Innholdsfortegnelse for April - May 2015 i Cook's Country

Dear Home Cook, Ten years ago, I visited a haberdashery (OK, a hat store) in Cincinnati. The Greek owner was an opera fan, as am I, and quite sociable, so we got to talking. Meanwhile, two teenagers walked by outside the plate-glass window, eating sandwiches on the run. He looked at them, turned to me, and said, “Even dogs don’t eat and walk at the same time!” So what’s wrong with the photo below? Well, besides the choice of food, this young man is both standing up while eating and eating alone. Researchers in Denmark have deter mined that families that sit down and share food are more likely to produce nicer kids. Sharing food draws family and friends together. Sociologists call this “pro-social” behavior—I call it good manners. Most…

PORK LOIN CAN be disappointing. Lean and mild, it’s too often overcooked, leading to sad suppers of dry, flavorless meat that no amount of marinade, sauce, crust, or stuffing can save. I set out to make a moist, flavorful pork loin roast that would restore my faith in this readily available cut and serve as a resplendent centerpiece for a happy gathering. The test kitchen has been down the pork loin route before, so I had a few guidelines to help me get started. We like to pull the meat from the oven when it reaches 135 degrees, as carryover cooking will take the internal temperature to 140 degrees, at which point the pork is perfectly cooked. I made the decision to go with a boneless roast here, as they…

Enterprising Buffalo saloon keeper Joe Gohn knew there’d be thirsty hordes at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition—“The Pan”—so he opened up a pub, The Delaware House, to capitalize on the traffic. To attract patrons, he set out a lunch buffet of beef sandwiches. The cost? Free. Like many pub owners, he hoped the cheap, salty snacks would help him sell more higher-margin drinks. The Delaware House was just one of many new establishments to open in advance of The Pan. “They are popping up like frogs in a pond after a June rain,” said The Buffalo Express. One was Cheyenne Joe’s, a Western-themed saloon where the sign behind the bar advised: “If drinking interferes with your business then give up your business.” At least one person’s visit to The Pan didn’t…

MOST RECIPES FOR potato salad call for little more than cooked potatoes and mayonnaise (with some hardcooked eggs, chopped celery, or pickles sometimes thrown in). I’m a fan of this creamy and satisfying combination, but sometimes you want a lighter, fresher approach. Cooked potatoes tossed with vinaigrette (common in French or Austrian potato salads) have an added springtime bonus: With no eggy mayo that could spoil in the sun, they’re well suited to picnics and warmweather events. I wanted firm but tender chunks of potato that would retain their shape once dressed and not clump up in a starchy blob. Waxy red potatoes are lower in starch than fluffy russets and, unpeeled, cut a more colorful figure than Yukon Golds. But even the red potatoes began to break down as…

Horn & Hardart was already a successful Philadelphia restaurant chain when it opened its first automat in 1902. The concept, which originated in Germany, was simple but revolutionary: You’d select your lunch from a wall of dishes displayed behind tiny glass doors (think mailboxes), drop a nickel or dime into the slot, unlatch the door, and pull out a serving of beef noodle casserole, “health” salad, or pumpkin pie. No nickel? No problem. Just visit the “nickel thrower” seated behind the glass-paned booth up front. “You had to knock them off five at a time,” said former nickel thrower Anne Downey. “They would put [a quarter] down and you would just flip off five nickels.” The nickel throwers “became a fascination,” according to Lorraine B. Diehl and Marianne Hardart, authors…

IN A BID to make the most of their freshness, seasonal spring vegetables like asparagus and peas are often barely cooked. Others, like radishes, are usually served raw. But as many chefs know, cooking spring vegetables low and slow can actually produce a lively, warm side dish that brings out the distinct flavors of each individual vegetable while offering a bit of warmth on a still-cool spring evening. To start, I trimmed some radishes and dropped them into a Dutch oven with just over a cup of water. After a 5-minute simmer, they transformed from assertive and peppery to soft and sweet. Next into the pot went 2-inch lengths of asparagus, some sliced leeks and fennel, and then, about 5 minutes later, some frozen peas. (We love frozen peas in…

Preserves: BIG FRUIT Fruit preserves are whole pieces or large chunks of fruit suspended in jelly or very thick syrup. Preserves tend to be less sweet than jams and jellies since they traditionally are made with equal parts fruit and sugar. The sugar plays an important role in helping the preserves set, though pectin is often used, too. Fruit Curd: RICH SPREAD Lemon curd gets all the glory, but curds— citrusy chilled custards—are also made with lime, orange, and grapefruit. It’s important to cook the curd until it reaches 170 degrees; the egg yolks will thicken and cling to a spoon at that point (boiling will break the custard). The curd will continue to thicken as it cools. Fruit Butter: NOT TOO SWEET Deeply flavored fruit butters require long cooking…

WHEN IT ENJOYED a fleeting moment of Internet stardom recently, Atlantic Beach pie was tied to Crook’s Corner restaurant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. But while Crook’s Corner does serve a deservedly popular example, versions of this pie can be found at many restaurants, mostly along the North Carolina coast, where menus often just call it “lemon pie.” In the handful of existing recipes I found in my initial research, most shared a few common elements: a crunchy, slightly salty cracker crust; a dense, opaque lemon custard, usually made with sweetened condensed milk; and a lavish pile of whipped cream on top. After a few rounds of testing, I zeroed in on the traits I loved most about this pie: the three-fer combination of salty, sour, and sweet; the intense…

1. PROCESS MUSHROOMS Finely chop the mushrooms in the food processor. WHY? The smaller mushroom pieces release more flavor and contribute to the potent fond on the bottom of the saucepan. 2. MAKE PANADE Process the bread and milk to form a panade. WHY? A panade helps keep the ground beef tender and moist when it is cooked to medium and beyond. 3. PROCESS BEEF Add the beef to the panade in the food processor. WHY? This helps quickly and thoroughly incorporate the panade into the meat. 4. BROWN VEGETABLES Cook the mushrooms and onion until dark bits form on the saucepan bottom. WHY? These browned bits (fond) add flavor and complexity to the sauce. 5. ADD TOMATO PASTE Brown the tomato paste. WHY? This drives off some of the…

A SPRING DAY is just as likely to be a lion as a lamb, and sometimes a warm stew is exactly what you need for a soothing, satisfying lunch or dinner at this time of year. But stews often require hours of sautéing and simmering, and when it’s just two for dinner, the leftovers can be a little much. I wanted a stew that was both complex and light, something that featured tender vegetables and deeply flavored pork and that could be on the table in less than an hour. Was I asking too much? Our sister magazine, Cook’s Illustrated, published a recipe for French-Style Pork Stew a couple of years ago; it’s a fantastic recipe, but it takes more than 3 hours to make. I was after a similar…

Main courses Beef on Weck Sandwiches 7 Bierock Casserole 10 Breakfast Pizza 19 Chorizo and Manchego 19 Sausage and Red Bell Pepper 19 Chicken-Avocado Salad Sandwiches RC Chicken California 13 Chicken Tostadas with Spicy Mashed Black Beans RC Country-Style Pork Stew for Two 28 Cracker-Crusted Fried Chicken 9 Crisp Parmesan Pork Cutlets with Tomato Sauce RC Herb-Stuffed Pork Loin 5 Italian-Style Meat Sauce 24 Jerk Pork Tenderloin with Arugula and Pineapple Salad RC Matzo Ball Soup 17 One-Pan Pork Chops and Roasted Vegetables 14 Orecchiette with Peas, Pine Nuts, and Ricotta RC Pasta with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes 15 Reduced-Fat Chicken and Cheese Enchiladas 27 Seafood and Chorizo Stew RC Sesame-Hoisin-Glazed Flank Steak RC Skillet Turkey Meatballs with Lemony Rice 21 Strip Steaks with Sautéed Onion and Mushrooms RC Tuna Salads…

What is the best way to toast whole almonds, and how do you know when they’re fully toasted? Val Sullivan, Aurora, Colo. Toasting almonds—or any nuts—helps release their essential oils and makes them more flavorful. If you’re toasting less than 1 cup of nuts, place them in a dry skillet set over medium heat and stir frequently until they’re fragrant and have darkened slightly, 3 to 5 minutes. If you’re toasting more than a cup, put the nuts on a rimmed baking sheet and toast them in a preheated 350-degree oven for about 7 minutes, shaking the sheet frequently to prevent scorching. Properly toasted whole nuts are not just browned on the outside, but all the way through the nut flesh—cut one in half to check for light browning. BOTTOM…

ONCE A POPULAR country-style dish, apples fried with bacon also has White House connections: Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Jimmy Carter would request the dish for breakfast before tackling the pressing issues of the day. I embarked on a journey to learn more about this unexpected pairing. After diving a little deeper (as far back as 1878, in Marion Harland’s cookbook The Dinner Year Book), I learned that, for many years, this sweet and salty combination was enjoyed as a side dish at dinnertime, too. I collected various recipes— some old, some new—and headed into the test kitchen. The basic method—sautéing sliced apples in bacon fat—was the same across all the recipes I uncovered; what few disparities existed were mostly about the variety of apple to use and how exactly…

With chefs and home cooks pickling everything in sight these days, we wondered if the quality of supermarket pickles had improved in recent years. Most supermarket pickles are what the industry calls “fresh packed,” meaning they’re made by soaking fresh cucumbers in vinegar and salt. The pickles are then either pasteurized, making them shelf-stable, or immediately packed in jars and refrigerated. We tried three shelf-stable and two refrigerated products, all marketed as “kosher dill.” Kosher, in this case, has nothing to do with Jewish dietary restrictions but denotes the presence of garlic, a common seasoning in Jewish deli pickles. We served all the spears, lightly chilled, to 21 America’s Test Kitchen staffers. Tasters could easily identify the shelf-stable spears, which were “atomic green,” thanks to food coloring. They’re gently cooked…

BEEF-FILLED BIEROCKS, ALSO known as runsas, are common in the high plains country of Nebraska, Kansas, and eastern Colorado, where descendants of Eastern European immigrants settled in the late 19th century to ranch and farm. The handheld buns are made from a soft, sweet, yeasted dough stuffed with a meaty, gooey filling of ground beef, onions, cabbage, and cheese. Our June/July 2012 recipe for Bierocks is a popular one in the test kitchen—the last time I made the buns, I had a line of fellow cooks eager to grab one for lunch. But mixing and kneading dough, letting it rise for an hour, splitting it into individual buns and stuffing each one, and then letting them rise for yet another hour before baking was too much for a weeknight supper.…

IN THE TEST kitchen, when we have a sauce that needs thickening, we summon the usual suspects: cornstarch, roux, flour. So when I recently discovered a recipe in which the final sauce was thickened with cornmeal, I was skeptical. But given that the recipe was from the illustrious James Beard, one of the giants of American cooking, I knew that I needed to try it. In his landmark 1972 cookbook American Cookery, Beard describes the recipe, Chicken California, as “an excellent example of California ranch cookery at the beginning of the century.” It calls for coating chicken pieces in cornmeal and braising them in a flavorful sauce made with chili powder, a few warm spices like cumin and coriander, and red wine. Beard then uses a cornmeal slurry (a mixture…

WE ARE ALWAYS looking for ways to streamline recipes to make life easier for the home cook. So a one-pan meal of pork chops with roasted potatoes and carrots sounded great: simple, tasty, and easy to clean up. But once I lined up all the ingredients in the test kitchen, it quickly became clear that I’d have a few problems to solve. The most obvious issue was cooking time: Thin pork chops cook in as little as 5 minutes, but even large, 1-inch-thick, center-cut, bone-in chops cook in only 10 to 15 minutes. Roasting vegetables to a soft, tender stage would require at least twice that time. My other problem was flavor: I knew before starting that browning the chops on the stovetop—which we often do to build flavor—didn’t make…

MATZO BALL SOUP is not complicated— it’s simply chicken broth with vegetables and tender boiled dumplings made from matzo meal. But ask one lifelong fan what makes a perfect version and then ask another, and you’ll find yourself with completely different answers. One thing fans can agree on: Matzo balls—made from matzo meal (ground matzo), eggs, and water or broth— should be substantial but not too heavy. Also, they must be poached in water and then added to the soup later; if you cook the balls directly in the soup, they leave it starchy and sludgy. I tried five different existing recipes for matzo balls to get my bearings. Some were heavy, dense sinkers. Others were too delicate and fell apart. The difference was in the ratio of the ingredients.…

IF EVER A roll was aptly named, it’s the butter fan roll: buttery layers of yeasty bread fanned out like, well, a fan—designed to be fancy enough for a dinner party but begging to be pulled apart and slathered with butter and jam for breakfast, too. After seeing these cute, tender, buttery little buns in bread baskets and bakery store windows throughout the Northeast, I set out to make my own homemade version. Just looking at them, I had a feeling these rolls would take some doing—after all, you don’t get such striking, layered, fanned-out mini loaves like these without a little countertop construction work. But how, exactly, is this unique shape achieved? I turned to a handful of existing recipes to find out. After spending an afternoon in the…

HERE’S THE THING about toffee: While its buttery flavor and crunchy texture are incredibly appealing, it can be a pain in the neck to make. Most recipes require the cook to carefully and constantly stir a bubbling-hot mixture of sugar and butter while using a candy thermometer to keep tabs on its temperature. Minor issues like a 5-degree difference in temperature, insufficient stirring, or a toohumid kitchen can ruin it. So it comes as no surprise that most home recipes for toffee treats rely on the flavor of brown sugar and/or store-bought toffee bits. No shame in this game: Commercial toffee bits can be great. I made a handful of published recipes for toffee squares that were quite varied. Some called for using crushed graham crackers in the crust, while…

EVERY FREEZER, IN my opinion, should be filled with homemade chicken stock, at the ready for soups, stews, pan sauces, or any recipes that need a rich, deep, meaty base of flavor that’s impossible to replicate any other way. Homemade stock tastes so much better than even the best storebought broth, but while it’s not complicated to make, it does require a bit of attention— monitoring the temperature, skimming the foam that rises to the surface, standing at the stove. The last time I was standing in front of a simmering pot on the stovetop, I caught sight of my trusty slow cooker on the counter and wondered whether I could use it to make even these minor inconveniences disappear. It was worth a try, but I was adamant that…

DO YOU REALLY need a recipe for tuna salad? After all, don’t you just open the can and dump the tuna into a bowl with some mayonnaise, salt and pepper, and maybe a little chopped onion or celery? Well, yes and no: While this simple dump-and-stir method produces passable tuna salad, it tends to be bland, chalky, and, sometimes, if the tuna’s not completely drained and dried, watery. And we were after something better than just passable—we wanted great. We tasted every variety of canned tuna sold in supermarkets—packed in oil and water; salted and unsalted; solid, chunk, and flaked; white and light. The runaway winner for clean flavor was solid white tuna packed in water. Working with three cans’ worth of solid white tuna (enough for four hefty sandwiches),…

EZRA J. WARNER patented the first U.S. can opener in Connecticut in 1858, made from a bayonet and a sickle lashed together. At the time, most cans were about 3⁄₁₆ inch thick and were typically opened with a hammer and chisel. Luckily for our equipment testers, technology has improved. Our past winners have been discontinued or redesigned, so we took a fresh look. In our last testing, we looked at safety openers and traditional models. The former cuts into the side of the can, leaving dull “safe” edges; the latter cuts into the top of the can, leaving jagged edges. We didn’t prefer one style to the other, so we again included both in our lineup of seven openers, priced from roughly $15 to $30. Our goal: to find one…

NEAT TRICK: For Good Measure Ann Musgrove, Eugene, Ore. It was always a hassle to find my set of measuring spoons in the drawer. And since mine were held together with a ring, I grew tired of cleaning the whole set when I used just one. My solution was to individually place the ones I use most often in a decorative toothbrush holder on my counter. It looks nice and they’re always at hand. TIDY TIP: Egg Protection Sanna King, Winchester, Mo. When I take deviled eggs to a gathering, I line muffin tins with cupcake liners and place an egg in each cup. This way they don’t slide around, and the liners make serving easy. CLEVER TIP: Preserving Bacon Flavor Bill Schlag, Chardon, Ohio I like to save bacon…

RESIDENTS OF BUFFALO, New York, put beef on weck sandwiches right up there with Buffalo wings as their most beloved local dish. The sandwich is a relatively simple affair—a salty roll called a kummelweck is piled high with thinly sliced roast beef, jus, and horseradish sauce. But as with many seemingly simple recipes, getting it just right isn’t so easy. Especially in a home kitchen. While most sandwiches are all about the filling, the kummelweck rolls are at least as important as the beef in this case. These rolls are similar to kaiser rolls but are accented with caraway seeds and a hefty dose of kosher salt. Making the rolls from scratch was more work than I wanted to do, so I tried several methods for adding salt and caraway…

FEW KITCHEN TASKS are as satisfying as frying chicken. I’m fascinated by the way the oil sounds (like a light spring rain), and I love the way the skin crackles and the juices burst out when you take your first bite. I’ve developed many fried chicken recipes in the test kitchen, so when I read about a style of fried chicken coated in cracker crumbs, my curiosity was aroused. But I had a feeling that perfecting this recipe wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. I gathered a handful of recipes, placed an initial order for 30 pounds of chicken parts, and began brining, coating, and frying. My tasters and I learned a lot from this first sampling of recipes: Most produced dull, underseasoned chicken. And the crumb…

HEALTH SALAD, ALSO known as Claremont Salad, is a deli side dish that’s been ubiquitous at storefront delis and roadside diners in New Jersey and other parts of the Northeast for decades. The mayo-less cabbage and vegetable slaw tossed in a sweet-and-sour dressing benefits from aging in the refrigerator to tenderize the sturdy vegetables and marry the flavors. You’ll find variations of this salad using many vegetable combinations, but the common denominators are green cabbage, green bell pepper, carrot, and onion. The sour component of the salad comes from white or cider vinegar. The sweet? Sugar. After trying a few existing recipes, I was left wondering, why is this called “health” salad? The examples I produced were hardly what I would deem healthy. Some were sickeningly sweet (calling for upwards…

After the Gold Rush of 1849, it became clear that California’s real pay dirt wasn’t in the Sierra mountains, but in the rich soil of California’s Central Valley—San Joaquin Valley to the south, Sacramento Valley to the north. Immigrants from Russia, Italy, Armenia, Germany, Japan, Mexico, China, and many other parts of the world streamed into the area and began to plant. In the floodplains around Stockton, nut-tree groves—walnuts first, then almonds—took shape. The nut harvest was modest for decades, mostly because of the manpower needed to get the things off the trees. Early farmers employed schoolkids to climb, pick, and toss; later, rubber mallets were used to whack the trees and knock out seeds. But in the 1940s a war-induced labor shortage inspired Robert Paul Barton of Escalon to…

I LIKE PASTA TOSSED with regular tomato sauce as much as the next guy, but I get really excited at the thought of pasta with roasted tomatoes. Slow-roasting tomatoes gives them a beautiful dimpled, caramelized look while also mellowing their sharp flavors into a soft, savory sweetness. But the usual method (roasting at a low temperature for an hour or two and then tossing with pasta) doesn’t cut it for an easy weeknight pasta dinner. So I set out to create a recipe that produced rich, slow-roasted tomato flavor, without the time commitment. Regarding the main ingredient, I figured that cherry tomatoes would be a great choice since their small size means they cook quickly. Most recipes I found for roasted cherry tomatoes call for halving them and then cooking…

PIZZA, SIMPLY PUT, is bread with stuff on it. Who’s to say that stuff can’t be breakfast—bacon and eggs? I wanted to create a simple but satisfying breakfast pizza with a crisp crust, crunchy bacon, golden yolked eggs, and, instead of a red sauce, a creamy, breakfast-friendly layer of cheese to kick off a weekend morning. My challenge was to achieve a crisp, golden-brown crust without overcooking the eggs—two contrasting goals. Pizza parlors use specialized ovens that reach temperatures of 700 degrees or more to get perfect crisp-chewy crust in a short burst of time, but I knew that I was limited to a home oven, where 500 degrees is the max. My coworkers suggested a pizza stone, which can help an oven maintain consistently high temperatures and help a…

MEATBALLS AND RICE sounds like a smart combination, until you’re stuck with a pile of dirty pots and pans. I wanted tender meatballs and perfect rice, all in one skillet. After forming the meatballs, I browned them and set them aside (they weren’t done yet, but I’d begun to build flavor). I then turned to the pilaf method for the rice, toasting the grains for 2 minutes before adding liquid, a test kitchen technique that helps prevent the rice from clumping. I added broth, returned the meatballs to the pan, covered it, and crossed my fingers: Twenty minutes later, the rice and meatballs were done. But something was missing: pizzazz. Cue lemon. I added 1½ teaspoons of lemon zest to the meatballs and another 1½ teaspoons of lemon zest plus…

ITALIAN-STYLE MEAT SAUCE Makes about 6 cups sauce, enough for 2 pounds pasta Except for ground round (which tasters found spongy and bland), this recipe will work with most types of ground beef, as long as it is 85 percent lean. (Eighty percent lean beef will turn the sauce greasy; 90 percent will make it fibrous.) If using dried oregano, add the entire amount with the reserved tomato juice in step 2. Leftover sauce can be refrigerated for up to three days or frozen for up to one month. 4 ounces white mushrooms, trimmed and broken into rough pieces 1 slice hearty white sandwich bread, torn into quarters 2 tablespoons whole milk Salt and pepper 1 pound 85 percent lean ground beef 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 large onion, chopped…

NORMALLY, A SUPPER of enchiladas stuffed and smothered with everything good leads to a belt-loosening sense of regret. The caloric construction of meat, cheese, tortillas, and sauce is enough to make a cardiologist weep (or rejoice, as she fills her appointment calendar with cholesterol-screening visits). Except on rare occasions, dishes like this are off-limits for health-minded eaters. Common wisdom says you can look, but you can’t eat. But the thing about common wisdom, I’ve found, is this: It’s almost always ripe for revision. I was determined to create a new, healthier take on this fan favorite so I could even serve it to a table of health-conscious guests. The first order of business was also the most obvious (and the most worrisome): swapping out the full-fat cheese for a lower-fat…

YOU DON’T HAVE to go to a fancy shop to find great cheddar. In recent years, inexpensive supermarket cheddars—like Cracker Barrel, Cabot, and Tillamook— have taken top honors in international cheese competitions, beating out muchpricier artisan brands. Supermarket cheddar comes in a few varieties—mild, medium, sharp, extra-sharp—but we reach for sharp cheddar when we need a cheese that’s complex enough for snacking but versatile enough for cooking. But what exactly is “sharp” cheddar? In general, cheese gets sharper the longer it ages, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) doesn’t regulate cheddar labeling, and it’s up to the manufacturer to determine what’s sharp. We’ve found that most manufacturers consider the aging time frame for sharp cheddar to be six to 12 months. We selected seven nationally available products to test:…

PICKLED SHRIMP Serves 6 to 8 Sheila Williams from Escondido, Calif., writes, “Growing up in Atlanta, my mother never threw a party without serving these mild pickled shrimp as a passed hors d’oeuvre, leaving the tails on to make them easy to eat with fingers. Today, I make them myself for a light lunch or first course served on Boston lettuce leaves.” The shrimp need to be refrigerated for at least 3 hours before serving. 2 pounds extra-large shrimp (21 to 25 per pound), peeled and deveined Salt 8 cups ice 1 cup cider vinegar ¼ cup sugar 2 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled 3 bay leaves 1 teaspoon allspice berries 1 teaspoon coriander seeds ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil ¼ cup capers, minced 2…