America's Test Kitchen: Season 14, Episode 5 script (2024)

- From the editors
of Cook's Illustrated magazine,

it's America's Test Kitchen

with your host
Christopher Kimball,

featuring Test Kitchen chefs
Julia Collin Davison,

Bridget Lancaster,
Becky Hays,

with Adam Ried
in the Equipment Corner

and Jack Bishop
in the Tasting Lab.

Discover the secrets
of America's foremost

food testers and tasters,
today on America's Test Kitchen.

Today on America's Test Kitchen,
Bridget uncovers the secrets

to French-style chicken
and stuffing in a pot.

Then, Chris answers
cooking questions in letters

to the editor.

And finally, Julia
shows Chris how to make

perfect French-style pork stew.

That's all right here
on America's Test Kitchen.

- Who said
"a chicken in every pot"?

You may think Herbert Hoover.

Actually, it was me,
Henry IV of France.

And back in 1600, we'd take
an old bird, we'd stuff it

with bread, vegetables,
the sausage like this,

and simmer it for hours.

A great way
to cook a very old chicken.

But today we start with
a very young, tender chicken,

so let's go into the test
kitchen with Bridget

and figure out a great way
to do a modern version

of French-style chicken.

Well, I do know one thing.

It's no longer 1600,
Henry IV is long gone,

and so is that old, tough bird
they simmered for hours,

so today we need a young,
tender bird, you poussin, you.

- (laughs) That's why I'm here.

- Wham!

And we have to cook it for a lot
less time and we have a lot

of other problems
with that recipe.

- That's right, yeah.

The typical recipe
or the one that we really like

actually takes stuffing-- it's
a bread and sausage stuffing--

stuffs it right into that whole
chicken and then simmers it

with a lot of broth
and some hearty vegetables.

But the problem is, is that
chicken, whole or even stuffed,

hardly ever comes
out perfectly cooked.

You've got the breast meat
and it's always overdone

by the time the thigh meat
and the leg meat is done.

Plus, the broth
usually tastes watery.

There's not enough
concentration of flavor.

So, we're going
to re-engineer this dish.

All the components, maximum
flavor, and then we'll build it

from the bottom up so that
everything comes out perfectly.

- Besides that,
it was a great idea.

- (laughs)

Well, the flavors are
great inspiration and the idea

of a one-pot wonder,
the stuffing, chicken,

vegetables and broth
all coming out at the same time?

That is a worthy goal.

All right, so let's talk a
little bit about stuffing.

Now, we're not actually
going to make a stuffing

to go into the bird,
we're going to cook the chicken

and stuffing separately.

And we're going
to take the stuffing and turn it

into little logs so
that they're nice and sliceable

when they come out.

And we're also going
to start off with more meat.

A lot of the stuffings
were really bread-heavy,

but ours is going
to start off with a pound

of ground pork sausage.

All right, so I've
got one more ingredient

to prepare before
we put our sausage together.

We've got a fennel, and
for this, we're actually going

to take the fronds
and use them in the stuffing.

So I just want to take
some of these fronds off--

a little shaving action here.

And the fronds really have
a nice, light anise flavor.

All right, and we need
two tablespoons for our recipe.

There we go.

And let's go put
that sausage together.

We're going to use our food
processor to make our stuffing.

And we're using this food
processor because it's going

to chop everything nice
and neat and compacted,

so it's
not going to crumble

when we go
to slice it at the end.

We'll start off
with bread.

We've got two slices of hearty
white sandwich bread.

And we just want
to pulse this until the bread

is pretty finely ground,
so about 15 pulses should do it.

All right.

So now, along with the bread,
we also want

to bind the stuffing
together with one egg,

one minced shallot,
two cloves of minced garlic.

We have our fennel fronds.

All right,
so we have our two tablespoons

of minced fresh parsley,
teaspoon minced fresh marjoram.

We have two teaspoons
of whole grain mustard

and a quarter-teaspoon
of ground black pepper.

Lid goes on and again,
we're going to process this,

just pulse it.

We want this
to be nice and incorporated,

so about eight
pulses should do it.

We want these flavors to not
only flavor the actual stuffing,

but they're going to get their
flavors into the broth, as well.

Last thing to go in
is our sausage.

Again, this is one
pound of bulk sausage.

And we're adding this right
into this mix so that

it compacts again, but also,
that food processor is going

to break up any long
strands of the meat

as well as any connective
tissue that might be in there.

So about four to five
pulses here should do it.

All right, so that looks great.

So now we need
to turn these into logs.

So, I've got
some parchment paper here.

These are 18-by-12-inch sheets
of parchment and we're going

to use these
to shape and form the logs.

So we're going to take half
of this mixture and we'll put it

right near the bottom third
of one of these sheets of paper.

And now we just want
to shape this

into about an eight-by-two-inch
rectangle.

All right, so that looks great.

So now we're going
to roll it up nice and tight.

And then we're going
to take the two sides

and kind of push them together.

We want this length to be
between six to seven inches long

and that way the sausage
will be about two inches around

and it will cook perfectly.

There you go.

That's like my dream candy.

(laughs)

So we'll just go ahead
and put this to the side

and we'll do the same.

- Okay.

- All right,
Chris, it's time to start

on the chicken component.

And the beauty of cooking
the stuffing separately is,

we didn't need
to use the whole chicken,

so why not use chicken parts
and buy them so that the pieces

are of even size?

So these are all
12 ounces in size-- two breasts,

So, first thing that
I want to do is pat them dry

because any surface moisture
will lower the oil temperature

and that will cause them
to steam rather than brown.

And we do have two teaspoons of
vegetable oil that are coming up

to the smoking point, and
that's over medium-high heat.

So that's going to give us a
really good and nice color.

All right, so now sprinkle these
with salt, a half a teaspoon,

and some pepper.

All right, so we've
got some smoke, we can go ahead

and put these pieces
of chicken skin-side down.

Right in there,
and we get some good sizzle--

that's a good sign.

So these are just going
to brown on that skin side

for about four to seven minutes.

All right, so while that's
browning, we can go ahead

and work on our bouquet garni.

So, what we have here is two
celery ribs that we've cut

in half, we've got
eight sprigs of parsley,

and we have a little bit more
of that marjoram-- six sprigs--

and a bay leaf.

All right, so let's just tie
these together.

The bigger ribs
on the outside just like that.

Nothing fancy here, just want
to make sure that it's nice

and secure and that's that.

All right, the chicken
is ready to come out.

You can see
some nice golden color on there.

And I did move these
pieces around just once

to make sure that they were
browning evenly in the pot.

It's always a good idea

when you're trying to get
color on food

not to move it around too much.

And we can just
get rid of this fat.

We don't need it for anything.

All right, so now we want
to start building this pot.

Again, our goal
is so that everything comes out

perfectly cooked
and all at the same time.

So we're going
to start off with potatoes.

This is one and a half
pounds of small red potatoes.

And then we have
our fennel, and this is the bulb

and we've simply quartered
it, took the little stem

off the bottom.

We want everything to be
in a nice single layer here.

Next up, two carrots that
we've cut into half-inch pieces.

And then finally,
our bouquet garni.

It's going to help
to flavor that broth.

So we have eight peppercorns

along with two
whole garlic cloves

and a quarter-teaspoon of salt.

Next up, we have
our chicken broth.

And what we're looking for is
to add enough broth so that

the top half-inch
of the vegetables sticks

right above the broth.

All right, Chris, if you could
hand that chicken over, please.

All right.

Put it right near me.

So the first thing I want
to put in is the dark meat.

And we'll lay this right
on top of the vegetables.

Now, they are not
submerged at this point.

As it simmers,
the water is going to rise up

and that moist heat
is basically going to submerge

these chicken thighs,
and that's a great thing

for dark meat because the moist
heat will really tenderize it.

It's a very
efficient way of cooking.

All right, next up,
we'll go ahead and put

these sausages right
beside the chicken.

And again, the liquid
in the pot is going to cover

the stuffing here.

All right, and then finally
we have our chicken breasts.

And they are going to go right
on top of the chicken quarters.

So let's crank
up the heat, here.

We want to bring this up
to a boil and then after that,

I'm going to cover it and I'll
put this in a 300-degree oven.

We want to let it stay
in there until that breast meat

registers 160 degrees.

That's going to take anywhere
from an hour up to 75 minutes.

All right, so the chicken
still has a few more minutes.

I just checked the temperature,
so it's going to come out here

in just a moment, but we have
some time to make a nice sauce.

It's got some great flavors
in it-- mustard, a little bit

of cornichon-- but also
those herbs that we used before:

the parsley, the marjoram and,
of course, the fennel fronds.

- You keep throwing in French
words all the time.

Cornichon.

- Gherkin,
is that better?

(laughs)

All right,
so we have a third-cup

of extra virgin olive oil,
and here's the cornichons.

This is six little tiny
cornichons, great pickly flavor.

And we've minced them.

Two tablespoons
of minced parsley.

I've got a tablespoon
of minced fennel fronds.

We have a teaspoon
more of the marjoram.

A little bit more of that grainy
mustard-- this is two teaspoons.

We have two teaspoons
of minced shallot

and for some lemon flavor,
I've got a half a teaspoon

of grated lemon zest
and two tablespoons

of the juice.

Finally, a little
bit of seasoning here.

We've got a quarter-teaspoon
of black pepper.

And then all we have
to do is whisk this together.

All right, so we're going
to let those flavors meld.

It takes about 15 minutes.

In the meantime, I think the
chicken should be ready by now.

- It smells ready.

- And it's ready.

So 160, we're in business.

- Smells fabulous.

- It does smell so good.

All right, so now let's
get that chicken out of there.

We're just going to put this
on a cutting board for a moment.

And then we'll also
get that stuffing out.

I'm going to go ahead
and get the vegetables out.

All right, last fennel wedge.

All right, Chris,
so that's it for the vegetables.

You can put that
right back over there.

So lastly, I just want
to strain the broth.

And now,
we do want to defat this.

Between the chicken
and that pork it was quite a bit

of fat that comes off
of this, especially since

we used the skin.

So we'll pour this
into our fat separator

and we're going to let this
sit here for about five minutes

and let that fat
start to separate.

All right, it's time to serve.

And we're going to start off
with our little sausage stuffing

that we have here.

All right, so we
just want to start slicing this

into half-inch slices.

We can go ahead and arrange
these right on the platter,

if you can move that fork.

All right,
so let's move on to the chicken.

Now, the skin
has given a flavor to the sauce.

Going to rip off
that skin now, because nobody

wants flabby skin.

And again, we want to cut
this into half-inch slices.

And that chicken is moist;
it's not overcooked at all.

Place this right on top.

All right,
finally the dark meat.

Same thing, we want
to get rid of the skin.

And we're going
to leave this on the bone,

but to make it easier for people
to eat, we're just going

to cut right between
the drumstick and the thigh.

All right, so we
can sprinkle some parsley over,

and we also want
to moisten all these ingredients

with about a half a cup
of our defatted broth

right over the meat, the
sausage, and we are good to go.

What would you like?

- White meat and sausage.

- Fantastic.

- Yes.

- This is
the payoff here, look at that.

A bit more of that broth.

- This is the nage, the broth.

- Oh, look at that.

- It does look good.

- And don't forget, we've got
a little bit of that sauce.

Good to go.

- I'm ready.

This is the best
one-pot meal ever.

Chicken, potatoes,
fennel, carrots, sausage.

(laughs)

Mmm.

- It's so tender.

Lots of that fennel
flavor going through, too.

And the broth itself
has so much flavor

and it's not watery at all.

- So we just did chicken
in a pot the French way,

which means we had a quartered
chicken, sauteed it briefly,

took it out,
then we built it multilayer

with potatoes
and fennel and carrots.

The leg quarters down
and then we put our sausage logs

on there, breasts on top,
300-degree oven covered

in a Dutch oven for about an
hour, hour and 15 minutes,

and we made a
nice little sauce on the side--

cornichon and marjoram,
a little mustard and lemon zest.

So there you have it
from America's Test Kitchen

to your kitchen, French-style
chicken and stuffing in a pot.

Merveilleux!

Fantastique!

- Fermez la bouche.

- (chuckles)

- In America,
boiled meat has been thrown out

as a very
old-fashioned technique,

along with a cast-iron kettle,
but the French know differently.

They love choucroute,
or maybe pot au feu.

It's a great way
of cooking meat and vegetables

simply and deliciously.

So let's go
into the test kitchen with Julia

that's a very
modern one-pot dinner.

You know, people often
ask me what the trends are

in cooking,
and I think the biggest trends

is the kids watch
a lot of cooking shows.

They watch our show a lot.

Here's a very nice letter
from a kid who's actually made

one of our recipes
and was very successful.

"My 16-year-old daughter
Madeleine decided to compete

in the Pennsylvania 4-H
chicken barbecue competition."

- Wow.

- "She decided to use
your Cornell chicken recipe and,

"thanks to you, she won
an all-expense-paid trip

"to Louisville, Kentucky,
so she can compete

"in the National Egg
and Poultry Convention

for a $500 scholarship."

- That's awesome!

- See, we change lives.

- That's terrific.

- One chicken
recipe at a time.

Isn't that nice?

- That is a great letter.

- So Madeleine, congratulations.

I hope she wins the big prize.

So today we're doing
something totally different,

which is one of my favorite
things, which is cooking meat

in simmering water or broth.

And that's a very clean way--
it's an old-fashioned thing.

- Very old-fashioned.

- That most people
don't do today, but actually,

I like it as
my favorite way of cooking meat.

It's very clean
and there's nice simple flavors.

- That's right,
and it's pretty easy.

- So this is a pork stew.

- This is a pork stew,
and as with most stews,

you have to start with
a base of aromatic ingredients

and that's what
we're going to do here.

And I'm going to put them

inside a triple-layer
cheesecloth sachet

that I'll make and that way
it'll be easy

to pluck
out of the finished stew.

So we have about six sprigs
of parsley, three big sprigs

of fresh thyme, two bay leaves,
five cloves of garlic.

There's two whole clove,
not a lot but their flavor

is very potent.

And then some black peppercorns.

So now I'm going to pick up
the corners of the cheesecloth,

just make a little pouch,
and using some kitchen twine,

just tie it off.

And then add that
right to the pot.

And to round out the
vegetable aromatics, we're going

to add two onions.

We don't have to chop them up.

I'm just going to halve them
and then we can pluck the halves

out of the finished stew.

You want to make sure
you've sliced them in half

through this root end
so that they hold together.

Add them right to the pot.

And now we're going
to add some smoked ham hocks.

And this will
really help flavor the stew

with a nice smokey,
deep rich flavor.

Now on to the main meat.

This is the pork,
and this is pork shoulder.

And this is pretty
traditional cut to use for stew.

Again, because
it comes from the shoulder,

it has more intramuscular
fat and it can withstand

the long cooking time
and turn really tender.

So if you start off with a
three-pound piece like this,

you might trim away anywhere
from a half a pound to a pound

of fat,
and that's pretty expected.

And you don't want that
to go into the pot

because it'll
make the stew greasy.

So you just want to pull it
apart, and it's a combination

of using your hands
and using the knife.

And you want to shave
off any bits of fat

or silver skin
that are easy to get at.

So we're going
to cut these down into one-

to one-and-a-half-inch
sized stew pieces.

And obviously I'm
not browning any meat here,

I'm just adding the stuff
to the pot cold,

and that is a calculated
move on our part.

We get a cleaner
pork flavor, and of course

with the smoked
ham hocks in there,

you get that deep
roasted flavor anyway.

So now we're going
to add the liquids,

and most recipes we found use
water, and this is five cups

of water.

But we also found that
if you use part water,

part chicken broth, you get
a bit of a richer flavor.

So this is four
cups chicken broth.

Now we're going
to bring this to a simmer

and skim off any scum
that rises to the top.

Then we're going to cover it and
finish it in a 325-degree oven

for about an hour and a half
or so until the pork pieces

are nice and tender.

All right, so the
pork stew has been in the oven

for about an hour and a half.

Oh, that smells good.

- I just like,
as you said earlier, it's clean.

It's very simple and it's clean.

- That's right.

And so now we're going
to take out the onion halves

and that bundle of herbs.

They were just
to lend flavor to the broth.

I'm also going
to take out the ham hocks

and let them cool a little bit,
and then I'm going to pull off

whatever meat I can
because there's a little bit

of meat around some.

Some hocks have
more meat than others.

And at this point we're going
to start to add the vegetables

to the stew.

Obviously if you put all the
vegetables in at the beginning,

they'd be baby food by now,

so we're going
to add the hearty vegetables,

which are
the potatoes and the carrots.

And the potatoes are cut
into biggish chunks,

about three-quarters of an inch.

The carrots are a bit smaller
because they're a bit denser

and need to take a little bit
longer to cook,

so they're about half an inch.

Put the lid back on and now
the stew goes back into the oven

for about 20 to 25
minutes until the vegetables

are nearly tender.

- Our first letter
today comes from Maria

from Sacramento.

She wants to know about
stovetops and heat output.

She writes:

Well, they actually
mean almost nothing,

and that's because
different stovetops put out

different amounts of heat.

And to get some idea of the
range, what we did was take

a 10-inch disposable pie plate,
we added 16 ounces of water

to the plate, put that
on the burner, turned the burner

on high,
and we did this with a bunch

of different stovetops here
in the kitchen and at home

with our test cooks.

The hottest burner boiled
the water in two minutes

and 43 seconds.

The slowest burner took three
minutes and 50 seconds--

almost four minutes.

So that gives you a pretty
good idea of range in output.

You can gauge your stove
based upon those times.

Karen from Austin asks:

Well, to answer
the question, we cooked a bunch

of vegetables separately,
froze them separately,

and then reheated each of them.

It turns out that most of the
vegetables that would be used

in a vegetable stew actually
reheat just fine after freezing.

The two exceptions were potatoes
and squash, and why is that?

Well, when you freeze
vegetables, there's a lot

of water in the vegetables and
those ice crystals form and tend

to destroy the fundamental
structure of the vegetable.

Potatoes and squash, however,
have very low fiber content,

which means they're particularly
susceptible to ice crystals.

Everything else is fine
but potatoes and squash

should be cooked
separately, then added to a stew

after you reheat it.

And finally, Pam from Hopkinton
has a great question

about stock and broth.

She writes:

Well, technically, broth
is made with meat,

stock is not made
with meat, it's made with bones.

The problem is,
when you go to the supermarket,

those terms tend
to be interchangeable.

The other problem is,
the commercial stock

or broth uses
almost no meat at all.

What they do is use chemicals
like glutamates or nucleotides

to imitate the meaty
flavor you expect in a broth.

So broth or stock, it really
doesn't matter when you go

to the supermarket.

Just find a brand you like.

- So the stew
has been in there for another 20

to 25 minutes
so those vegetables

should be pretty tender.

So now we're just going to add
those last few ingredients,

which include some
of the meat from the ham hocks.

Now, like I said, some ham hocks
have more meat than others,

but it's good meat
if you can find a few nuggets.

It really adds a little
extra something to the stew.

We're also going
to add some sausage.

And sausage
is a really common ingredient

in this style of stew.

So we tried pork sausages, we
tried chorizo and linguica.

They weren't quite right.

So we landed on kielbasa, it has
a nice mild, easy-going flavor.

And this
is 12 ounces of kielbasa,

the meat from the
ham hocks, and now some cabbage,

also a very traditional
vegetable you add to this stew.

And this is
Savoy cabbage, which cooks

a little bit more
quickly than regular cabbage.

And, of course, we
shredded it so that it will cook

at the same rate
as the kielbasa.

And so this will only take
about 15 or 20 more minutes

for the kielbasa to really warm
through and the cabbage

to cook.

So we're just going
to stir this all together,

try to get the cabbage
submerged into the liquid.

That smells good.

- It smells good, it
looks good, and it will be good.

- All right.

So, lid goes back on,
back into the 325-degree oven

for another 15 minutes or so
until the cabbage is tender.

All right, so the stew's been
in the oven for about 15 minutes

with the cabbage and the meat.

All right, so now we're going
to finish it with some parsley.

And this is a quarter-cup
of chopped parsley.

And of course, we have
to season it

with salt and pepper because
we really haven't seasoned it

with any seasoning all the way
along, so it's really crucial.

Here, you know what?

I'll let you taste it.

- Oh, look at this,
this is after 14 years,

I finally get the tasting spoon?

- We'll hold
this for you, yup.

- I'm suspicious.

- It's blazing hot,
I will warn you.

- I feel like this is Peanuts
with Charlie Brown.

Something bad's going to happen.

- I'm going
to pull the football away?

- Yes, something like that.

It was good;
it needed a little salt.

- A little pepper?

- That's better, yes.

A little pepper, go ahead, yeah.

A little more pepper,
I like pepper.

- Yeah, I do, too.

- Oh, this looks good.

- Oh, this does look good.

- Mmm.

- You're using a fork,
I'm using a spoon.

Interesting.

- No, you always
eat the meat first

before someone else steals it
from you, that's my theory.

- Ah, you're
from a big family.

- Yeah.

This is fabulous,
and if this sits for another day

in the fridge, it's
also going to taste even better.

So there you have it, we
have a French-style pork stew,

and the secret
was actually doing no browning

on top of the stove.

We used pork shoulder,
or pork butt, as it's called,

some ham hock, some onions,
water and chicken stock,

put that in the oven
for about an hour and a half.

Then we added
the longer-cooked vegetables,

carrots and potatoes.

And then the last stage was
some cabbage and some kielbasa

which is already pre-cooked.

So there we have it,
from America's Test Kitchen

to your kitchen, a great recipe
for traditional-style

French pork stew.

You can get this recipe and all
the recipes from this season,

you can watch
select episodes of this show