Innholdsfortegnelse for August - September 2017 i Cook's Country

COME SUMMER, I’D rather fire up the grill than heat up my oven. So when I found myself craving roasted chicken—a craving that spans seasons—I wanted a simple outdoor method that would yield juicy, tender meat and crispy, lightly charred skin. Removing the chicken’s backbone (aka butterflying or spatchcocking) allows the bird to lay flat, creating a more uniform thickness to promote even cooking and browning, and it’s much easier than you might think—a few snips with a pair of kitchen shears on either side of the backbone do the trick. I quickly prepped a few chickens and headed out to the grill. Seven quarts of charcoal generate enough heat to roast whole birds in other test kitchen recipes. But when I spread the same amount of lit coals across…

THE RESPLENDENT THICK-CUT porterhouse: a fat-marbled, flavorful strip steak and a generous portion of buttery tenderloin attached to a single bone. At an impressive 1 1/2 to 2 inches thick and nearly 3 pounds, this doubled-up cut is both exciting and intimidating. And it’s far from cheap. With stakes (steaks?) this high, I needed a foolproof grilling method that would yield a rosy interior and a crusty exterior—on both sides of the beast. To get that crust, I knew I’d need plenty of heat. But simply blasting the meat would burn the outsides of the steaks before the insides were cooked through. I needed more control. Drawing on test kitchen knowledge, I built a half-grill fire, piling 6 quarts of coals on one side of the grill and leaving the…

I T S O U N D S L I K E a good idea: moist, tender chicken breasts encased in savory, crispy bacon. I’ve seen this dish in restaurants and have always assumed there was some complicated magic involved—how else would you be able to avoid overcooking the chicken before the bacon was rendered and crispy? I set out, with measured optimism, to decipher the magic. I started with five recipes to test. One called for cooking the wrapped chicken breasts in a moderate oven. But when the chicken was done (and it was done perfectly—well-seasoned and juicy), the bacon wrapping was still flabby and underdone. Another recipe called for browning the bacon-wrapped chicken breasts in a skillet, flipping them once or twice, before finishing them in the oven.…

LEMON AND BLUEBERRY are a power couple in the baking world. That’s because the vibrant freshness of lemon plays well with the tart sweetness of blueberries. For many years, the Hotel Iroquois in Mackinac Island, Michigan, has capitalized on this fruity affnity with its signature mini lemon-blueberry muffns. Full of rich, buttery fiavor; ample amounts of both lemon and blueberries; and a crunchy top resulting from a quick dip in a mixture of melted butter and sugar right after baking, these muffns have earned legions of fans. I was inspired to make a similar recipe for home cooks, so I turned first to the test kitchen’s archive of blueberry muffn recipes. After making a few, I put together a basic lineup of dry ingredients: fiour, salt, and baking powder (testing…

Where Is the Heat in a Hot Chile? Most of a chile’s heat is found not in its ffesh but in its white pith—including the ribs. In fact (according to lab tests we conducted on jalapeño chiles), the pith contains more than 40 times as much capsaicin as the ffesh, while the seeds contain six times more. So if you want the ffavor of a jalapeño but not its full burn, remove the pith and seeds and use just the ffesh. Heat up Your Spice Cabinet Red Pepper Flakes We often use a small amount of red pepper ffakes to add ffavor and depth—but not necessarily burn—to a dish. The ffakes lose their potency over time, so don’t buy a big jar unless you use a lot of them. Cayenne…

IN THE SHADOW of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains lies Surry County, where, if you’re lucky, you’ll cross paths with a fruit sonker. Not quite a pie, not quite a cobbler, and not quite a betty, crisp, or pandowdy (see “Is It a Slump? A Grunt? A Buckle? Depends Who You Ask.”), the sonker is a sweet, juicy, comforting, fruit-filled North Carolina dessert rarely found farther afield. So beloved is the stuff in Surry County that the annual Sonker Festival in Mount Airy draws thousands of celebrants (see “The American Table”). Supremely juicy, with a cakey, sweet crust on top, sonkers are traditionally made deep-dish style to feed crowds and use up surplus summertime fruit on its way out. This is simple country cooking, and my research uncovered more family…

RATATOUILLE CAN BE a disappointing, overcooked, mushy mess. But it shouldn’t be. This rustic stew of late-summer produce should be full of fresh fiavor. I set out to create a ratatouille with all the vibrancy its components promise, as well as some juicy bone-in chicken breasts with crispy, golden skin—all on one pan. I started not with a pan but with a large Dutch oven, the traditional choice when making ratatouille. I cooked the vegetables in batches to keep them from turning to mush. But then what? Trying to roast chicken parts in an almost-finished pot of ratatouille was an exercise in futility—it required both stovetop and oven work, and the steep walls of the pot kept the chicken from browning. But who says a stew has to be made…

RECENTLY, A F R I E N D served me a dish of pasta tossed with a simple fresh tomato sauce made with only a handful of ingredients chosen to enhance the tomatoes’ flavor, including extra-virgin olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, a bit of sugar to temper the acidity, and some fresh basil. After a very short simmer, the sauce was lively and flavorful. Inspired, I took this idea into the test kitchen and came up with my own version. I started by setting a saucepan over medium heat and briefly cooking minced garlic in extra-virgin olive oil until its fragrance reached my nose. I stirred in some blanched and peeled plum tomatoes along with salt, pepper, and sugar and simmered this mixture for about 10 minutes. We loved this…

ARTICHOKE-GREEN CHILE DIP Serves 6 Be sure to dry the artichokes thoroughly with paper towels; excess water can cause the dip to look soupy. Serve with tortilla chips, pita chips, or vegetables. 4 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated (2 cups) 4 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded (1 cup) 1 cup canned whole artichoke hearts, rinsed, patted dry, and chopped 1 cup mayonnaise ¼ cup canned chopped green chiles, drained ¼ teaspoon garlic powder Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients in bowl and transfer to 9-inch pie plate. Bake until golden brown and bubbling around edges, about 30 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving. We’re celebrating the tenth season of Cook’s Country from America’s Test Kitchen, which airs this autumn on PBS…

TO MAKE THIS CAKE, YOU WILL NEED: 1 cup malted milk powder 1/3 cup heavy cream 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 24 tablespoons (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened ¼ teaspoon salt 3 cups (12 ounces) confectioners’ sugar 6 ounces milk chocolate, melted and cooled 2 (5-ounce) boxes malted milk balls 3 (8-inch) chocolate layer cake rounds* FOR THE FROSTING: Stir malted milk powder, cream, and vanilla in bowl until thoroughly combined. Using stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, whip butter and salt on medium-high speed until smooth, about 1 minute. Reduce speed to medium-low, slowly add sugar, and mix until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Add malted milk mixture, increase speed to medium-high, and whip until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add chocolate and whip until thoroughly combined. TO ASSEMBLE:…

TOMAT O S A L A D I S the It Girl of summer—stylish, great taste, effortlessly cool, with just enough accessories to amplify the attention it attracts. Making a handful of existing recipes I’d found for tomato salad taught me a few things. First, a great tomato salad doesn’t start in the kitchen but rather at your local farmers’ market or at the grocery store—nothing sinks a salad faster than an underripe tomato. You want to select tomatoes that feel heavy for their size and smell fruity. In the salads I made, some of the most oddly shaped tomatoes were the most flavorful, from some tender yet wrinkly heirloom varieties to supermarket options such as Kumato or Campari. Using a mix of colors and sizes added allure (see “A…

THE FIRST SO-CALLED poor boy sandwiches served in New Orleans (see “The American Table”) were made with sliced beef and gravy, but the idea was ripe for improvisation—not just with the name (it was soon shortened to “po’ boy”) but with the fillings, too. One version, stuffed with crunchy, fiavorful fried shrimp and tons of fixings, became especially popular. I set out to create a sandwich that would deliver a satisfying range of spicy-savory New Orleans fiavors. The first trick was to nail the shrimp. Simply coating the shrimp using the typical three-step method (first tossing them in a bit of seasoned fiour to create a dry surface, then dunking them in beaten egg, and then adding another layer of seasoned fiour) before frying them in hot peanut oil gave…

WE USE RASP-STYLE graters to zest citrus fruits and to grate hard cheeses, ginger, shallots, garlic, nutmeg, and more. One product has ruled the roost for years. Grace Manufacturing, the parent company of Microplane, pioneered and patented a special photographic etching process that creates razor-sharp grating teeth. The company initially produced long metal rasps for woodworking but found that consumers were using them in the kitchen, too, so they added a culinary line. But their patent on this process expired in 2011, freeing other manufacturers to create their own versions of this tool. The one small gripe we’ve had with the Classic model is that its 1-inch-wide grating surface cuts a trench in blocks of cheese as we grate. We hoped that graters with wider surfaces would fix this problem,…

I F Y O U ’ V E E ATEN carne guisada before, you know it as a bold and intensely satisfying stew that punches up the familiar braise of beef and potatoes with energetic Mexican ingredients. In Texas, it’s commonly served either as a taco filling—our favorite way to eat it—or as a stew, with beans, rice, and tortillas on the side. Recipes for carne guisada (the term is Spanish for “stewed meat”) can vary wildly, but they nearly always include a few core ingredients: beef, broth, chiles, cumin, oregano, bell pepper, and potatoes. My challenge was to find the right combination of these to make the best stew without overcomplicating it. For the beef I turned to a favorite for low, slow braising: beef chuck roast. Though I…

I C A N S T I L L feel the magnetic pull of the rotating glass dessert displays that drew me into diners as a kid growing up in New Jersey. I found just about any greasy spoon’s voluminous, over-the-top, mile-high cakes and pies mesmerizing. The coconut cream pie, with its lofty profile, billowing cream topping, and shaggy coconut garnish, especially called to me. Sometimes I requested a slice before placing my lunch order because I just couldn’t wait. Fast forward to the present day. When I started developing this recipe, I was dead set on building my pie in a traditional flaky crust because that is what I remembered about the pies from my childhood. But I loyally followed our test kitchen process, which entails testing a diverse…

WITH RICH BROTH, tender chicken pieces, a little smoky heat, bright lime, and crisp tortilla strips, a vibrant chicken tortilla soup makes a lovely dinner. But what sets it apart from other chicken soups is the toasty corn flavor that comes from steeping tortillas in the broth while it simmers. For a slow-cooker version, I wanted to keep all the best elements of this delicious dish while minimizing the hands-on cooking time. Many slow-cooker chicken soup recipes produce watery, washed-out versions, because the closed environment of the slow cooker doesn’t allow for evaporation or concentration of flavors. I knew I’d be layering flavors into this broth, but I wanted it to stand on its own and not rely completely on loads of garnishes to give it interest. To get there,…

12 Towels 20+ Tests • Scrub six different surfaces • Drain bacon • Blot steaks dry • Rip sheets with wet and dry hands • Pass sheets numerous times across rough-surfaced cutting board • Count number of sheets on each roll • Measure thickness and dimensions • Calculate absorbency by weighing each sheet dry and wet • Place 30-, 200-, and 500-gram weights on dry and wet sheets and lift • Have 36 home testers use towels in everyday kitchen applications COLORFUL DUTCH OVENS, turbocharged blenders, and fiashy knives may hog the spotlight, but the most essential piece of equipment in our test kitchen might be the humble paper towel. We use paper towels to sop up grease, water, and other messes; to blot meat and dry herbs; to clean…

D E T R O I T P I Z Z A , A deep-dish local favorite, is light and airy, with a crunchy, buttery crust. It’s topped with soft, stretchy cheese and a slightly sweet tomato sauce full of herbs and spices. But aficionados will tell you that the best part is the crispy, lacy fried edges. The pizza starts familiarly enough, with mixing and kneading the dough, which is then transferred to a 13 by 9-inch seasoned steel pan and left to rise and fill the pan. Cooks then flip the traditional pizza script, evenly spreading shredded brick cheese—a mild, slightly tangy semisoft cheese hard to find outside Michigan—from the dough’s middle to its edges before draping ladlefuls of the sweet tomato sauce over the cheese. In the…

SUMMER IS THE season of potato salads and grilling. I decided to combine these two traditions, with a little twist—sweet potatoes. The first step was cutting the tubers down to size; they’re dense and would take a long time to cook through if left whole. After experimenting with chunks and rounds, I found that rounds took on more charred flavor. Still, it wasn’t easy to get them to grill evenly. By the time the centers cooked through, the exteriors looked like coal. The answer was to drop the rounds into a disposable aluminum pan, cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil, set it over the fire, and let the water in the potatoes steam them through. I then transferred the steamed potatoes from the pan to the cooking grate to…

I G R E W U P in the Midwest, so when I hear “gravy,” I automatically think of the standard brown, broth-based version. It wasn’t until a friend introduced me to Southern-style milk gravy—a pale, fiour-thickened, pepper-fiecked, milk-based sauce that’s used to smother chicken-fried steak, biscuits, or other dishes—that I realized I’d been missing out. The soft, comforting stuffwas a lovely counterpoint to a crunchy fried pork chop. I wanted to make my own versions of both at home. As I read through different existing recipes, I found that the ingredient lists rarely overlapped and techniques varied dramatically. I started by experimenting with different cuts of pork. While loin chops and blade chops fared well enough, rib chops stood out for their even cooking and moist meat. To achieve…

YOU’RE AT A party, and you’ve aimed your chip at a bowl of a multilayered dip with the goal of bringing a little bit of everything back to your mouth. But on the way in, the chip breaks, leaving your best intentions buried in the dip. We wanted to spare partygoers this feeling of frustration and construct our Greek Layer Dip in a way that would welcome any chip. A play on Greek salad, this party dip is built on a base of savory hummus and layered with tangy yogurt, salty crumbled feta cheese, pieces of fresh cucumber and roasted red peppers, and chopped briny kalamata olives. With so many elements, I decided to streamline the process by letting convenience products (store-bought hummus and jarred roasted red peppers) do some…

A KISSING COUSIN to succotash, calabacitas is a popular side dish and taco filling in Texas, New Mexico, and other Southwest locales. If you use the season’s best, brightest green zucchini and sweetest golden-yellow corn, calabacitas can be a colorful, vibrant addition to a summer meal. But all too often the vegetables arrive at the table overcooked into a mushy, unrecognizable mess. I wanted my calabacitas to showcase the vibrant flavors of these high-summer vegetables, not smother them. Digging through southwestern cookbooks, I found some recipes that called for heavy cream and cheese and some made with just stock or water. Those with added dairy masked the vegetables’ flavors entirely, so I eliminated them from consideration. Some recipes, including a 1947 classic from Josefina Velázquez De León, called for lard,…

EASY PEACH AND BLACKBERRY TART Serves 6 Taste the fruit before adding sugar; use less if it is very sweet, more if it is tart. Do not toss the sugar with the fruit until you are ready to form the tart. If using frozen peaches, reduce the amount to 14 ounces, thaw them completely, and pat them dry before tossing them with the berries. 1½ cups (7½ ounces) all-purpose flour ½ teaspoon salt 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch pieces and chilled 6–7 tablespoons ice water, plus 1 tablespoon water 1 pound peaches, halved, pitted, and cut into ½-inch-thick wedges 5 ounces (1 cup) blackberries 6 tablespoons sugar 1. Process flour and salt in food processor until combined, about 3 seconds. Scatter butter over top and pulse until mixture…

TERIYA K I , A COMPLEX sweet-savory sauce familiar to fans of Japanese cooking, is often poorly represented by store-bought versions. Too often it’s simply sugary or syrupy rather than balanced and restrained. I wanted a toned-down but still exciting version of steak teriyaki for a quick dinner for two at home. I chose strip steaks, thick enough (about 1 inch) to take on a nice exterior sear in a nonstick skillet without overcooking on the inside—an easy choice. To avoid the syrupy supermarket style of teriyaki, I decided to make my own sauce from scratch. After stirring together several versions based on existing recipes, I was struck by how different they were. One was overly sweet, another oily, a third too thick. I identified the common ingredients— sugar, soy…

I T ’ S A T E M P T I N G shortcut: Spend a few more dollars for a bag of shredded cheese and save time—and potentially skinned knuckles—by not having to grate the cheese yourself. We usually prefer to shred our own mozzarella since most shredded cheeses contain anticaking agents, such as cellulose powder (minuscule pieces of plant fiber), that can make the cheese stiffand dry. But we wondered if there was a shredded option that could work in a pinch. To find out, we gathered 21 staffmembers and asked them to try seven shredded mozzarellas plain and melted on pizza. We also sent the cheeses to an independent lab to get a read on their fat and sodium contents. Texture was the most glaring problem for…

Thai-Style Red Curry Chicken with Vegetables Thai-Style Red Curry Chicken with Vegetables Serves 4 WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS : A combination of fish sauce and brown sugar gives the chicken a complex sweet and savory flavor. 1. pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed and cut into 1.-inch pieces 3 tablespoons fish sauce 2 tablespoons packed brown sugar 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 2 red bell peppers, cored, seeded, and cut into 1-inch pieces 1 red onion, cut into 1-inch pieces 2 tablespoons red curry paste 1 (14-ounce) can coconut milk 2 tablespoons lime juice, plus lime wedges for serving . cup chopped fresh cilantro 1. Combine chicken, 2 tablespoons fish sauce, and sugar in bowl. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in 12-inch nonstick skillet over high heat until shimmering. Add chicken and…