America's Test Kitchen

-Today on "America's Test Kitchen," Alex makes Bridget cold-start pan-seared chicken breast with cherry and rosemary pan sauce.

Adam reviews paper towels.

And Sam makes Julia the fastest, easiest mashed potatoes.

It's all coming up right here on "America's Test Kitchen."

"America's Test Kitchen" is brought to you by the following.

-Plugr European style butter was created for all chefs, cooks, and bakers, slow-churned with 82% butterfat for a smooth texture and more pliability for flaky crusts.

Plugr -- from professional kitchens to your home.

-On an American Cruise Lines journey, you can explore the Columbia and Snake Rivers.

Our boats journey through the breathtaking Pacific Northwest, where towering cliffs and cascading waterfalls line your path.

You'll follow Lewis and Clark's trail and explore historic towns, all from a modern American riverboat, where you can experience local customs and cuisine.

American Cruise Lines, proud sponsor of "America's Test Kitchen."

-GreenPan Frost, the frozen treat maker that makes ice cream, sorbet, slushies, and more with a built-in chiller that goes from fresh to frozen.

GreenPan Frost.

-Hungryroot delivers groceries designed for your taste, budget, and health goals with the collection of recipes that come together in minutes.

We're a personal shopper, meal planner, and chef all in one.

-Smithey Ironware -- polished for performance, naturally nonstick, clear of chemical coatings, made in America, made to be passed down for generations.

Smithey -- Use it well.

-Pan-seared chicken breasts are not just a recipe.

They're an opportunity.

An opportunity for home cooks to learn how to cook chicken so that the meat is nice and juicy, and you get to work on a beautiful pan sauce as well.

Well, who better to teach us all of this than our season 2 "America's Test Kitchen: The Next Generation" winner, Alex.

Welcome to the Test Kitchen.

-Thank you, Bridget.

I'm so excited to be here.

In cooking, It's pretty customary to start searing chicken breasts in an extremely hot pan.

-Yes.

-So we're basically going to throw all that out the window and start with a cold pan.

And this is going to give us a really nice sear and a perfectly cooked inside.

-Alex is breaking all the rules from the moment he walked in here.

I love it, but I know we're in great hands.

-Here we have four boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and you want to make sure that your chicken breasts weigh 10 ounces or less.

-Okay.

-If they're more than 10 ounces, they're not going to all fit in our pan at the same time.

I find going to the butcher's counter and getting them individually is a great practice.

Also, they can weigh them for you there if you don't have a scale.

So we want to make these a little bit more even.

We have this thicker end and this thinner end.

And we want a nice even surface across the board.

We have plastic wrap on the counter underneath the chicken breasts and some more plastic wrap over the chicken breast.

We could go ahead and just take the meat hammer straight to these, but then we'd just be making a huge mess.

So this is a great way to contain everything.

So we just want to even these out so they're about 1/2 inch all across the board.

-Okay.

-So as I pound it out, I like to do more of a swiping motion rather than go straight down.

Kind of helps spread out the chicken a little bit more evenly.

All right, I'm going to remove this so we can go ahead and get a measurement on these.

-Okay.

-So we're looking for about 1/2 inch here.

-Okay.

-Looks about 1/2 inch to me.

-Nailed it.

-Moisture is the enemy of getting a really, really nice sear.

-Yes.

-We can't get that nice browning if there's a lot of moisture present.

I'm going to take some paper towel and pat off any excess moisture on both sides.

Perfect.

Our chicken has almost no fat in there.

-Right.

-So we need a little bit of fat for that heat transfer.

Here I have 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil.

Any high smoke point neutral cooking oil will do here.

-Okay, great.

-I'm going to brush these evenly, both sides, so we have it all coated.

This layer of fat will allow for really, really nice heat transfer to the chicken and will give us a perfect sear.

All right, I have 2 teaspoons of kosher salt.

And we're going to season these evenly on all sides.

So each one is going to get around 1/2 teaspoon.

-Okay.

-I'm always seasoning from a height here so we get an even distribution of the salt.

We're going to go ahead and place these in our pan.

So we have a nonstick pan, 12 inches.

That should fit our chicken breasts great.

-Okay.

-A lot of people like searing in stainless steel.

That works great from a preheated state.

So since we're starting from cold, this is going to help us out a lot more and avoid any sticking.

Nonstick works great here.

If you're a fan of carbon steel, that works really well too.

That has a nice natural nonstick layer, right?

We like nonstick or carbon steel for this.

I've washed my hands so now we can get cooking.

We need to make sure we're starting out on high heat so we can drive off the moisture and really start that process.

-Okay, great.

And as quick as possible.

-Exactly.

We start on low to medium, we're just going to build up steam and we're not going to get that browning.

So we're going to go on high for two minutes.

-Okay.

So the cold pan though, cold pan theory.

Where are we going with that?

-When you start in a hot pan, especially with such a lean protein, that dry layer always appears just under the surface of your sear because you get that sear, but in the process, that really, really intense heat is going to give you that tough, dry layer.

-Okay.

-So by starting in the cold pan, we are building up our sear slowly, gently approaching our internal temperature.

It's been two minutes.

I'm going to go ahead and flip these.

It's been another two minutes.

I'm going to go ahead and flip again.

-A little more browning on that.

-A little bit more exciting there.

Now that each side has had two minutes on high heat, we're going to go ahead and drop to medium.

Now we're just going to keep flipping every two minutes for 6 to 8 minutes until we reach 155 degrees.

-Okay.

-There's a lot of concern with cooking on a high heat with nonstick.

-Right.

-For this, it's really only a few minutes of that high heat, and we're starting from cold, so it's never really getting that hot to cause too much concern.

-Okay.

Good point.

-It's been another two minutes.

Let's go ahead and check our other side.

-Ah, all right.

-Wow.

-Getting some color.

-There's a huge benefit to flipping them so often.

Flipping it allows it to cool down on each side, just under the surface of the sear before the next flip.

So that's going to avoid that really dry, tough layer just under the surface of your sear.

-And allow it to heat through more gently.

-Exactly.

-Okay.

-So you get a nice perfectly cooked interior.

-Yeah.

Because thin-cut chicken breast, you want them to spend as much time in the pan so they can get some good color.

But you don't want to overcook them.

-Right.

And it's a very fine line.

These are looking great.

I think we're just about there.

I'm going to go ahead and take the temperature.

Perfect, 156.

One degree over.

-I mean, I guess 156 is fine for the next generation.

-My generation is happy with 156.

We're going to let these rest for 10 minutes, and we're going to tent them with some tin foil here.

Anytime you cook any meat, you really want to let it rest at least half the time it took to cook.

That's going to allow the juices inside to redistribute themselves.

If we were to cut into this now, all those juices would bleed everywhere and we'd end up with dry chicken, which is what we were trying to avoid in the first place.

We're going to go ahead and make our pan sauce while we wait for our chicken to rest.

-Gorgeous.

All right.

-We're going to start out by prepping some shallot and some rosemary here.

Peeled off all of our skin.

And now we want to go ahead and mince this up nice and fine.

We're going to be looking for 2 tablespoons, which is about one small shallot.

-Okay.

-We're also going to add some minced rosemary to this as well.

You can also use an equal amount of thyme.

They both work really, really well here and pair great with this fruity flavor.

-All right.

-We only used just enough fat just to coat the chicken.

So we need to add a little bit of extra fat to our pan to start sweating our aromatics.

-Okay.

-Here I have 2 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil.

I'm gonna get this back on the heat.

I'm going to add 2 tablespoons of our shallot here.

And 1/2 teaspoon of our rosemary.

We're going to cook these over medium heat for around two minutes.

It's been about two minutes.

They're very fragrant.

And we have some light caramelization around the edges of our shallot here.

We're going to go ahead and deglaze so we can scrape up all of this fond, which is all that buildup from searing off the bottom of our pan.

I have 1 cup of dry red wine.

-Mmm.

-It's really important when you do this to really scrape up off the bottom and incorporate all of that fond into our sauce.

Also going to add 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and 2 teaspoons of sugar.

-All right.

-So that fruity, sweet, tangy flavor, they all work really well together.

We're gonna cook this for five minutes on a medium heat to reduce it down by half its volume.

This is going to concentrate the flavor and cook off the alcohol as well.

-Sounds great.

-It's been around five minutes.

We've reduced down.

It's getting really, really nice and a little bit syrupy, which is great for our end sauce consistency.

I'm going to go ahead and add some frozen sweet cherries, thawed and halved.

We have 5 ounces here, which is around 1/2 cup.

I'm also going to add the juices from our chicken and try not to spill any of our actual chicken in there.

-That's flavor right there.

-We're going to continue cooking this on medium heat for around two minutes, breaking them down just a little bit.

As good as this may taste, it means nothing if we don't have a good sauce consistency.

-Right.

-We're going to add a cornstarch slurry so we can get a really nice consistency.

Here I have 2 teaspoons of water.

I'm going to add this to 1/2 teaspoon of cornstarch and whisk these together.

You always want to make sure you add the water to your cornstarch.

If you just put the cornstarch right in there, it's going to clump up.

I'm going to add this to our sauce here.

Now we want to cook this on high for one minute.

The cornstarch needs to boil to activate those starches.

-Do you do cooking by sound?

-I do, yes.

-Yeah.

-You know, when the bubbles get tighter, you're getting less and less liquid as those sugars are concentrating and there's more fat than there is water in there.

And it goes from like a boiling sound to it's almost a frying sound.

-Right, sizzle.

-You're frying liquid.

Like a sizzle, yeah.

Our sauce looks like it has a really great consistency here.

We just have one final step.

What would a pan sauce be without finishing it with butter?

-It would be illegal.

-I would be arrested, and I don't want to go to jail.

So here I have 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter that's chilled and cut into four pieces.

And I've turned the heat off.

Really important that you incorporate this in off heat and that the butter is cold.

We want to gently melt this butter.

If we heat it excessively, that butter is going to separate.

It has fat and water, and that fat's going to end up on top giving us a greasy feel as that water just dissolves right into the sauce.

It looks amazing.

We just need to make sure it tastes great.

-Okay.

-I'm going to go ahead and check for seasoning here.

We're really close.

Needs a pinch of salt and a touch of pepper.

-Okay.

-All right.

Are you ready to eat?

-I sure am, yes.

-Me too.

We'll go ahead and go one chicken breast per person here.

-Ohh.

-It smells amazing.

-Mmm.

I'm gonna follow you wherever that sauce goes.

-Beautiful.

And whenever I'm saucing anything that's been seared, I find it important to give your sear a little bit of space to peek through.

You don't want to cover the entire thing.

-Yeah.

You want to show your work.

-Exactly.

-All right.

This looks absolutely beautiful.

First test really is getting a piece of chicken without the sauce.

By the way, I got the most challenging part of the chicken.

The tiny little end.

Really well seasoned.

Great flavor.

That's gorgeous.

I mean, it almost tastes like you salted the chicken and let it sit for a while.

But I love it's beautifully juicy inside still.

-I love this recipe.

It all came together in under 20 minutes or so.

And it can be easily done on any weeknight.

-Well, you really are a teacher because you took us through the basics of pan sauce making.

You had the fond already established in the pan.

You heated the aromatics along with the herbs first, deglazed the pan, reduced the liquid in there to concentrate flavor, and then finished it, a little cornstarch, a little butter.

-Absolutely.

And that's what I love about it.

It's such a great format.

-Learning something new never tasted so good.

So thank you, Alex.

-You're welcome.

Thank you.

-And if you want to try this fantastic recipe at home, it starts by pounding boneless chicken breasts so that they're of even thickness.

Then cook them in a cold skillet and flip every two minutes to brown and cook evenly.

Finally, follow up with a beautiful pan sauce.

So from America's Test Kitchen, cold-start pan-seared chicken breast a la Alex.

Mmm.

Fantastic.

All right.

What have you got next?

-Most supermarkets dedicate at least half an aisle to paper towels.

And today, Adam's here to tell us what the difference between all our options are.

-There are so many, and they're so confusing and overwhelming.

We are going to try and slog our way through and come up with the differences.

To do that, we assembled this lineup of 10 different paper towels.

-Wow.

-We had popular name brands.

We had options that are budget-friendly, eco-friendly, and some of the private label ones.

Some of them were full-sheet style, some of them were select-a-size style.

They ranged in cost from about $5 a roll to $1.19 a roll, and that worked out to $0.07 per sheet to $0.01 per sheet.

-Okay, that's a difference.

-That's a difference.

That's a real difference.

Now for the testing, we did a bunch of different stuff.

We analyzed their strength.

We evaluated their absorption capability.

We used them to wipe different surfaces, including wood and stainless steel and granite and glass.

We dried freshly washed dishes, including delicate glassware, with them.

We used them just in daily life for whatever came up for more than a week, and then testers also unrolled them, counted the number of sheets, which ranged from 75 to 180 per roll, and that spoke to the cost per sheet.

The thicknesses varied a little bit.

We measured some of them, the thinner ones, for instance, at .3 millimeters.

-Okay.

-The thicker ones like this were .5 millimeters.

-Oh, yeah.

-And it wasn't a huge surprise.

The thinner sheets were a little less absorbent.

They picked up about 1/4 cup or less of water, as opposed to the thicker sheets, which picked up 1/3 cup or more.

And then this one was the champ.

This picked up more than 1/2 cup of water in just seconds.

-Oh, wow.

-Now, in terms of the strength and how that relates to the thickness and the thinness, I want you to tear off a sheet of this guy there, pour out some of this soy sauce, and do a little wiping up for me, please, Julia.

You're good at making a mess.

-I am very good at making a mess.

Uh-oh.

Uh-oh.

I'm just making a bigger mess.

-Yeah.

-Uh-oh.

I'm going to need a few more for my hand.

-Tear off some extra paper towels.

So you can see that not only do your hands get messy, but you need to use extra sheets because it's not that absorbent.

-Yeah.

-And related to that, testers really found that the packaging terms like double or triple didn't really connote any extra value or cost savings.

What did make a difference is that feature of select-a-size sheets where you can tear off half a sheet of paper towel, you're using less paper, and you can use that to clean up the rest of that mess.

-Thank you.

That was bothering me.

Oh, wow.

This is a dream.

-It's a lot thicker.

It's a lot sturdier, isn't it?

-Yes.

I have towel to spare.

-Excellent.

In the end, we had co-winners.

One of them was this.

This is the Bounty select-a-size.

They both actually had that select-a-size feature.

This one is $3 a roll for 135 sheets.

This is the Viva Signature Cloth Towel.

Also has select-a-size.

This is $4.15 a roll for 141 sheets.

They were strong.

They were thirsty.

They have the select-a-size.

And these are definitely the paper towels to go for.

-Okay, there you have it.

If you find yourself in that aisle wondering which paper towel to buy, there are two you could look for.

The first is the Bounty select-a-size paper towel.

That's about $3 a roll.

And the other is the Viva Signature Cloth Towels at about $4.15 a roll.

When making mashed potatoes, I never use a recipe because it's just so simple.

You cut up some potatoes, you boil them and mash them with butter and cream until they taste just right.

But today, Sam is going to try to convince me that I should follow a recipe because not only is it quicker -- my version takes anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour -- but she claims they'll taste better, which is a high bar.

-I'm willing to take on that challenge, Julia, because this recipe is really reliant on using a perfect formula, and it's going to flip everything that you've ever learned about mashed potatoes on its head.

-Yeah.

Already I see water boiling, so we're already on different pages.

-These mashed potatoes are going to be on our plates in 30 minutes.

And they're also very adaptable, depending on your mashed potato preferences.

-Interesting.

Okay, you have my attention.

-Let's start with our potatoes, of course.

We are using 2 pounds of potatoes total, and we're using Yukon golds.

-Okay.

-They're creamy.

They're buttery.

They're delicious.

The first thing we want to do, of course, per any mashed potato recipe, is peel our potatoes.

We have all of our peeled potatoes.

Again, we're using 2 pounds.

-Mm-hmm.

-And rather than cutting them into chunks, we're going to slice them into 1/4-inch slices.

-Okay.

-Now, you can certainly use a chef's knife for this and certainly take your time.

But I'm going to trust my mighty fine mandoline.

You just want to be super safe about it.

You want to have your finger guard.

I also have my very stylish cut-resistant glove on.

This is great to use if you're using mandolins often, or cutting.

-Or doing a Michael Jackson impersonation.

-Exactly.

So now we're going to take our potatoes, and I'm going to use the hand guard here.

And just one, two, three.

Keep running it through until you get that last little end.

So oftentimes when you're cutting potatoes into chunks, it's kind of hard to cook them evenly because you have thin ends, thicker ends.

It's kind of dicey when you're cooking them.

By having these potatoes sliced perfectly thin from edge to edge, they're going to cook perfectly evenly every single time.

-Okay.

-And now we can get to cooking our potatoes.

And you'll see that we are using a medium saucepan that has one quart of water that's already come to a boil.

-That is not a lot of water.

-It certainly is not.

But because we sliced our potatoes so thin, they're very compact and can fit in a tinier saucepan, which means less water, which means less time waiting for it to come to a boil.

-That is true.

A big pot of water takes 20 to 25 minutes to come to a boil on my stove over high heat.

-Too long for me.

I want mashed potatoes right now.

Now, the thing here is that you want to make sure that your potatoes are fully submerged in your water.

So if you want to add a little bit more, that's okay.

And now we want to bring this up to a boil again on high heat.

And once our potatoes come back up to a boil, we're going to reduce the heat to medium.

Put the cover on top and let them simmer until a paring knife inserts right into a potato without any resistance, which should take about 12 minutes.

-Okay.

12 minutes.

-Mm-hmm.

-If you say so.

-Julia, it's been 12 minutes.

Okay.

-And I promised you cooked potatoes, so let's check them out.

So again, I'm just going to take a paring knife and press it right into the center.

Just 12 minutes.

-That was fast.

-Isn't that so exciting?

-It is kind of exciting.

-All right, so we're going to take our potatoes.

And now we're going to of course drain them.

I have a colander in my sink.

Little potato facial for you.

-Mm-hmm.

Nice and starchy.

-Just give this a little shake and dump our potatoes right back into our saucepan.

All right.

So we have our cooked potatoes.

And now we need to mash our potatoes.

Now this is sort of a choose your own adventure situation.

So we have a couple of options here.

If you wanted a super smooth mashed potato, you could use either this food mill or ricer, or if you wanted it to be a little bit more rustic, you could opt for the potato masher, which is what I'm going to use for us because I promised speed.

-Okay.

-All right.

So it's pretty self-explanatory.

-Sure is.

It's in the title of the tool.

-And we're pressing down.

-Fast and furious.

-That's how we roll.

Okay, so now we are ready to season our potatoes.

We're going to use a combination of butter and half and half as our fats.

-Okay.

-So we're going to just stir in 1/2 cup of half and half.

Now, if you want it a bit leaner of a mashed potato, you could certainly use milk.

I'm also going to add 4 tablespoons of butter that I've cut into smaller pieces, just to help it melt more evenly into the potatoes.

That's unsalted butter because we're going to manage the salt ourselves with 1 teaspoon of table salt.

-Okay.

And there was no salt in the cooking water.

-That's right.

-Okay.

-This is where all the seasoning happens.

Now, in some of our other mashed potato recipes, we add the butter in first because that helps prevent the starches from gelatinizing and giving you gummy potatoes.

-That's what I do.

-But since we used the mandoline, we sliced the potatoes super thin, they were even from edge to edge and cooked evenly, we can avoid that all together.

-Crazy.

All right, so it all goes in.

-All goes in.

2 pounds of potatoes, 4 tablespoons of butter, 8 tablespoons of half and half, and 1 teaspoon of salt.

-Okay.

-Watch the magic happen.

All right, these are looking pretty good to me.

-Mm-hmm.

-Now, if you wanted, you could add up to 2 more tablespoons of your half and half or your milk.

-Got you.

To adjust the consistency.

-That's right.

But I think these look pretty good.

But before we eat, I do want to taste this for seasoning.

So.

Honestly, the salt is perfect.

I will give us a little sprinkling of pepper.

Give that a stir.

And just like that, we're ready to eat.

-That was quick.

And I'm ready to eat.

-Incredible, right?

-Hey, that's my kind of portion, Sam.

-All right.

-Notice a little extra butter.

-I figured why not?

You know, a little celebratory.

Super fast potatoes deserve a little spoon of butter on top.

Now, let's dig in.

-All right.

I have to see if it would hold a little pond of gravy.

-That's the test.

-Yeah.

Those look like sturdy pond walls to hold in the gravy.

I'm gonna be a harsh critic, just so you know.

I haven't taken a bite yet.

-I'm here for it.

I can take it.

-I'm not going to pussyfoot around what I really think.

-[ Laughs ] -It's pretty good.

Actually, that's really good.

The potatoes are perfectly cooked, and it's -- it's the balance of the potato with the half and half and the butter.

-Yep.

-Because I just do it to taste, and I overdo it.

-Mm-hmm.

-And you don't taste the potato.

But in this, you taste the potato.

But it still is creamy.

-Absolutely.

There's just four ingredients and a little bit of consideration of measurements and cutting the potatoes right.

-Mm-hmm.

Sam, these are really good.

-So glad you like them.

-Thank you for showing me a new method for mashed potatoes.

-Any time.

-If you want a recipe for fast and fabulous mashed potatoes, peel and slice 2 pounds of potatoes 1/4-inch thick.

Cook the potatoes in a medium pot of boiling water, then mash and add 8 tablespoons of half and half and 4 tablespoons of butter.

From "America's Test Kitchen," a great recipe for the fastest, easiest mashed potatoes.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with our product reviews and select episodes at our website, americastestkitchen.com/tv.

This really is a game changer.

-I will never do mashed potatoes differently.

-Mm-hmm.

-Want more from "ATK"?

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"America's Test Kitchen" is brought to you by the following.

-Plugr European style butter was created for all chefs, cooks, and bakers, slow-churned with 82% butterfat for a smooth texture and more pliability for flaky crusts.

Plugr -- from professional kitchens to your home.

-On an American Cruise Lines journey, you can explore the Columbia and Snake Rivers.

Our boats journey through the breathtaking Pacific Northwest, where towering cliffs and cascading waterfalls line your path.

You'll follow Lewis and Clark's trail and explore historic towns, all from a modern American riverboat, where you can experience local customs and cuisine.

American Cruise Lines, proud sponsor of "America's Test Kitchen."

-GreenPan Frost, the frozen treat maker that makes ice cream, sorbet, slushies, and more with a built-in chiller that goes from fresh to frozen.

GreenPan Frost.

-Hungryroot delivers groceries designed for your taste, budget, and health goals, with a collection of recipes that come together in minutes.

We're a personal shopper, meal planner, and chef all in one.

-Smithey Ironware -- polished for performance, naturally nonstick, clear of chemical coatings, made in America, made to be passed down for generations.

Smithey -- Use it well.