Cook's Country

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- I think I'm home I think I'm home How nice to look at you again Along the road Along the road Anytime you want me You can find me living right between your eyes, yeah Oh, I think I'm home Oh, I think I'm home -Today on "Cook's Country," we're heading to the ballpark. Bridget and Julia grill up sausage and peppers. Jack challenges Julia to a tasting of whole-wheat bread. Adam reviews disposable plates. And Christie makes Julia the best ballpark pretzels. That's all right here on "Cook's Country." -The next time you grab a hot dog at a ballpark, thank an Englishman named Harry Mosley Stevens. -In the 1880s, Stevens attended a baseball game in Columbus, Ohio. Now, he loved the game, but he was bothered by the lack of names on the uniforms. -So he printed and sold detailed score cards and soon after, started selling snacks like peanuts and popcorn. -Then in 1893, Stevens became the official concessioner of the New York Polo Grounds, where teams like the Mets, Yankees, and Giants played. -From there, his business expanded from coast to coast. And until 1994, you could buy a Harry Stevens hot dog in nearly every major ballpark. -Well, today's show is all about ballpark classics, and we're starting with grilled sausages and peppers. Julia and I recently enjoyed a game at Fenway... and a few $10 beers, too. But right outside of the park is a cart that sells sausages and peppers. It's a famous cart. People line up down the street, and you can smell the great food a mile away, right? -They call him the Sausage Guy. -They do call him the Sausage Guy. -Today I'm the Sausage Guy. We are gonna start with sausage. And you can either use sweet or hot sausage. Or you can mix them up, and it can be a grab bag. But today I'm just gonna use sweet sausage, and I've got two pounds here. -And they're just Italian, right? -They're just Italian. Now, we've seen a lot of recipes that poke the sausages. It just lets all the juices and flavor leak out and cause flare-ups, so don't poke the sausage. -Love it. -Now, moving on to the peppers and onions. We're gonna use a red bell pepper and just a regular yellow onion. So, to cut the onion up into nice slivers, cut off both ends. Cut it in half right through the center. And I like to peel that outside layer, plus that first layer of onion, which can also have a few bruises and be a little slimy. We're gonna slice it pole to pole. 'Cause of course, you have a rainbow shape here, so we're gonna angle the knife as we go. We're looking for 1/4-inch-thick slices. So that is two onions all done. -Okay. -On to the peppers. First, you want to take a pepper, and you want to lop off the top and the bottom. Now we're gonna cut through just one side of the pepper, and we're gonna open it up. And this is when you can take all the seeds and ribs out. Slice away any of those ribs, being sure to keep your fingers well out of the way. And we're gonna cut it into 1/4-inch-thick slices. All right. So, again, three peppers, two onions. We're gonna combine them in a bowl. And this is where our recipe is different from other recipes. Sausages and onions and peppers do not all cook at the same rate. -That's right. -We really want these to cook down and be soft, so we're gonna parcook these in the microwave. We're gonna give them a jump start. And we're also gonna flavor them at the same time. -Okay. -So, we're gonna add just a little bit of vinegar. This is 3 tablespoons of distilled white vinegar. A little bit of sugar. Just 2 tablespoons of sugar. -Sweet and sour. -Little sweet. Little sour. This is a tablespoon of vegetable oil. 1/2 teaspoon of salt. 1/2 teaspoon of pepper. -Easy so far. -Very easy. We're just gonna stir this up to make sure everything's nicely combined. Now, as I mentioned, we're gonna give them a head start in the microwave. On goes a plate. Into the microwave. 6 minutes on high. -Sounds good. -Mmm. You can start to smell them, can't you? -It's starting to smell like that ball game. -That little bit of vinegar and that little bit of sugar really does brighten up their flavor. We're gonna use a disposable aluminum pan. We're ready to fire it up. -All right. Sounds good. -All right. So, it's time to get grilling, and I've been heating this grill up for about 15 minutes with all the burners on high. Now, I'm gonna take my trusty grill brush and just get off any shmutz that's stuck on the grill grates from the last time we cooked. Now I'm gonna give them a quick rub-down with some oil. This will help keep them nice and seasoned every time you cook. We're gonna start with the peppers and onions. They've already had a little bit of a head start in the microwave. They're gonna get more of a head start on the grill. So I'm just gonna put them right on the hot side. And I'm gonna turn off the burners on the other two sides. So we have a cool side and a warm side. -All right. -Now, these need about 20 minutes ahead of the sausages. All right. So it's been 20 minutes that our vegetables have been on the grill, and it's time for the star ingredient. We're gonna cook them on the cool side. Because we found that a lot of recipes tell you to throw them right on the hot grill, but that really shrinks the casings, and then they burst open and they lose all their juices. All right. Put that last little guy on there. I'm gonna give these vegetables a nice stir. I brought the lid down. I'm gonna let these sausages cook like that for about eight minutes. -Okay. -All right. So, it's been about eight minutes. -There's no busted-open sausages, nothing. -All that juice is inside the casing where we want it. So I'm just gonna give these a quick flip. I'm also just gonna give this a quick stir. Close the lid and go another eight minutes. -Okay. -So, it's been about eight minutes. You can see -- Oh, the sausages are nicely cooked on both sides, but not very brown yet. And that's what we're gonna tackle now. -Okay. -Put the sausages in the pan with the vegetables. We're just gonna toss them a little bit with some of that vegetable juice. Pan on the cool side. The sausages now on the hot side. Just for a couple minutes. Turn them and make sure they get nice and browned on all sides. That takes about three minutes or so. We're looking for an internal temperature of about 160 degrees. That's how you know your sausages are done. So, I've been turning these sausages for about two or three minutes now, so they get nice and evenly browned. -Well done. -Now, I'm not above temping a sausage. We're looking for 160 degrees. On the nose. -Are you kidding me? -All right, so, time to put these back into the pan because, really, we want all the sausage juices to mingle with the vegetables before we eat it. So, now we're gonna take this whole pan right off the grill, and we're gonna bring it inside. -All right. -All right, so, these have been resting for five minutes. And it's game time. -I haven't gone too far. I can tell you. -Ohh! Look at that! -Smells like a ball game. -I'm ready to serve it up on a nice, hearty sub roll here. Put some sausage and peppers along the side. -But I have something for you. -I saw that over there. -A little of my home brew here. Cream ale. -Look at that color. Ooh, that's gonna taste good. -That'll be $10. -Exactly. -All right, we'll let the foam settle. Take a bite. -Mm-hmm. -Mmm! You know what I noticed at first is the sweet-and-sour taste from the vinegar and that sugar. -Mm-hmm. And that sausage still has a lot of juice because we had that two-level cooking method. It's bringing back memories, Bridget. -Mmm. -Cheers. And thank you for the beer. -Cheers to you. Thanks for the sausages and peppers. Well, believe me, if you make this recipe, they will come. You just want to get the onions and peppers a little head start in the microwave. Put it in a foil pan and head out to the grill. Cook the vegetables over the hotter side, and start the Italian sausages on the cooler side. Then it's the old switcheroo. Finish cooking the vegetables on the cool side, and brown the sausages over direct fire. Let them rest together, pile into buns, and serve. So, from "Cook's Country," a wicked-awesome recipe for grilled sausages with bell peppers and onions. -Mm-hmm! -And $10 beer.

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-Not long ago, a decent loaf of whole wheat bread was hard to find, unless you went to a bakery or a health-food store. But today, supermarket bread aisles are filled with options. So Jack's here to tell us which brand is best. -We tasted seven. 100% whole wheat. -All right. -So, "whole wheat" just means it could have 1% whole wheat and 99% white flour. "100% whole wheat" actually means 100% whole wheat. -Gotcha. -So, you can start sampling here. -Okay. Wait a second. What about this slice? I mean, what kind of slice is that? That would make a very odd sandwich. That's not nice. -Are you gonna at least taste it? -Yeah, I'll taste it. -All right. So, a couple things I want you to pay attention to. Whole wheat has some pleasant bitter notes, but they can get unpleasant. Some of the brands seemed like the wheat was maybe past its prime. It was really kind of in-your-face whole wheat. Some of the brands were a little bit more mellow. Adding a moderate amount of sweetener of some sort kind of balances out those bitter notes is actually a good thing. Second thing that I want you to be paying attention to is texture. Some of them seem very fluffy and light -- almost like white bread, even though they were 100% whole wheat. And others seemed really dense. And so we said, "Let's come up with a way of mathematically quantifying density." So we cut the crust off of each slice. We then took the calipers, and we used the calipers to gauge three different measurements -- lengthwise, widthwise, and height. So, that gave us a volume measurement. We then weighed each slice, and weight divided by volume was density. And we found that our top-rated brands were up to 45% denser than the bottom ones. -Wow. -So, tighter crumb, more wheat flavor, more bread in each bite. They do a better job with ham and cheese and tomatoes and mustard and mayonnaise and everything else you're gonna put on them. They're sturdier. They perform better in real-world sandwich tests. -Real-world sandwiches. And I have a definite favorite. This one, which I liked the look of off the bat because I like the top -- how it has some cracked wheat. It was heartier, it was chewier, and the wheat flavor was much more pronounced. So, this one was my absolute favorite. My least favorite was this poor slice that I was making fun of in the beginning. It was very fluffy. It was very wimpy. And it had sort of a bitter aftertaste. This one was middle-of-the-road. It was fairly sweet. It might have had a slight bitter aftertaste, but not in a way that bothered me. And its texture was right in the middle of these two. So, absolute favorite, not bad in a pinch, and would never buy this. -Okay. You want to start with your favorite? -Sure. Start with my favorite. -And the expert panel picked the Arnold as our top-rated one. Now, the studio audience went for the runner-up here. -Oh, okay. -This was very close between first and second. So, you want to -- -And this was my runner-up. -This is Pepperidge Farm. We actually felt that the Arnold and Pepperidge Farm were very similar to each other by comparison to the slice in the middle. -This slice in the middle that I did not like. -Yeah, this is the Sara Lee. -Oh, Sara Lee! -And this was at the bottom of the rankings and really shows you how even 100% whole wheat bread can seem very insubstantial. If you're gonna buy 100% whole wheat, presumably that's 'cause you want a nice, hearty slice of bread. -So, there you have it. When you're buying whole wheat sandwich bread, reach for one that has wheaty flavor, and that's Arnold Whole Grains 100% Whole Wheat Bread at $4.49. -In the late 19th century, Martin Keyes spotted workers at a New York veneer plant eating their lunches off of thin pieces of maple. Well, by 1904, he'd invented a machine that pressed wood pulp into a plate form, and the paper plate was born. So, Adam's gonna tell us exactly why I'm wearing this fetching outfit and talk a little bit about disposable plates. -You are gonna be so prepared when the storm rolls through the kitchen for a change. -I can feel it in my bones. There's a storm brewing here. -There's a storm brewing. We have all been there. A sub-par disposable plate is gonna put a big crimp in your picnic style. That's why we did this testing. We have eight different paper plates here. They were all about 10 inches, or as close to that size as the manufacturer offered. The price range was 11 cents per plate at the low to 54 cents per plate at the high. And they were made of different materials, including paperboard with various grease- and liquid-resistant coatings, post-consumer-recycled paper, polystyrene, plastic polymer mineral blends, and dried sugarcane pulp called bagasse. -Bless you. -Thank you. Okay, now, to test these disposable plates, the testers loaded them up with two pounds of food. There was fried chicken. There was piping-hot baked beans, coleslaw, and potato salad. And then they went for a little walk around the test kitchen. They had silverware, so they were sort of poking and prodding at the food every now and then to simulate cutting. And they were evaluating the plates based on their food containment, their strength, their durability, and their resistance to liquid, to grease. For the grease resistance, they actually took cold pizza, which they reheated in a microwave on the paper plates to see how stained they got. -That's the dorm test. -That's the dorm test, exactly. Now, they measured the thickness of these paper plates. It ranged from a low of about 0.33 millimeters to a high of 2.14 millimeters. But you know, some of the thicker plates were the polystyrene ones that are that plastic that can be either flexible or hard, and those didn't do a great job, either, in cut resistance or the dorm test with reheating the pizzas. So, really, what matters more than the thickness of the plate is the material of the plate. So, Bridget, if you would, pick up that plate on the end with all the food on it. -All right, yeah, no, it's very sturdy. A little bit of bending, but really nothing to be alarmed about. -That one was the bagasse. That's the dried sugarcane pulp. It did very well. Now, why don't you pick up that other one? That is coated paperboard, and I'm gonna step back. You got a problem brewing! -So, how are you doing today? Oh, whoops! That one didn't do nearly as well, obviously. -No, no, I'm just glad it fell that way. -You know, about half of these had that kind of sagging problem. Food went tumbling down to the floor. -Mm-hmm. -So, in the end, it was that dried sugarcane pulp, the bagasse, that was the winning plate. That's this guy right here -- the Hefty Super Strong Paper Plates. It was $2.99 for a package of 16. It works out to about 19 cents per plate. -Not the most expensive, then. -Yep. Nice, wide area for your food. Strong, sturdy, cut-resistant, grease-resistant. It's the paper plate of choice. -Well, there you go. If you don't want to pass out ponchos to your guests at the next cookout, well, then pick up a pack of our winning plates. It's the Hefty Super Strong Paper Plates. The price is $2.99 for 16 plates. You lucked out. I didn't get messy. -You lucked out. -For most of us, making a ballpark pretzel at home means pulling a box out of the freezer. And those premade supermarket pretzels -- well, they taste okay, especially after midnight, but they can't hold a candle to homemade. So today Christie's gonna show us just how easy they are to make from scratch. -Well, they're easy to make from scratch, but that's because we took a very long path to figure out how to do it. We wanted that chewy but still kind of soft interior. We needed a complex but kind of sweet flavor. And we also wanted to make sure we got that deep mahogany crispy exterior. -Yes, we ate a lot of pretzels developing this. -It wasn't all bad. But if we couldn't hit all of those boxes, then it really wasn't worth the trouble it takes to make them. So, I have 1 1/2 cups of warm water. This is 110 degrees. -Okay. -I'll add that to my mixer. I also have 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and 2 teaspoons of instant yeast. Now, this was the first place we really had a chance to develop some flavor. We're using 2 tablespoons of packed dark-brown sugar. And we found the dark-brown sugar really gave us that kind of malty flavor that ballpark pretzels have in spades. -Molasses-y. -Yes. So, I'll mix that in there, and we're gonna let this foam up a little bit. It's gonna take about three minutes. You don't usually have to activate instant yeast. This is gonna cut about 20 minutes off our rising time. Now, we can move on to our dry ingredients. A lot of recipes use all-purpose flour, but we ended up with pretzels that tasted a little bit more like dinner rolls. And that's not what we wanted. We wanted that nice chew, and we wanted more structure. And we got that by using bread flour. So I have 3 3/4 cups, and I'm gonna add 4 teaspoons of kosher salt to that. And we'll just give that a little whisk to get it all distributed. Okay, so, it's been three minutes. Look at that. -Nice and foamy. -That's some yeast that's hungry for this flour. So I'm gonna add this whole mixture to the stand mixer and my dough hook attached. And we're gonna let this go on the lowest speed for five minutes. And what we're looking for is to see the whole mixture come together and pull away from the sides of the bowl. My dough has been going for about five minutes. It looks really nice and mixed. So I'm gonna put a little flour down on my board. And we'll scoop this out. So, I'm just gonna knead this for about a minute. -That's looking good. -It's so nice. -That looks like an easy-to-work dough. -It really is. -Very pretty. -So, I think we're good to go. -All right. -So, I've sprayed this bowl with some vegetable-oil spray. We don't want it to stick. And now I'm gonna cover it with some plastic wrap because if it starts to dry out, it'll inhibit the rise. -Mm-hmm. -And we're gonna let this rise at room temperature for about an hour. -Okay. -We want to watch for it to double in size. It's been an hour. -Look at that dough! -It's definitely doubled in size. We're just gonna gently push this down to de-gas it, and now I'm gonna turn it out onto the board. And I'm just going to divide this so we can shape our pretzels. So I'm gonna cut it into quarters first. And I'll take each of these quarters and divide it into thirds. -That's six for me and six for you.

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-Now, don't throw away that piece of plastic wrap because we're gonna want to keep all of the pieces that we're not working on covered and moist, or they won't stick to themselves when we go to shape them. Why don't you take one? -All right. -And I'll take one. We didn't want to add any more flour to it, so we just sprayed these with a little bit of vegetable-oil spray. -Smart. -And I'm going to roll it out into a rope. Just starting at the center and letting it stretch out to the sides. We want to roll these into 22-inch ropes. So now I'm gonna take this and shape it into a "U" with the open ends away from me. And I want the curve of my "U" to be about two inches across. Now, I'm gonna take the ends, and I'll crisscross them right at the middle. -Okay. -So, crisscross, or criss... And then do it again for the cross. -Criss and then a cross. -And then we'll take the ends and bring them down to the bottom and press them at the base. -Aha! -And they should be about an inch apart. -Are little tails okay? -Little tails are fine. Sometimes it takes a little reshaping once you do that. -Yep. -But then, you know, it does come around. -Oh, yeah! It's a pretzel! -It is a pretzel! Transfer this to your flour-lined baking sheet. -All right. -Keep going until we've formed all 12 of them. Cover them with plastic wrap, and then we'll let them sit here at room temperature for about 20 minutes to proof and rise again. -Okay. In just 20 minutes, these guys really puffed up. All those little inconsistencies, all those wrinkles -- they disappeared. -You don't see it at all. Now you have to go for the outside. -Yeah, that mahogany exterior. -I have 4 cups of water. I have 1/4 cup of baking soda. So I'll mix this in. Whoo! -Ooh, and it bubbles right up. -It does. It's like a high-school science experiment. And now we'll dip these in. They're not gonna be submerged all the way because we're gonna flip them. And we only want them in there for about 30 seconds total. -That's not long at all. -No. So, pretty much, by the time you've dropped your fourth one, you're gonna be just about ready to flip them. So, I'm using my two spatulas. Another 15 seconds on this side. And I think we're about ready to fish them out. Now, notice I'm putting these on a wire rack. And that was really important because while the baking soda helps us get that really mahogany-dark sheen, it also made sure that the pretzels completely stuck to the baking sheet. -Makes them sticky. -Like concrete. If we just let them drain for about five minutes, we had much better luck with them in the oven. -Ah! -So, we've been letting these dry for about five minutes. Now, these are the same sheet pans I was using earlier. I wiped the flour out and added some oil. So, I have 1/2 teaspoon of pretzel salt. -Ohh! Now, if you don't have pretzel salt on hand, you could substitute kosher salt, which we used in the dough. -Right. Same amount will work fine. -Worth it to get some pretzel salt, though. -Oh, it's such a nice crunch. Now I'm gonna transfer the pretzels. I have a teaspoon of pretzel salt left, and I'm just gonna sprinkle these over the tops. And they're still pretty tacky, so the salt will stick. Now it's time to bake them. The oven's all ready to go. 425. Upper-middle and lower-middle racks. We're gonna bake these for about 15 to 20 minutes. We're looking for that deep mahogany color. And I'm gonna make sure to go in and switch and rotate... You know the drill. -I know the dance. -...halfway through baking. -All right. -Okay! So, this is what 20 minutes gets you. -Those are impressive! -But like any baked good, we've got to wait and let these cool a little bit. -Yeah, and we want to get them off the hot pans because, of course, anything that's been in the oven will continue to cook. How long do we have to wait for? -Just 10 minutes. -Oh, that's not long. -You can handle it. -I can handle it. All right, so, they're cooled. -They are cooled. -I'm waiting for the green light from you. -I give you permission. -Oh, yay! Ooh, you can pull it apart. You can tell it's got some good chew. It's giving me a little resistance. Mmm! -It's great chew. -That's delicious! -Mm-hmm. -It has real flavor. I feel like the ones you get at the markets -- they don't taste like anything. But these, actually, you can taste a little bit of the brown sugar. -Even after you've dipped it in mustard. -Mm-hmm. -I just love the chew. -Yeah. -I'm gonna have much higher expectations when I go to a baseball game now. -Totally. To make the ultimate ballpark pretzels, jump-start the process by blooming the yeast in a warm-water/sugar mixture. For the dough, use bread flower, and knead it in a stand mixer with a hook until it's smooth and cohesive, then let it rise. After dividing and shaping the pretzels, treat them to a hot baking-soda bath to give them that iconic glossy-brown surface before heading into the oven. And don't forget to sprinkle with pretzel salt. From "Cook's Country," a home-run recipe for ballpark pretzels. You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with our tastings, testings, and select episodes on our website -- cookscountry.com. -Let us help with dinner tonight. Visit our website any time for access to this season's recipes, taste tests, and equipment ratings. Or to watch current season episodes, log on to cookscountry.com.

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