come out as expected. The only change I would have made would have been to serve this with a clear caramel sauce or maybe a cinnamon scented creme anglaise.

There’s firsts for everything, this time it’s the first time that I’ve been tagged for a meme. I’ve been tagged from the other side of the globe by a young girl from Singapore. (foodgeek has made it to Singapore, pretty amazing.)

So here’s the deal:

- Players must list one fact, word or tidbit that is somehow relevant to their life for each letter of their first or middle name.

- When players are tagged they need to write their own blog-post containing their own first or middle name game facts, word or tidbit.

- At the end of their blog-post choose one person for each letter of your name to tag.

- Don’t forget to leave a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

I get it pretty easy since my 3-letter name was tagged, so here goes:

J - Judgmental. This is especially true for food, people’s work attitudes, beliefs, dreams…ok, just about everything. I wouldn’t say it is one of my better qualities, but it is something I tend to do.

E - Eager. I’m always up for doing something fun. I’m even up for doing hard work if I think it is worth it in the end.

F - Fanatical. Why do something half-assed when I can do something all out? I tend to go all out whenever I learn something new or find something interesting to the point of trying to absorb as much information about the subject as possible. Crazed? Maybe…

So now here comes the part where I need to tag three more people. Here’s my three:

First off, Tyler from What We’re Eating. I think I’d like to find out more about this guy. I guess it would be ok if Amanda joined in, but make it good if she’s joining the party.

Second, Peabody from Culinary Concoctions. Everyone loves pastry and she makes some good stuff.

Finally, Vanessa over at What geeks eat. She cooks, she loves food, she’s a geek! I wonder what she’ll come up with?

Since I got the easy out with a short name, I won’t feel bad if one or all of you totally ignore me.

Sunday I had guests over for an impromptu dinner. I was mulling over what I should serve, trying to come up with something a little more fancy than pasta or burgers, when the eater suggested we have polenta. While this is a rather vague and wide-open suggestion, I had just the thing in mind with her suggestion: baked polenta with broccoli rabe and sausage with a side of confited tomatoes.

As usual in the foodgeek household, when I want something different and interesting, I have to make a trip to the supermarket to procure all the goods. Sometimes this is a bad thing. You see, when my creative juices start flowing I tend to start adding extra dishes, coupled with the fact that I’m often hungry when I go shopping for these impromptu dinner parties, I buy way too much. Yes, I did it again. So to go along with the polenta and the tomatoes, I also picked up four pounds of mahogany clams, a side of pollack, and half a pound of prosciutto.

While I was waiting in line for a price on the clams I concocted this idea to wrap pollack, a lean white fish, in prosciutto. It worked with scallops, it worked with shrimp, it worked this time, too. I portioned the pollack into two-bite sized pieces and wrapped each one up in the wonderful Italian pork product. They were lined up like soldiers in a small casserole dish, drizzled with olive oil, and seasoned with black pepper. I figured on about 15 minutes in a 375F oven would do the trick and I was not disappointed.

Mahogany clams always seem to be a good bargain. They seem to be less prized because when they are cooked they almost completely open and do not look as pretty. This one little drawback isn’t enough to scare me away from these delicate, orange fleshed quahogs. These are deep, cold water clams and, like most things that live in sand, are sometimes a little bit gritty. I washed the clams, then again, then left them in a big pot of water, then washed them again, and then again. While you would think that this would produced a sand-free clam, there were still a few bits of sand and grit here and there. I figured my guests would understand the few bits of sand, I really did try my best to provide a sand-free experience.

The clams got a quick steam in white wine, garlic, and ginger. When they were all opened up, I removed the clams, reduced the liquid, and fortified it was some butter. This sauce was poured over the awaiting clams for everyone to enjoy.

I just so happened to have a pint of grape tomatoes leftover from my trip to the Reading Farmers market on Tuesday. These were some of the sweetest grape tomatoes I’ve had in a while. They were the perfect match for a quick tomato confit. I know this isn’t exactly an authentic confit, but the name has stuck. I slow cook the tomatoes with a few cloves of garlic in olive oil in a small pan. When the tomatoes were softed and warm, I drizzled a little balsamic vinegar over the top and put them aside to cool. By the time we ate, they were room temperature and fully infused with flavor. They were a good topping for the polenta.

The main attraction was actually quite simple to prepare. While I was bathing the clams several times over I whipped up a quick batch of polenta. Polenta is nothing more than boiled corn meal. It is a really easy dish to prepare and I rarely use a recipe. This time I boiled up 3 cups of milk with half a stick of butter. When the milk came to a boil and the butter was fully melted, I started adding in cornmeal. I just keep adding it in until the mixture becomes a thick, yet smooth, mixture. I then cook this over medium low heat while continuously stirring. This can be quite a workout but it is worth it in the end. I then turned the whole mess into a 1/4 sheet pan, covered it with some shredded Pecorino Romano cheese and baked it in the oven until it was good and firm with a nice crispy crust on top.

I topped the polenta off with some pan fried, sweet Italian, fennel flavored sausages. I didn’t mind too much that it was creating a mess in my frying pan, I had plans for that wonderful brown fond! When the sausages were perfectly cooked, I added some extra olive oil and quickly sauteed the broccoli rabe. All of the glorious sausage juices and fond in the pan were quickly absorbed by the greens tying the whole dish together.

Everything got served family-style and didn’t last all that long. While I wish I could cook like this every day, I fear that I would either go broke or fall hopelessly out of shape.

Long ago (four years, to be exact) when I lived in New England, I never paid much attention to the bounty of seafood that was available here. I never noticed all the haddock, pollack, and cod to eat nor did I ever think twice about the wonderful clams, scallops, and not to mention, lobster. Coming back from California, all of this seafood was amazing to see. My cravings for lobster finally got the best of me and so starts my lobster adventures…

This may be hard for everyone to believe but, I lived in Massachusetts for 27 years and have only eaten a whole lobster once in my life. Sure I’ve had my share of lobster rolls, lobster pot pie, and lobster salad, but I’ve only had boiled lobster only once! Someone contact the food police! What is even more scary, I’ve never actually cooked a whole lobster. I couldn’t believe that when I realized I spent more than two years in culinary school and managed to never boil a whole lobster.

I had to right the ship (lobster boat?). I had to conquer my apprehension of cooking a whole, alive and kicking, lobster. So it was off to the supermarket to find a couple of lobsters for the Eater and I. It turns out that buying lobster in New England is quite easy, they’re sold EVERYWHERE. You really can’t go to a supermarket and not find lobster in the summertime. Around this time of year they run sales on them, too! I didn’t think it was still possible, but lobster for $6/lb is still a reality in lobster country.

If you’ve never cooked a lobster before, it can be quite scary. In the past, you’d just grab a lively, kicking lobster and throw it in a pot of boiling water. Now I’d like to think that I’m not a cold-blooded killer so I tried to be respectful cooking my first lobsters. I remembered seeing several methods for quickly dispatching the lobsters before cooking them; I even found directions over at The Secret Life of Lobsters.

I know the killing methods of lobsters isn’t exactly something you discuss with your dinner guests, but it is something that every good chef should know how to do. You basically chill them in the freezer for about 20 minutes (keeping them away from the ice cream) and then pull them out and stab them. This doesn’t sound all that glorious, but it is supposed to put them down quickly. For my money, I’d rather get stabbed than boiled alive, so I’m ok with this. Again, be respectful and say some nice words to the lobster before he goes.

Lobster tends to cook quickly and there isn’t much to it. My one and one-half pounders boiled up in about 12 minutes. I served them with the usual lobster side dishes: boiled potatoes and corn with a side of drawn butter. The butter is a must, no skimping here, use the REAL stuff and you won’t be disappointed. The eater was a pro at getting to all of the delicious lobster meat and I followed her queue and had no problems at all. I’d love to describe how to efficiently get to the meat, but alas it all happened so quick and I didn’t take accurate notes…maybe next time!