Innholdsfortegnelse for October - November 2016 i Cook's Country

ONE OF MY favorite ways to roast chicken is on top of a bed of potatoes. The chicken’s skin becomes crackly-crisp while the potatoes slowly steep in the savory juices. And while the test kitchen has mastered this method, we have yet to take it to the next logical place: infusing every bite of potato with comforting chicken flavor by smashing them. I set out to change that. I started by nestling some cubed potatoes (Yukon Golds, which we love for their buttery flavor) under a 4-pound chicken in a skillet and sending it to the oven. Once the chicken was done, I zeroed in on the potatoes— and found myself disappointed. Those peeking out around the edges of the chicken were deeply browned and bordering on overdone, but the…

ERNEST “PAPA” HEMINGWAY had an appetite for deep-sea fishing, bullfighting, and drinking. But I recently learned that he also had an appetite for a meatloaf-like hamburger. The JFK Presidential Library in Boston released the recipe for Papa’s Favorite Wild West Hamburgers to the public in 2013 in a collection of Hemingway’s papers. The beef patty, cooked on the stovetop until it was, in his words, “crispy brown,” included a pantry-clearing array of ingredients: capers, garlic, scallions, dried sage, Beau Monde seasoning, India relish, egg, and a healthy pour of wine in which the beef could sit, “quietly marinating.” He shaped this meatloaflike mix into a burger and fried it until it was “juicy.” What makes this a “Wild West” burger? We’re not sure. But while Papa knew prose, he was…

DEVILS ON HORSEBACK are dates or prunes stuffed with cheese and wrapped in bacon. Alone, each ingredient—supersweet dates, pungent blue cheese, and salty, meaty bacon—is capable of an intense cocktail-hour performance. But when they play together, they have the potential to be transformative. Or disastrous. Making this appetizer can be tedious, time-consuming, and messy, and you run the risk of ending up with burnt or flabby bacon, grease-soaked dates, and cheese that oozes onto the pan to burn. I set out to create a quick and effective assembly process that would keep all the parts in the right places. After trying a range of recipes, I found prunes too difficult to work with, and my tasters balked at the ropey texture of larger Medjool dates. I settled on more common…

AN IDEAL POTATO gratin is soft and creamy inside and cheesy, crunchy, and crispy on top. Throw some tender leeks into the mix and you’ll get their mild, slightly grassy, onion-like flavor in every bite. Seems easy enough, right? Not so fast. I surrounded myself with stacks of French cookbooks full of potato gratin recipes and selected five that varied in method and ingredients. In one mad afternoon I cleaned dozens of leeks, sliced pounds of potatoes, grated massive blocks of cheese, baked five gratins, and set them out for my tasters. One looked like mashed potatoes. Another had dark, woody leek shards poking out around the perimeter. One featured a broken, stodgy sauce. And despite all those leeks, none had any leek flavor to speak of; it was especially…

I KNEW THAT this hearty, restorative autumn stew of creamy cannellini beans, savory pancetta, sweet garlic, and healthful kale would need time to develop its deep flavors. I didn’t, however, want to stand at the stove and stir the pot for hours on end. So I turned to the slow cooker, an appliance built for long, hands-off simmering. But even when loaded up with assertively flavored pancetta, garlic, and rosemary— iconic Italian ingredients—slow cookers have a tendency to produce a washed-out result. My challenge was to keep the flavors intact and keep the stew in balance. I decided early on to use dried, rather than canned, beans. Besides being even cheaper than the canned variety, dried beans are a better choice for the slow cooker because they are less likely…

WHEN CAST-IRON STEW pots come out in Lenoir County, North Carolina, the safe bet is that a fish stew is nigh (see “On The Road”). Here’s how it goes down: First, the host renders bacon or salt pork in a large pot. He or she then layers in sliced onions, sliced potatoes, and chunks of whitefish and adds water, tomato, and red pepper flakes—and then walks away for a bit (it’s essential to not stir the stew as it cooks to keep the fish from breaking up). When the stew’s nearly done, the cook cracks eggs into it to poach until just cooked through. The stew is ladled into bowls and served with sliced white bread to mop up the spicy broth. Wait. Eggs? Yes, eggs. The origins of this…

American home cooks have been dishing up chicken curry for centuries. We wanted a quick weeknight version. CCURRY HAS DEEP roots in America. It enjoyed its first stateside vogue during the 19th century, when East Coast seaports from Charleston to Portland found themselves suddenly favored with new spices from Asia. Many cookbooks from that era, including Mrs. Rorer’s Philadelphia Cook Book (1886) and Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book (1884), included recipes for chicken flavored with curry powder. Curry powder was and still is a complex blend of spices (see “Curry Powder”). Many home cooks create their own blends, but we’ve had great success with store-bought mixes (our favorite is Penzeys Sweet Curry Powder). Simply tossing chicken with the stuff and cooking it off produces a good dish. But good isn’t…

STICKY CHICKEN ISN’T just a great recipe name, it’s a great dish, too— deeply flavored roasted chicken with a sticky, slightly sweet, lacquered exterior. It wasn’t hard finding existing recipes for this dish—but good recipes? That was a steeper hill to climb. Most of the recipes I found called for marinating chicken pieces in a mixture of soy sauce, ketchup, and some sort of sweetener (such as brown sugar or honey) for at least 30 minutes; searing them on the stovetop to begin crisping the skin; and then covering the pan or transferring the pan to the oven to finish cooking the chicken. In some cases the chicken was dry and unevenly cooked, and in others it was inedibly salty. I wanted a happy medium: well-seasoned meat, nicely rendered skin,…

Oregano DUAL IDENTITY Most of the oregano found in U.S. stores is native to Europe, but you can also find Mexican oregano. The two plants are from different genuses, but both contain carvacrol, the essential oil that gives oregano its characteristic flavor. We found European oregano earthy, slightly sweet, and milder than robust Mexican oregano, but the two can be used interchangeably. Rosemary PINEY NEEDLES Dried rosemary isn’t a bad substitute for fresh in terms of flavor, but the hard dried needles work best in long-cooked dishes like soups, stews, and braises, where they can soften during cooking. Dried rosemary flavors our Montreal Seasoned Salt Blend (CooksCountry.com/montrealsalt) and goes well with most grilled meats. Use it sparingly. Turkish Bay Leaves LAUREL AND HEARTY When a recipe calls for bay leaves,…

THOUGH I HAVE a large and varied repertoire of rice-based side dishes— a fortunate result of my Carolina childhood—I wanted to create a new one that was versatile, flavorful, and easy enough to slide into a Thanksgiving lineup. I pored over recipes ranging from old family favorites to recipes from Southern-cuisine stalwarts like Nathalie Dupree and John Folse. My tests illuminated two things: Tasters liked simple recipes that mirrored the flavors of Thanksgiving dressing. And some loved the meatiness in recipes like dirty rice, a New Orleans favorite that includes sauteed chicken livers or giblets (some, of course, did not love this direction—giblets can be divisive). I decided to pursue a hybrid version. My first hurdle was the rice, which I assumed I’d have to precook. For such a simple…

PUMPKIN CHIFFON PIE—A lighter, more elegant, and (as we found out) incredibly delicious version of the old Thanksgiving standard—consists of a gelatin-stabilized pumpkin custard lightened by meringue and sometimes whipped cream. The result is a fluffy, mousse-like, flavor-packed pie that, in my opinion, makes an elegant finale to a heavy Thanksgiving feast. The healthy glug of rum makes it an even happier holiday closer. I know. I just used a big list of redflag chef words: “chiffon,” “gelatinstabilized,” “custard,” “meringue.” But my real operative word for this pie was “ease.” I set out to dial this dessert back from scary to simple and create an accessible but still showstopping pie that my relatives would ask for year after year. After studying various existing recipes (see “Fashions in Food”), I learned…

THE TEST KITCHEN GAUNTLET 7 skillets, 9 tests There are numerous factors to consider when testing cookware. These are the tests we subjected each skillet to: 1. Fry consecutive eggs with no fat until they stick—up to 50 eggs 2. Brown layer of flour to observe heating patterns and evenness 3. Cook pork and broccoli stir-fry 4. Pan-fry sole fillets 5. Cook, slice, and serve frittata using metal utensils 6. Wash by hand 10 times; wash in dishwasher five times 7. Bang on concrete ledge 8. Heat and then shock in cold water 9. Fry consecutive eggs with no fat until they stick—up to 50 eggs—a second time to evaluate durability WINNING TRAITS Shape and Color Matter What makes one skillet better than another? Here are three common characteristics of…

We’re looking for recipes that you treasure—the ones that have been handed down in your family for a generation or more, that always come out for the holidays, and that have earned a place at your table and in your heart through many years of meals. Send us the recipes that spell home to you. Visit CooksCountry.com/recipe_submission (or write to Heirloom Recipes, Cook’s Country, P.O. Box 470739, Brookline, MA 02447) and tell us a little about the recipe. Include your name and mailing address. If we print your recipe, you’ll receive a free one-year subscription to Cook’s Country. OLD-FASHIONED COCONUTPECAN SQUARES “When I was in college, my mother would send a box of these to me every semester, just before exams.” –Trina Drysdale, Eugene, Ore. Makes 24 bars Use a…

BY DIANE UNGER TO “SMOTHER” MEAT (usually chicken or pork) is to cook it low-and-slow in rich gravy until the meat is ridiculously tender. Unfortunately, that gravy is often just a cloak to mask subpar meat or, worse, a barrier obscuring perfectly good meat. What I wanted was thick, meaty, ultratender chops nestled in a rich, well-seasoned gravy made lightly nutty by a golden-brown roux. To find the best chop for smothering, I started by testing rib, loin, and blade chops. Both the rib and loin chops cooked up tough and dry, no matter how gentle the heat. But blade chops have more fat and connective tissue and stand up really well to aggressive browning (which you need for good flavor) and long braising (for tenderizing). Margaret Boyd of Mrs.…

COMMON WISDOM SAYS that sausage ragu, hearty Sunday night staple, requires hours of cooking. But I wanted to capture the long-cooked flavor of this Italian American sauce in less than 90 minutes. Goose chase? I set out to see. The first question to answer was, “What does long-cooked sauce taste like?” After cooking a handful of recipes calling for extended simmering and tasting them against quicker versions, we knew right away: The slow-simmered sauces were deep, savory, and meaty, while the fast ones were less complex and more acidic. Using flavorful sausage gave me a bit of an advantage, but I still had a long way to go. Every great sauce needs a flavor base of vegetables; in Italian, it’s called a soffritto. After a test using the usual suspects—chopped…

WHEN WORD GOT out that I was working on a recipe for mozzarella sticks, a restaurant favorite that few people make at home, I quickly became the most popular cook in the test kitchen. I started by testing five existing recipes. The results ranged from exploded sticks of cheese with barely any bread crumbs to chunky, bread-heavy spears with hardly any cheese. But while the results were disappointing, I learned a trick or two. For one thing, a handful of these recipes called for freezing the coated mozzarella sticks before frying—frozen sticks proved less likely to explode during frying. And while some recipes call for string cheese, my tasters and I preferred sticks cut from a block of actual mozzarella. For the breading, standard bread crumbs proved dusty and prone…

BEETS CAN BE a tough sell. Haters say they taste like dirt and are a pain to prepare. But my Estonian-American mother loves beets, and I know in my Baltic heart that they have the potential to be sweet, earthy jewels. Much of beets’ baggage lies in their skins, which must be removed. Just taking a peeler to them will work, but it will also dye your hands a semipermanent purple. What’s more, when I peeled and roasted a few beets (I chose roasting to concentrate their sweetness), the outside layer became tough and leathery. It turns out that beet skins do a bang-up job of protecting the insides while the beets are in the oven, yielding deeply sweet, evenly cooked vegetables. And as the beets’ juice converts to steam…

EASY HERB-ROASTED TURKEY WITH GRAVY Serves 10 to 12 We recommend using a self-basting turkey for this recipe (Butterball makes our favorite self-basting bird). Butterballs are “prebrined,” meaning that they’re injected with a salt solution that helps them stay moist. TURKEY 2 onions, chopped 1 carrot, peeled and chopped 1 celery rib, chopped 4 cups chicken broth 1 cup dry white wine 5 fresh sage leaves, plus 1 tablespoon minced 1 sprig fresh rosemary, plus 1 tablespoon minced 1 sprig fresh thyme, plus 1 tablespoon minced 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened 4 garlic cloves, minced 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon pepper 1 (12- to 14-pound) prebrined turkey, neck and giblets discarded GRAVY 4 tablespoons unsalted butter ⅓ cup all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley…

WE ALL KNOW those promising-looking boxes of granola that line the shelves in the grocery store, pasted with pictures of chunky golden-brown clusters, crunchy nuts, and bits of tender dried fruit. But when you bring them home and reach into the box, too often you come up with a sad mixture of pale oats, dried-out nuts, and a few raisins at the bottom of the bag. I knew I could create a recipe for better granola. But could I create an easy recipe? How about five? I set off to find out. I started out with a company recipe (Almond Granola with Dried Fruit, Cook’s Illustrated, April/May 2012) that calls for whisking together maple syrup, brown sugar, vanilla extract, salt, and vegetable oil. I tossed old-fashioned rolled oats and chopped…

TO MAKE THIS CAKE, YOU WILL NEED: 10 ounces (2½ cups) fresh or frozen cranberries ½ cup (3½ ounces) sugar ¼ cup water 2 pounds Bartlett or Bosc pears, peeled, halved, cored, and cut into 1-inch pieces 2 teaspoons grated orange zest 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon ⅛ teaspoon salt 1 recipe Classic Yellow Bundt Cake batter* 1½ cups Lightly Sweetened Whipped Cream* FOR THE FILLING: Combine cranberries, sugar, and water in large saucepan and cook over medium heat until cranberries are just starting to burst, about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove 2 tablespoons cranberries and set aside in refrigerator. Add pears, orange zest, cinnamon, and salt to remaining cranberries in saucepan and cook over medium heat until pears are very soft and almost all liquid has evaporated, about 45 minutes,…