America's Test Kitchen (2000–…): Season 21, Episode 22 - Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup - full transcript

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-Welcome to
"America's Test Kitchen"

at home.

Today, it's all about
cooking in cast iron.

First up, I'm making a pan pizza
with an unbeatable crust.

Adam's gonna tell us
how to take care

of our cast-iron cookware.



And Keith's making a baked ziti
with charred tomatoes.

We've got a great show today,
so stick around.

♪♪

The year 1980 was a big year
for me.

I'm not talking about
the Winter Olympics

being in New York or any kind
of geopolitical event.

I'm talking about
two huge inventions

that came out that year.

One -- "PAC-MAN."

Big deal.

The other one was
that Pizza Hut introduced

and rolled out the pan pizza
to all of their restaurants.

Now, "PAC-MAN" and Pizza Hut,
for me, go hand in hand

because I spent
all of my babysitting money



hanging out at that pizzeria,

eating pizza
out of a cast-iron dish.

And I'm gonna make that
for you today,

and it's so easy.

This might actually be
the easiest pizza

that you'll ever make.

So one thing that we want to do
is create a dough

that's nice and soft
and plush inside.

Of course, after it bakes,
it gets a nice crust on it.

But we're gonna start off
with some bread flour.

So I'm gonna weigh out
my bread flour here.

I need 11 ounces.

Dough is just basically
flour and water,

and it's the ratio
that's really going to have

an impact on the end result,

so a good idea
to weigh out your flour.

Next up, we got
a teaspoon of salt

and a teaspoon of instant yeast.

It's sometimes called
rapid-rise yeast as well.

This is, again, a teaspoon.

Before I add my water,

I'm just gonna give this
a quick stir.

All right,
so I'm done with the scale.

Now we're gonna add our water,

and we're using
8 ounces of water here.

So this is
a pretty well-hydrated dough.

When you start talking
about something

called baker's percentage,

that's how we figure out
how much water

is in the dough in relation
to the weight of the flour.

It's 11 ounces of flour
and 8 ounces of water.

Now, this is pretty warm water.

It should register
between 105 to 110 degrees,

so that looks great.

It's really just kick-starting
the fermentation process,

get things bubbling quicker.

So I'm going to add this
right in

and stir it around
with my wooden spoon here.

And you notice
I don't have a mixer.

We don't actually need one

since we're working with
a high-hydration dough.

When the dough starts
to come together,

we're gonna just knead this
right in the bowl,

and I'm gonna use my hands

and just knead it
for about a minute

until it really starts
to come together.

And it should be
a little bit sticky.

And that is all the kneading

that we need to do
to this dough.

I've got here a pie plate.

It's a 9-inch pie plate,

and I have already sprayed it

with a little bit of
vegetable oil cooking spray.

I'm gonna plop this dough round
right in there.

So just patting it out
to about a 7-inch circle

here in this pie plate.

This is not the dish that we're
going to bake our pizza in,

so don't worry.

Now I'm going to spray the top

with a little bit of
vegetable oil baking spray

and cover the pan
with some plastic wrap.

So at this point, this is going
to go into the fridge,

and we're gonna leave it
in there

for quite a bit of time --

anywhere between 12 to 24 hours.

While the dough
is in the fridge,

the yeast is going to feed
on the carbohydrates

and the sugars in the dough,

and it's gonna start
that fermentation process.

We're gonna have alcohols,
flavorful esters,

and other things
that's going to make the dough

taste really, really good.

And a high-hydration dough
also helps to build structure.

With many pizza dough recipes,

we're used to giving the dough
a lengthy kneading process

in order to build structure,
but there is another way.

Let's first look at what happens
when we knead dough in a mixer.

In order for gluten to form,

the two proteins in wheat,
glutenin and gliadin,

must first mix with water.

The proteins become mobile,

find each other,
and bond together.

Mechanically mixing a dough
for several minutes

helps this process along.

However, our pizza dough is made
with a high volume of water.

We mix it manually for a minute

and then give the dough plenty
of time to rest in the fridge.

Once in the refrigerator,
the higher percentage of water

in the dough
allows the gluten proteins

to move about on their own.

They find each other
and link up into a protein mesh

without much mixing.

The long stay in the fridge
also allows

for lots of complex flavor
to develop,

making this pizza
not only super easy to make,

but really easy to eat.

All right, let's take a look
at our dough here.

Ah! It had a good rest.

Again, it was 12 to 24 hours.

You can see it's risen
a little bit.

Oh, this looks great.

And I actually
let this sit on the counter

for about 30 minutes,
just so that it can warm up.

It's going to be easier
to shape.

You can see it's nice and puffy.

So again, 12 to 24 hours
in the fridge

and then 30 minutes
at room temperature.

So we're about ready
to transfer it to our pan.

And we are using
a cast-iron pan,

of course, for our pan pizza.

It's going to develop
a beautiful crust

on that pizza
like no other pan can.

I want to get it
good and greased up

because one of the hallmarks
of a great pan pizza

is that almost fried crust,
so you got to load up

the skillet
with quite a bit of oil.

And I'm using 3 tablespoons
of extra virgin olive oil here.

I'm gonna swirl this around
just to make sure

that it's coating
the bottom of that pan.

All right,
that looks well-coated.

There we go.

Gonna put a little bit of oil
on my hands now

because I'm gonna handle
this dough.

I just want to transfer it
into our cast-iron skillet.

So, oh, and now I'm gonna use
my fingertips

to continue to coax this out
a little bit wider shape.

So I want to work this out
to about an 1/8 of an inch

from the edge of the pan.

And it's okay to press down
on the dough a little bit.

You want to knock
some of those bigger bubbles

out at this point.

All right, so now I'll just put
that piece of plastic

right back on top,
and we're gonna let this

sit here at room temperature
for a good hour and a half.

And we're gonna wait
for that dough

to get a little bit puffy.

In the meantime,
we've got plenty of time

to work on our sauce,

and we're making
a no-cook sauce here.

This is a 14-1/2-ounce can
of whole tomatoes

packed in juice.

Just gonna drain it,

and since I want to get out
a lot of the liquid

so that we don't have to
cook the sauce,

I'm just gonna break
these open with my hands

to allow those juices
to drain through.

There we go.

Now I'm just pressing on
the solids here in the strainer

to really get rid of
some of that juice.

Looks like I'm gonna be making
a mean Bloody Mary later.

All right, so that's looking
pretty good.

Now I'm going to put
these tomato solids

into my food processor.

We have a few more ingredients
we want to add.

First of all,
I've got my friendly bag

of frozen garlic cloves.

They come pre-peeled.

I love to store them
in the freezer.

Let them thaw just for a moment,

because then it's easy
to grate them

instead of mince them.

You can, of course,
use a garlic press

or mince them by hand.

I'm just using
a rasp grater here.

There we go.

I'm going to add
another teaspoon

of extra virgin olive oil --
some nice flavor --

and 1/4 teaspoon of table salt.

I have 1/4 teaspoon of sugar,

1/4 teaspoon of dried oregano,

and a pinch of
red pepper flakes.

Just a little heat.

It's up to you --
big pinch, little pinch.

I'm going big pinch.

All right, lid goes on,

and I'm gonna let this process
until it's nice and smooth.

It's gonna take
about 30 seconds.

And that is our easy
no-cook sauce --

concentrated flavors.

And you can actually make this
up to three days in advance.

Just store it in your fridge.

All we have to do
is wait on the dough.

It's cheese time!

I've got mozzarella.

This is whole-milk mozzarella,
gone ahead and shredded this.

It's about 7 ounces,
or 1 3/4 cups.

We're using Monterey Jack
as well.

This is 4 ounces
of Monterey Jack,

and you'll see why
in just a moment.

But for now,
all I need to do is shred this

on the large holes
of a box grater as well.

Put that aside.

Let's bring that pan
with our crust,

that beautiful dough,
and you can see

it's just started
to get a little bit puffy.

We let it sit
for an hour and a half,

so it's just given it time

to rise a little bit
and wake back up.

First of all,
I'm going to add 1/2 a cup

of our no-cook sauce
to our pizza.

Now I'm going to spread this

until it's about 1/2 inch
from the edge of the pizza.

Mmm, mmm, mmm.

So now we're gonna bring in
our Monterey Jack cheese.

We're not topping the pizza
with Monterey Jack cheese.

We're actually going to create
a wall around the perimeter.

Sometimes when you order
a pan pizza

and a little bit of the cheese
hits the side of the pan,

it starts to fry and turn brown.

That's called frico,
and we love it so much

that we're creating it
from the bottom up.

So I'm gonna go ahead
and sprinkle

this Monterey Jack
around the perimeter.

And we're using Monterey Jack
here because it is

a drier cheese than mozzarella,

and it's a little less salty.

Just making sure I have enough
to go around.

It's okay if it touches
a little bit of the sauce.

So that's looking good.

I've spread it all around
the perimeter,

and now I'm just gonna press it
onto the edges of the pan

to create kind of a 1/4-inch
to a 1/2-inch-tall cheese wall.

Now, that is looking
pretty good.

Now, obviously, as it bakes,
some of this cheese

is gonna slump down
a little bit.

That's perfectly fine.

We want to get some good
adherence to the pan.

That way it'll brown nicely.

And we can't forget
about the middle,

so we're gonna use
our mozzarella here.

And this is 7 ounces
of whole-milk mozzarella,

and it just goes
right over the sauce.

Oh! Amazing.

So this is ready to bake,

and I'm gonna put it
in a 400-degree oven.

I'm gonna place it
on the lowest oven rack,

and that assures me
that the bottom of this pan

is close to the heat source,

and we can start to get
some good browning.

So we're gonna leave it in there
for about 25, up to 30 minutes,

until it looks
really well browned.

♪♪

Ooh!

Now, that's a pizza.

Oh, look at that sizzling

and the crust
around the edge of the pan.

Beautiful, where the cheese
started to melt.

So before I move on,
I'm just gonna let this sit here

for about three minutes
until the sizzling stops.

I'm gonna keep a towel
on the pan handle,

just remind myself
not to touch it.

All right, the bubbling stopped,

and now I'm gonna take
a butter knife

and just run it around
the edge of the pan.

That's why I wanted this pizza
to sit for about three minutes.

It's gonna allow the cheese
to loosen from the sides.

And also, I'm gonna take
a peek underneath

and see how
the browning is doing.

Oh! The edge is amazing.

So I'm gonna take
a very thin spatula here

and just take a peek underneath

to see how the browning's
doing there.

I can see a little bit
of color there,

but I want to get this
a little bit more brown,

so I'm going to put the burner
on underneath the pan,

turn it to medium,
and I'm gonna let this go

for up to five minutes.

I'll lift it up and check it
every few minutes

just to make sure
that it's not over-browning.

Looks great, smells even better,

and I just checked
under the hood,

so to speak,
and the color looks beautiful.

So I'm gonna take
two thin spatulas,

and that pizza comes right out

and I'm gonna transfer it
to a wire rack.

I'm gonna let this cool down
for about 10 minutes

before I eat it.

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That might have been the longest
10 minutes of my entire life,

but the pizza's now safe to eat
because it's cool enough.

I'm gonna slide it
off of the rack here.

There we go.

And here's a trick
that I learned from a friend

that used to work at a pizzeria.

You start right in the middle,
and then you go out.

That way, you're not
crushing the crust.

Let's pull us apart and see
what's going on on the inside.

Oh! Doesn't that look amazing?

Oh, and it's super crisp, too.

All right, so I'm gonna
do the same here,

cut this right across
from the center.

And I'm gonna stop cutting now
because, well,

I just want to start eating it.

Beautiful, fluffy interior.

Really beautiful crumb.

We'll see how it tastes, though.

Mmm.

Super cheesy.

I'm gonna go for the crust,
and again,

that's where
that frico cheese is.

Mmm!

That is what this pizza
is all about.

It's that super-cheesy crust
that got nice and toasted.

I love it because we took
the best of the '80s,

and we left all that
other junk behind.

So if you want to make this
incredible pan pizza at home,

remember these keys --

make a dough with
a high percentage of water,

build a wall of cheese
around the perimeter,

and finish the pizza
right on the stovetop.

So from "America's Test Kitchen"
at home,

a plush and crisp,
super-cheesy, and super-easy

cast-iron pan pizza.

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Super cheesy.

♪♪

-The test kitchen teems
with fans of cast iron,

and why not?

It's a heat-retention pro,
it's stick-resistant,

it's inexpensive,
and it's durable.

Cast iron always
has to be seasoned,

and a lot of times the factory
takes care of that for you.

It's not hard to do yourself,
though.

And for full information,
you can go to our website.

Once you have cooked
in your cast iron,

then you have to clean it
fairly carefully,

and there are
a few different steps.

While it's still warm,

you want to wipe it out
with paper towel

to get rid of residual food
and oil

and then give it a rinse
under warm running water.

If there's still gunk
stuck in there,

you have four different options.

The first is to use
a non-metal scrub brush.

This is our favorite.

It's the Oxo Good Grips
grill pan brush.

It's about $10.

Or you can use
a non-abrasive scrubber.

This one is our favorite.

This is the Knapp Made
small-ring CM Scrubber.

It's about $20.

If you have neither
of those available,

you still have two options.

You can make a paste
out of kosher salt

and a dab of warm oil.

The salt crystals can act
as an abrasive

and get the gunk off.

Or you can just use
a little bit of dish detergent.

Whatever you use,
you want to make sure

that you rinse the pan really
well under hot running water

and dry it really carefully,
but you're not done yet.

Put it over medium-low heat

and evaporate
any last traces of moisture,

because you can't let it soak
or drip dry

like other kinds of cookware.

I go through
one more little step

when I clean my cast iron,

and that is to maintain
the seasoning

by putting just 1/2 a teaspoon
of neutral oil

into the pan while it's warm
and wiping it into the surface

with a paper towel
until it feels and looks slick.

I don't want it to feel oily.

And then I just let
the pan cool down.

That's a great habit to get into
to maintain the seasoning.

All right, now my favorite part
of cast iron --

it does party tricks.

Some recipes and techniques

have you use a flame tamer
to maintain really low heat,

say, if you're gonna
keep mashed potatoes warm

or cook in earthenware.

Your cast-iron skillet
can act as a flame tamer.

You put your pan
right on the skillet,

and the skillet will moderate
the direct heat of the burner.

Another trick --
if you are making panini

but you don't have
a panini press,

put your two panini
in the skillet,

and then if you have
a second cast-iron skillet,

that goes right on top,

and that serves
as a panini press.

It weights them down perfectly,
and you'll get a gorgeous crust.

The last trick that I love
is this one.

A 10-inch cast-iron skillet
can act as a pie plate

if you need an extra one.

So those are all the reasons
we love cast iron.

It is cheap,
it's stick-resistant,

and it's so durable you can
will it to your grandkids.

♪♪

-Baked ziti can be
a time-consuming recipe.

Between making the sauce,
cooking the pasta,

assembling the dish,
and baking the dish,

it can seem like a project.

But I have a streamlined version
of baked ziti

that tastes just as delicious
and can be made in one pan.

In fact, I have the pan heating
up on the stove right now,

and it's a 12-inch
cast-iron skillet.

Now, we're gonna be able
to make the sauce,

cook the pasta,
and bake the final dish

right in one pan.

Super easy.

But first, we're gonna start
with our tomatoes.

I have 1 1/2 pounds
of grape tomatoes here.

I'm gonna add 1 tablespoon
of extra virgin olive oil

and a teaspoon of salt.

I'm just gonna toss that
really well.

Our tomatoes are ready,

and now it's time
to go on the skillet.

Okay, I'm gonna add this
to our preheated skillet.

Now, it doesn't sound like much,
but that skillet's really hot.

It's saturated with heat,

and it's gonna start
to char those tomatoes,

which is gonna build
a ton of flavor in our sauce.

And the idea is that
we want to char these tomatoes

pretty quickly,
because as the juice is released

from the tomatoes,
it will inhibit browning.

So we want to get that pan
nice and hot

right at the beginning
and char the tomatoes.

It will be delicious.

I'm just gonna let those char,
stirring occasionally,

for about 10 minutes
until they start to break down

and are nice and soft.

But while that happens,
I'm gonna mince some garlic.

Okay, I have 6 cloves
of garlic here,

so a fair amount of garlic,

but it's gonna add
a nice flavor to this sauce.

Okay, that's our garlic.

Let's take a look at our tomato.

Now we have some action here.
Oh, that's great.

And you can start to see
all this charring

on the tomatoes.

So these are looking great.

I'm gonna let them go
for a little bit longer,

stirring occasionally, until
they're all nicely charred.

It's been 10 minutes,
and you can see that we have

a lot of nice char
on these tomatoes

and they've started
to break down.

Now we're gonna add
a couple more ingredients

to make this sauce
really complete.

We have our garlic --
6 cloves of garlic.

I'm also gonna add
a teaspoon of tomato paste.

That's gonna give the sauce

a little bit more
tomato complexity.

And 1/4 teaspoon
of red pepper flakes.

I'm just gonna stir this in
and cook for about 30 seconds

until we can smell that garlic.

Okay, that smells
absolutely wonderful.

Now, I need to break
these tomatoes down

a little bit more
to create a sauce,

so I'm gonna shut the heat off,

and I'm gonna grab
a potato masher,

or should I say a tomato masher.

And I'm just gonna mash
these down a little bit.

Okay, that looks good.

Now, for our pasta,

we're doing baked ziti,
so we need ziti.

I have 12 ounces of pasta,
add that right to the skillet,

and 3 cups of water.

Just gonna stir this.

You scrape anything off
the bottom of the skillet.

Now I'm gonna turn the heat
to high

and bring this up to a boil.

Okay, our water is at a boil.

Now I'm gonna turn this down.

I want to maintain
a vigorous simmer

to make sure that pasta cooks
really nicely and evenly.

And I'm gonna stir this
quite often.

I want to make sure that that
pasta stays below the liquid.

I'm also gonna put a lid
on this

to make sure
that we trap that steam.

Okay, we'll come back
in about 15 minutes

and check on our pasta.

♪♪

It's been about 10 minutes.

We should check on our pasta
and give it a stir.

Yeah, we're getting close.

Now, you can see that
it's starting to get dry,

so we want to make sure that
we're in here stirring often

so it doesn't stick
to the bottom of the pan,

but it's looking really good.

We'll just let this finish up
for a couple minutes,

and then I'll prep a couple
last ingredients for our dish.

First, we're gonna grate
some mozzarella cheese.

I have 4 ounces here.

And what's baked ziti
without basil -- fresh basil?

I'm gonna mince a lot of this,
1/4 cup of chopped basil leaves.

Basil's one of
my favorite things to chop

because it's so easy.

You just stack the leaves up,

roll it into a nice cylinder,

and then just cut across.

Turn that just 90 degrees

and cut across it like that,

just so I don't have really,
really long, stringy pieces.

So that's it.

We're gonna wait for our pasta
to finish up,

and then we can
finish this dish.

Okay, it's time to check
the pasta to see if it's done.

It looks good.

Take one of these out.

It's great.

It's a little al dente
right now,

but it will be perfect
once it's baked.

So I'm gonna shut this off
so it doesn't cook anymore.

I'm gonna add
a 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese,

stir this in,

then I'm gonna add
our 1/4 cup of basil.

And I want to season this.

When I checked earlier to see
if the pasta was done,

it definitely needed some salt

and a good grind
of black pepper.

This looks good enough
to eat right now,

but we want to add
our mozzarella.

Okay, it's time to put
the "bake" in our baked ziti.

I have my broiler preheated.

I'm gonna put that in there
for about five minutes

until the cheese
is melted and brown.

Now, I don't want to walk away.

I want to keep an eye on this
and make sure it doesn't burn.

Oh, it looks great.

Oh, it's perfect.

That cheese is melted,
nice and brown.

This is looking
absolutely fantastic.

So just five minutes
under that broiler,

the cheese is melted
and browned and nice and gooey,

but it's really hot right now.

So I'm gonna wait a couple
minutes before I tuck into it.

I can't wait any longer.
I need to eat this.

Ah, look at that cheese stretch.

Beautiful.

Oh, yeah.

Ooh.

The first thing you notice

is actually
the texture of the sauce.

All that starch from the pasta
has come out,

but we've kept it,
so it has a really, really

creamy texture
that clings to the pasta,

just enough mozzarella
to make it rich and creamy.

The Parmesan adds
a nice nuttiness.

This is such a great recipe.

It's hard to believe that
it's cooked in only one pan.

So if you want to try
this recipe at home,

remember two things --

use a cast-iron skillet
and use fresh grape tomatoes.

So from "America's Test Kitchen"
at home,

a great recipe
for cast-iron baked ziti

with charred tomatoes.