Innholdsfortegnelse for October - November 2017 i Cook's Country

WHENEVER IT’S MY turn to host Thanksgiving, the size of the guest list inevitably strikes fear into my heart. Twelve people? That’s not a dinner party, that’s a baseball team—plus umpires. For an event of this magnitude, I was in need of a foolproof recipe for an extra-large bird that was moist and beautifully browned and didn’t hog the oven for half the day. Roasting a whole turkey is an annual challenge. And when the turkey is gigantic, it’s even more challenging. The bird takes a long time to cook, and the longer it’s in the hot oven, the more likely it is to dry out. But I love a challenge, and I was determined to find the best way. I made several trial runs in the test kitchen, following…

THIS YEAR I wanted a new way to bring sweet potatoes, with their vibrant hue and sweet flavor, to the holiday table. I had my doubts about simply swapping them in for regular spuds in a bacon-studded potato gratin, and my first test confirmed my fears: When I pulled my gratin from the oven, all I had was a mushy mess. Sweet potatoes and more-familiar russet or yellow potatoes are from completely different botanical families and behave differently under heat. Whereas slices of standard potatoes simply soften when cooked, sweet potato slices exude water. In a gratin, this means that instead of a thick, luxurious sauce, you get a stewy, watery puddle. Not exactly festive. A consultation with our science editor gave me hope. He told me about an enzyme…

I GREW UP believing cornbread could come only from a box; in my house, it was the same flavor, texture, and color every time. We made it this way for ease, we thought. But cornbread from scratch really isn’t much harder to make, and starting from scratch opens up a vast world of cornbread varieties. Plain and simple, I grew up missing out. So I jumped at the chance to create a method and flavor combination to get beyond the box: jalapeño-cheddar cornbread. My goal was a vibrant jalapeño kick balanced by savory cheesy tang and subtly sweet corn flavor. Experimenting with existing recipes, I learned that this balance wasn’t easy to achieve. One version, which called for a can of creamed corn, was much too sweet, and the corn…

EVERY NOVEMBER, THE small town of New Braunfels, Texas, hosts one of America’s best kept secrets: Wurstfest, a “Ten-Day Salute to Sausage.” But the festival is not all sausages and polka dancing: Some say the stars of the event are the Texas-size potato pancakes. Known as Kartoffelpuffer in German, these pancakes, sold from a booth run by the local Rotary Club, consist of shredded potatoes mixed with onion, egg, and salt and then fried. The cakes feature moist, fluffy interiors surrounded by supremely crispy, lacy exteriors. Also, they’re huge—up to 10 inches across. Some festival-goers dollop sour cream on them while others eat them with applesauce and powdered sugar. I decided to create a home version of these pancakes. To get started, I scoured cookbooks for potato pancake (and latke)…

HOTDISH (ONE WORD, not two) is to Minnesotans what a casserole is to the rest of the country. But Minnesotans do it better—they top theirs with tater tots. When tater tot hotdish is done right, the bottoms of the tots meld with the bubbling casserole base and the tot tops brown into the ultimate crispy, tasty, golden topping. The dish’s base traditionally features a mixture of browned ground beef, a can or two of condensed cream of mushroom soup, and plenty of frozen vegetables (often green beans, carrots, corn, and/or peas). It’s all topped, of course, with the signature golden-brown tots. But the recipes I gathered all disappointed, especially when it came to the tots. Most were too pale in color, and some were so swamped in sauce (and, in…

CHOCOLATE CHIPS, LIKE bar chocolate, are available in many varieties besides semisweet. Although decadent dark chocolate chips may take center stage, we think creamy milk chocolate chips deserve some of the spotlight, too. So for this tasting, we decided to focus on milk chocolate chips, which are made from four key ingredients: sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa solids (the part of the cacao plant left over once the cocoa butter is extracted), and milk. Contrary to popular belief, chocolate chips don’t contain any wax or special stabilizers other than lecithin, which is also present in bar chocolate. Instead, they usually contain a lower percentage of cocoa butter (i.e., fat) than bar chocolate does, which helps the chips hold their shape during baking. For this reason, we usually prefer to melt chopped…

NEW ORLEANS MAY be the most beloved food destination in the United States, and gumbo may be its most sought-after dish. Its quintessential component, a dark roux of flour toasted in hot oil, adds body and deep savory notes to the broth and takes gumbo out of everyday stew territory to something remarkable. Perhaps that’s why Louisiana natives (including my wife and her family) take such fierce pride in doting over their slowly browned batches of flour and fat, patiently stirring for sometimes an hour or more; they know the result will be worth it. This extreme effort makes traditional gumbo an hours-long affair. And some days that’s fine. But other days, I’d rather fill the house with the rich smell of chicken, smoky and peppery andouille sausage, and toasted…

PINE NUT MACAROONS Makes 18 large cookies If desired, the cookies can be dusted with confectioners’ sugar just after they come out of the oven. 1 2⁄3 cups slivered almonds 1 1⁄3 cups (91⁄3 ounces) sugar 2 large egg whites 1 cup pine nuts 1. Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. 2. Process almonds and sugar in food processor until finely ground, about 30 seconds. Add egg whites and process until smooth, about 20 seconds. (Dough will be sticky.) Transfer dough to large bowl. Place pine nuts in separate shallow bowl. 3. Spray 1-tablespoon measuring spoon with vegetable oil spray. Working with 1 rounded tablespoon dough at a time, shape into balls and roll…

Buttermilk Substitute I love the tang of buttermilk in biscuits and pancakes, but my husband can’t eat dairy. What’s the best substitute? –Emily Hughes, Missoula, Mont. Buttermilk adds a tangy flavor to foods such as pancakes and biscuits. But its high acidity also influences texture; it helps give baked goods lift when combined with a basic (or alkaline) ingredient such as baking soda. The acidity also helps tenderize baked goods. To find a good substitute, we tested several unflavored nondairy milks (rice, oat, soy, almond, and coconut) to which we added lemon juice, white vinegar, and cream of tartar—all acidic ingredients meant to mimic the natural tang and pH of buttermilk. We tried these substitutes in our recipes for buttermilk biscuits, buttermilk pancakes, and Boston brown bread. For good measure,…

HOLLY RICCIARDI GAZES lovingly at a slightly imperfect shoofly pie on the counter. The molasses filling has bubbled up and broken through the top crust. “Shoofly, she has a mind of her own.” Ricciardi refers to her pies as “she,” like a doting mother, and she’s not upset with this pie; she’s just remarking on its quirks. She knows it’ll be delicious Growing up in a Pennsylvania Dutch household in the rolling countryside west of Philadelphia, Ricciardi watched closely as her mother baked pies year-round from scratch—shoofly, butterscotch, mixed berry, Dutch apple. Decades later, after building a successful design business, Ricciardi felt the tug of the apron strings drawing her back to the kitchen. “I wanted to bake.” Ricciardi also wanted to share those childhood memories with her adopted city…

The purpose of an oven bag is to trap heat and steam to accelerate cooking and the rendering of fat. But what about browning? Can the Maillard reaction—the chemical reaction that createsflavor when foods are browned—occur in the relatively moist environment of an oven bag? It sure can; our turkeys came out with beautifully browned skin. Here are a few additional tips to add to your, ahem, bag of tricks. Mind the temperature. Because the bag traps heat and steam, the heat energy in the bag will be greater than the heat energy of the dry air in the oven. The higher heat energy in the bag contributes nice browning. Never use plastic oven bags in an oven set to a temperature above 400 degrees. Addflour to the bag. Bag…

THE THANKSGIVING TABLE seems incomplete without green bean casserole—that well-loved combination of tender green beans coated in a savory, creamy mushroom sauce (er, canned cream of mushroom soup) and topped with crunchy fried onions. I love it, too. But this year, I wanted a crunchier topping, a sauce with an extra note of complexity, and a slightly more streamlined process. Most recipes for green bean casserole, including some of ours, follow a similar routine: Precook the green beans, create a silky cream sauce, stir it all together in a casserole dish, top with crunchy onions, and bake until bubbly. Easy, right? Yes. And delicious. But I wanted it to be even easier. The first order of business was the sauce. Besides cream and chicken broth, I settled on cremini mushrooms…

IN DETROIT, PEOPLE have been flocking to Scotty Simpson’s restaurant for crispy, golden-brown fish and chips since the 1950s. After hearing about executive food editor Bryan Roof’s trip to the restaurant (see “Old-School Fish and Chips”), I wanted to find a way to make this light, perfectly crunchy version of fish and chips at home. A tall feat, sure. But I was up for a challenge. I began my research with a phone call to Harry Barber, the owner of Scotty Simpson’s. Barber began working at the restaurant as a dishwasher on his first day of high school decades ago; he purchased the restaurant, as well as the recipe for its famous fish and chips, in 2002. I asked Barber how he made the batter for the fish, but I…

SOME SAY THE breakfast of champions is a bowl of Wheaties. But after a trip to Austin, Texas, I call shenanigans. There, I ate a plate of migas—fluffy scrambled eggs cooked with chiles and onion and studded with pleasantly chewy strips of corn tortillas. The tortilla pieces infused the eggs with a deep, sweet toasted-corn flavor that made the dish a knockout. I set out to make a great homemade version. Most recipes for migas (its name translates literally as “crumbs”) call for either store-bought tortilla chips or fresh corn tortillas that are cut into strips, deep- or pan-fried, and stirred into scrambled eggs. I made a couple of versions with each. The chips added mostly saltiness and very little corn flavor. The fresh corn tortillas that I fried myself,…

FIRE-KISSED,TANGY barbecued chicken is one of the purest delights of summertime. Must we give it up in the fall when we cover our grills and pull them inside for the colder months? And what of those without a grill? Don’t they deserve that saucy, smoky, charred-yet-still-juicy chicken experience? Enter indoor barbecued chicken. Most of the existing recipes I found for “oven-barbecued” bone-in chicken pieces were poor imitations of the delicious stuff that comes off the grill. They served up chicken parts with soggy, floppy skin that had been braised in a bath of sauce. I wanted indoor chicken with the best qualities of the grilled version: juicy meat; beautifully rendered, browned skin; and heady smoke flavor. To make the chicken really sing, I decided to apply a potent dry spice…

I’VE HAD MY share of steakhouse dinners of peppercorn-crusted steak, with a deeply colored, flavorful crust surrounding a perfectly cooked, tender interior. But a visit to a steakhouse can break the bank. I was looking to create a recipe that I could make at home, only better—building on the idea of a peppercorn crust but welcoming a wider range of flavors to the mix. This crust needed to feature a balanced blend of spices that didn’t overwhelm me or the beef, and it had to be easy enough to pull off using my stove. To get started, I gathered a handful of existing recipes, which called for coating various cuts of beef with a slew of spices and herbs (including ancho chiles, coriander seeds, mustard seeds, white and black peppercorns,…

Key Ingredients Bread Insubstantial, flavorless bread will make a mushy, muddy stuffing. Our taste test winner—and our top choice for stuffing—is Arnold Country Classics White Bread, which our tasters praised for its “perfect structure” and “subtle sweetness.” Chicken Stock Chicken stock is a workhorse ingredient in our kitchen, so it’s important to use one that has clean, potent chicken flavor. The test kitchen’s favorite is Swanson Chicken Stock, which our tasting panel called out for its “rich,” “meaty” flavor. Poultry Seasoning Invented by William G. Bell in Boston in 1867, Bell’s Poultry Seasoning combines several herbs and aromatics—rosemary, oregano, sage, ginger, and marjoram—for bold flavor, complexity, and depth in just one ingredient. You can find it in the herb and spice section of the supermarket. Core Techniques How to Dice…

AN ASIAN-STYLE NOODLE bowl—a mound of steaming noodles tossed with deeply seasoned meat and vegetables— holds plenty of culinary appeal. The challenge of making this dish at home is that you have to cook the noodles, meat, and vegetables separately, which translates into many dirty pots and pans. Or do you? I set out to make tasty, satisfying noodle bowls using a single skillet. Any recipe for Asian-style noodle bowls has to start with—you guessed it—Asian noodles. But which type? Not every supermarket stocks fresh lo mein noodles, but there is one type of Asian noodle every supermarket (and even many convenience stores) carries: instant ramen. I’m no fan of the salty seasoning packets that accompany these inexpensive noodles, but the noodles themselves are consistently good. Acknowledging them as an…

WHAT IS DUTCH apple pie? For starters, it is not Dutch. (It’s sometimes called Pennsylvania Dutch apple pie—still not Dutch but getting warmer.) The name comes from a modern-day misnomer for the early German settlers of Pennsylvania and their descendants; the word “Dutch” most likely grew out of Deutsch, the German word for “German.” Now about this pie. It has a bottom crust only and is topped with a generous sprinkling of sweet streusel. The filling (apples, sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon) contains vanilla, cream, and sometimes raisins, and the result is a pie that holds its shape when sliced. Some existing recipes I tried overdid the cream, so the filling looked curdled. Others called for thickeners such as flour or cornstarch to set the filling quickly, but tasters found these…

RADICCHIO IS OFTEN reserved for braises or pasta dishes, but that’s a shame: The sharp, pleasantly bitter flavor of this vibrant purple and white, softball-size sphere can be a welcome addition to many dishes. For this recipe, I wanted to highlight radicchio in its crisp, raw form by simply tossing it with a handful of ingredients to make a refreshing, flavorful, and brightly colored salad. I began by making a handful of the recipes that I found for radicchio salads. Some salads were surprisingly delicate, combining the radicchio with assorted fruit and nuts and finishing with sweet vinaigrettes. Others were more aggressive, featuring strong cheeses and spicy dressings. I set out to find a sweet spot somewhere in the middle; I also wanted to find a way to tone down…

PUMPKIN SPICE HAS proven to be a more pervasive and longer-lasting flavor trend than most. Case in point: I recently emerged from a local grocery store with bags filled with a range of products, from granola, energy bars, frozen waffles, and chai to spreadable cheese, all sporting a “pumpkin spice” profile. Curious to know how the pumpkin spice flavor was represented in these products, I returned to the test kitchen and laid out a grand tasting of these supermarket finds. We learned that “pumpkin spice,” in most cases, simply meant sweet and slightly cinnamony, with the occasional soft note of nutmeg or ginger—more the flavor of the spices in pumpkin pie than of actual pumpkin. This wasn’t a huge surprise. Pumpkin on its own has a very mild, faintly earthy…

A PORK TENDERLOIN holds the promise of delivering an appealingly tender roast to the table with a minimal investment of time, effort, and expense. But how do you add pizzazz to this mild-tasting cut? How about pairing it with brown sugar, an ingredient that our test kitchen matchmakers have proven goes exceedingly well with many cuts of pork? The combination of brown sugar and quick-cooking pork tenderloin seemed like it would result in a blissful union. But when I experimented with existing recipes for brown sugar pork tenderloin, it was a dysfunctional marriage at best. Most of these recipes called for seasoning the pork with salt and brown sugar, searing it on the stovetop, and then moving it to the oven to finish cooking. Almost without fail, the pork was…

UNTIL THIRD GRADE, I was as picky as kids come. So my mother— who is a doctor but, more important, is also a mom who was afraid that her tiny daughter would shrivel away—fed me a steady diet of the only foods I would eat: breakfast cereal, plain hot dogs (no ketchup or bun), and, because we were in Baltimore, Bergers cookies. Those who aren’t from Baltimore may not be familiar with the glorious Bergers cookie. Its base is a lightly sweet, softly crumbly, dome-shaped vanilla cookie. But the real draw is the ½ -inch layer of fudgy chocolate frosting that sits proudly on top. The cookie gets its name from Henry Berger, a German immigrant who opened his bakery in Baltimore in the 1800s (see “Backstory”). The bakery still…

IT SOUNDS FANCY, but chicken saltimbocca is really just a pretty package of simple staples: chicken, ham (prosciutto), and sage. The challenge is that these last two ingredients have big, bold personalities that need to be carefully balanced with the demure poultry lest they overwhelm the dish. I decided to start with the sage. I wanted a soft but discernible herbal presence. After researching a few existing recipes, I started my testing by sandwiching some chopped fresh sage between a chicken cutlet and a layer of prosciutto and searing it off in a skillet. But because it steamed between the meats, the sage took on a slightly soggy texture and a grassy flavor—not the result I sought. I decided on a different tack, one we’ve used before in the test…

WE ALL HAVE our own way of making mashed potatoes. But the more versions I eat, the more I notice that many of them, despite all the different tricks and techniques people use, could be so much better. Why settle for a mediocre mash? My goal was to make delicious, deeply seasoned, creamy potatoes via a streamlined cooking method that didn’t require special equipment such as a ricer or a steamer basket. I chose to rely solely on basic equipment that nearly all home cooks have in their kitchens: a saucepan, a potato masher, and a microwave. The first thing I had to settle on was the type of potato to use; I chose Yukon Gold potatoes because they’re less starchy than russets and therefore produced a creamier mash (though…

GOOD HOMEMADE PIE crust has better flavor and texture than store-bought ready-made versions. But sometimes you don’t have the time to make your own pie dough and you need to trade a little quality for convenience. Is there a supermarket crust that will work in a pinch? Supermarket pie crusts come in two styles: rolled crusts that you unroll and press into your own pie plate and crusts prefitted into aluminum pie plates. We’ve learned from experience that the prefitted crusts are trouble: They’re too small to hold all the filling for most pies, their thin pie plates heat and bake unevenly, and making an attractive double-crust pie is next to impossible—you have to pry a crust out of its pie plate and wrestle with it to form a top…