Innholdsfortegnelse for August/September 2019 i Cook's Country

PRODUCT TASTING YOU CAN USE elbow macaroni in recipes from pasta salads to casseroles, but its claim to fame is, of course, its use in macaroni and cheese. To determine which macaroni is best, we selected five widely available products and tasted each one plain (tossed with canola oil) and in our Classic Macaroni and Cheese The size of the macaroni was a big factor in our preferences. Once cooked, the macaroni ranged in length from roughly 0.5 inches to almost a full inch long. We liked larger elbows because they were easier to spear with a fork; our favorite macaroni was the longest, averaging 0.88 inches once cooked. Another deciding factor was the texture of the cooked macaroni. Most of the products in our lineup had a satisfactory springy…

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Pyrex 1 Cup Measuring Cup Price: $10.05 Material: Glass OXO Good Grips 1 Cup Angled Measuring Cup Price: $6.99 Material: Plastic RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS NOT RECOMMENDED EQUIPMENT REVIEW FOR FLOUR, SUGAR, beans, grains, and other foods that can be scooped up and leveled off, dry measuring cups are best. But using them to measure liquids won’t work. It’s difficult to see the liquid inside the cups and easy to overfill them. For everything from buttermilk to broth, we use liquid measuring cups. To find the best model, we focused on those with a 1-cup capacity, the smallest size most companies make. It’s essential that 1-cup liquid measuring cups have markings for ¼, ⅓, ½, ⅔, ¾, and 1 cup, so we nixed models that lacked any of those…

LA CAMPAGNA HAS no sign, so it’s easy to miss the restaurant if you’re not looking for it in the progression of storefronts in the strip mall. Carmella Fragassi tells me that her sign was 3 inches too big for the town’s building code, and rather than redo it, she decided to do without. “If you want to find me, you’ll find me,” she says. After 21 years as a narcotics agent, Carmella turned to the restaurant business. Her first restaurant caught fire two years after opening. It was a big, demanding operation, and when it burned down she decided that the next venture would be smaller. During a trip to Puglia, Italy, where she went to visit family and reflect, Carmella decided to change the way she wrote menus.…

THERE ARE MANY ways to make a lobster roll—and I love them all. Where I live near Boston, the cold mayonnaise and celery version is the most popular. But since butter and lobster make such a great match, I wanted to take a deep dive into the style of lobster roll that uses melted butter in place of the mayo and celery. I set out to make the best version of the buttered style, one that would be easily achievable for the home cook. Fresh, live lobster is plentiful (and often relatively inexpensive) where I live; the New England coast is the epicenter of the country’s lobster industry. But for the sake of readers in other parts of the country, I knew I needed to look into other options. So…

BOILED CORN ON the cob slathered with butter is an American summertime tradition. We love corn prepared this way—its clean, sweet flavor shines bright. But corn is capable of expressing itself in deeper, more flavorful ways. When grilled, it picks up tasty browning and intensifies in flavor, and melted butter adds a finishing touch. If you’ve never tried grilling corn, this is the recipe to get you started. HUSK-GRILLED CORN WITH SEASONED BUTTER Serves 6 Look for ears of corn with green husks and golden-brown (not dark-brown) silk protruding from the tops. Also look for ears of similar size so they cook at the same rate. The seasoned butter can be made ahead and refrigerated, but let it come to room temperature before using. Set up a cutting board and…

I LOVE A casual burger as much as (maybe more than) the next person. But burgers can be special-occasion food, too—why not eat burgers by candlelight? Or, since we’re cooking for two, why not whip up a couple of burgers for date night? The first thing to do is let go of the notion of buying ground meat at the supermarket; for the best burgers, you need to grind your own. Don’t worry, it’s easy to do in the food processor as long as you cube and briefly freeze the pieces of meat first—20 pulses and you’re done. But which cut of beef works best for burgers? I tested chuck, sirloin, strip steak, short ribs, and even brisket, and my tasters all favored the burgers made with rich, well-marbled short…

ALBERT GUERRA MAKES the gordita dough in a giant stain-less-steel bowl. He eyeballs a good pour of masa harina and follows it up with generous amounts of salt and grated yellow cheddar. Next, he props the bowl precariously on the edge of the sink and adds warm tap water before he aggressively kneads the mixture into a cohesive mass. People ask him for the recipe all the time, but it’s all done by feel and sight. “I don’t know. I just do it,” he says. Albert and his family operate Saenz Gorditas, a restaurant located in Las Cruces, New Mexico, housed in what used to be a drive-up burger joint. Cars park out front under a corrugated tin awning, and you half expect to see waitresses on roller skates handing…

LET ME START by asking three questions: How spicy is too spicy? When does “smoky” cross the line into “campfire”? And finally, when is it considered a compliment to be called “a master of jerk”? These were all things I needed to consider in my quest to develop a recipe for bold, spicy, and nuanced grilled jerk chicken. Jerk seasoning is Jamaican in origin; the spice paste is based on Scotch bonnet chiles, thyme, warm spices, garlic, and scallions. Variations abound, and most traditional versions are smoked over pimento wood (from the tree that gives us allspice berries). I selected five promising recipes to try. I made the jerk pastes; slathered them on bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces; fired up the grills; and got cooking. The good: The smell of smoke,…

WHETHER IT’S FOR a picnic in the park, a hike in the hills, or a day at the beach, summer provides a lot of opportunities to pack a lunch. Sandwiches are a common choice, but every time I make a sandwich to enjoy later, I’m disappointed when I finally sit down to eat it. It either falls apart or has turned to mush. I wanted to create a flavorful sandwich that I could make several hours in advance and that could survive some travel and jostling without falling apart. I found a ton of recipes promising “make-ahead” or “picnic” sandwiches. I made six that called for different breads, spreads, meats, and cheeses and let them sit overnight in the refrigerator to really push their limits. The next day, I called…

READ THE WORDS “eggplant Parmesan” on almost any restaurant menu and you know what you’re in for: a mountain of mozzarella, a loaf’s worth of bread crumbs, a swimming pool of sweet red sauce, and, buried deep beneath it all, a fat slab of mushy eggplant. It’s usually a heavy dish that requires a nap afterward. But at La Campagna, a small strip mall restaurant in Westlake, Ohio (see “If You Want to Find Me, You’ll Find Me”), I was served a version of eggplant Parm that turned the concept on its head. A lighter hand produced a dish that actually showcased the eggplant in all the right ways: savory, faintly bitter, buttery, and satisfying. The cheese and sauce added just enough context to amplify the eggplant but not obscure…

Keep Knives Honed and Sharp (Not the Same Thing) A honing rod sharpens the cutting edge of a knife. The easiest way to use one is to stand the rod straight on its tip and run the full blade of the knife along it, from heel to tip, at a 15-degree angle, alternating sides with every swipe. But if your knife is truly dull even when properly honed, you’ll need to shave metal off the blade—otherwise known as sharpening. You can send your knives out to be sharpened or use a whetstone (which takes practice), but we prefer to use a manual or electric sharpener. Wash Knives Correctly Hand-wash your knives in hot, soapy water; if you have a carbon-steel knife, it’s important that you thoroughly dry and (occasionally) oil…

PASTA SALAD IS a summertime staple. It’s perfect for those blistering days and sticky nights when you need a quick, cool meal that is light but satisfying. I wanted to make a hearty, tasty version that functioned as a complete meal, but it had to be easy—both to make and to clean up. For many of us, a meal isn’t complete without a protein, and quick-cooking chicken breasts made sense here. I started by gently poaching three boneless, skinless breasts in water in a Dutch oven; when the chicken was just cooked through, I transferred it to a plate to cool. Shallow-poaching the chicken in just 2 cups of water (flipping it halfway through) saved time and cooked it quickly yet gently. I then tried cooking the pasta in the…

WHEN I FIRST set out to develop a recipe for slow-cooker lemon chicken, I thought there’d be nothing to it. What could be simpler? Toss some chicken thighs into the cooker—dark meat is the perfect match for this style of low-and-slow cooking—with some chicken broth and lemon juice and come back a few hours later to a rich, vibrant meal of tender, lemony chicken. In hindsight, I was overconfident. My first attempts to make the recipe proved that it wasn’t going to be that easy. The problem? The dish was turning out greasy and with way too much liquid. And the lemon flavor lacked freshness and pop. To fashion a simple recipe that would infuse my chicken with lemon flavor that actually appealed, I knew I’d need to do some…

TO MAKE THIS CAKE, YOU WILL NEED: 1 recipe Basic Brownie Batter*3 pints vanilla ice cream, softened1⅓ cups Heath Toffee Bits1 teaspoon ground cinnamon1 cup (2 ounces) Cinnamon ToastCrunch cereal1 tablespoon unsalted butter½ cup heavy cream½ cup chocolate syrup1 maraschino cherry FOR THE BROWNIE LAYER: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 8-inch round cake pan, line with parchment paper, grease parchment, and flour pan. Transfer brownie batter to prepared pan and smooth top with rubber spatula. Bake until toothpick inserted halfway between edge and center of brownie comes out clean, 22 to 27 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking. Let brownie cool in pan on wire rack for 1 hour. Use paring knife to loosen brownie from sides of pan, then invert onto…

WHEN OUR EXECUTIVE food editor, Bryan Roof, returned from a trip to Las Cruces, New Mexico, he spoke enthusiastically about the gorditas he had eaten at Saenz Gorditas (see “Family Style”). There, the gorditas (Spanish for “little fat ones”) are plump corn cakes with crisp exteriors and tender interiors that are split open like pitas and stuffed with ground beef picadillo. They bear almost no resemblance to the fast-food item that shares their name. The dough rounds—made with corn flour (masa harina), water, and sometimes cheese—are often fried in a hot pan (without fat) to form a crust and develop toasted-corn flavor. At Saenz, the cooks skip the pan and the griddle and go straight to the deep-fryer to make gorditas with soft and moist interiors, exteriors with crunch, extra…

THE IDEA OF a rustic tomato tart—aka tomato galette—is simple: Slice tomatoes, season them, pile them onto flaky dough, fold the dough’s edges up, and bake until the crust is golden and crisp. A tomato tart is perfect for lunch or as a light supper with a salad, and it’s a fantastic way to showcase the sweetness and flavor of ripe tomatoes. But tomatoes contain a lot of water, and water and crisp pastry crust are mortal enemies. The crusts of more than a few tomato galette recipes I made during my research phase were so soggy that I couldn’t cut a clean slice. And some attempts were dull in flavor, too. I headed back to the kitchen determined to make the best possible version. The test kitchen has a…

THE TERM “HASH” comes from the English word “haslet,” which refers to the entrails (such as the heart, liver, and lungs) and/or the head of a hog. Don’t worry. Stay with me. As Southern food historian Robert Moss explains, “Hash comes out of traditions from probably as far back as the colonial days.” When a hog was killed in a time before refrigeration, it was imperative to use as much of the animal as possible. Hams and shoulders were preserved with salt and smoke, fat was rendered into lard for cooking, and any other cuts were pickled and cured. Everything else got thrown into a big cast-iron pot, seasoned heavily, and cooked down for hours. The inedible bits were skimmed off, and the rest was served as hash. Times have…

WITH GLISTENING RINGS of sweet-tart pineapple and ruby pops of maraschino cherries adorning a buttery, tender yellow cake, the pineapple upside-down cake is one of America’s most iconic desserts. At its most basic, the dessert is a stir-together yellow cake baked atop butter, brown sugar, canned pineapple rings, and jarred cherries and then inverted once baked so the fruit is on top. My colleagues and I sampled five recipes for this cake, and we were surprised to find that while the cakes looked great, they simply weren’t as delicious or as special as they should have been. To start, the cakes themselves didn’t have pineapple flavor, and the toppings had metallic notes from the canned fruit. The versions we tried with chunks of fresh pineapple were better, but we all…

“GARDENER’S STEW” DOESN’T quite cut it in English. But when you borrow a word from the French, chicken jardinière sounds just as elegant as good versions of this dish taste. It’s a light braise of bone-in chicken parts, carrots, potatoes, peas, and mushrooms flavored with garlic, herbs, wine, and often cured pork such as pancetta or bacon. It’s light but satisfying—equally comforting and refined. Many recipes for this dish require a lot of work, starting with breaking down a chicken, making stock, and cooking the vegetables separately before combining them at the end. What person, gardener or not, has time for that? To simplify the process, I started with a bird’s worth of bone-in, skin-on chicken parts. I seasoned the chicken parts with salt and pepper, seared them in a…

8 Pans 4 Tests Bake brownies and cut cooled brownies in pans into 16 squares Bake yellow cake and cut cooled cakes in pans into 16 squares Line winning pan with aluminum foil sling and bake brownies Wash pans 5 times according to manufacturers’ instructions SQUARE BAKING PANS are handy for making cakes and brownies, but that’s not all. We also use them for recipes such as Chocolate Fudge, Honey Cornbread, and Nanaimo Bars. But which of the many pans on the market is the best? We chose eight models, ranging in price from about $10 to about $36: five metal (four of which had nonstick coatings), one glass, one silicone, and one stoneware. To test them, we made yellow cake and brownies in each, sliced the cooled baked goods…