America's Test Kitchen

-Today on "America's Test Kitchen"... Becky makes Julia a Brazilian classic -- Shrimp and fish stew, Jack challenges Bridget to a tasting of Pecorino Romano, and Julia and Bridget reveal the secrets to making the best Brazilian cheese bread. It's all coming up right here on "America's Test Kitchen." -Every region with a coastline has its own version of seafood stew. Think of bouillabaisse or cioppino or even gumbo. And most of these stews have a broth-based sauce. But not in Brazil. The famous Brazilian seafood stew, called moqueca, has a base of tomatoes and coconut milk. Kind of like a Thai curry. And in addition to all the seafood, it usually includes lots of vegetables and a bright, citrusy sauce. And today, Becky's gonna show us how it's done. -That's right. Moqueca is so fast and so easy to prepare. And aside from the fish and the condiments, you might already have most of the ingredients on hand. Super-impressive for a weeknight. It's really good for entertaining. All-around great dish. -I'm in. -All right, let's do it. So, let's start with the fish. Now, in Brazil, you'd use whatever's fresh, the catch of the day. You can use any combination of seafood. We're gonna keep it simple. We're using a pound of skinless cod. -Easy to find. -Super-easy. And also a pound of large shrimp. There's 26 to 30 in a pound. So, we're gonna cut the fish. It's about 3/4 to 1 inch thick, and we're gonna cut it into 1-1/2-inch chunks. -All right. So, this piece actually comes from the top of the cod filet. It's known as the captain's cut. -Oh, I didn't know that! -Yeah, so, it's a nice, evenly thick filet. It cuts up into nice, even pieces. -Very nice. Okay, so 1-1/2-inch chunks here. -Nice, big, stew-sized pieces. -Yeah, these are gonna simmer in liquid. They might break apart a tiny bit, which is fine. So you want substantial pieces. So, if you can't find cod, you can use haddock. Really, any firm, white fish would be fine here. So there's our fish. Okay. So now we're adding a pound of peeled and de-veined shrimp. -I notice you took the tails off. -I did. This is a stew. Sometimes it's nice to leave the tails on, especially if you're doing more, like, a finger-food type of thing, but because we're eating this with a spoon, I took the tails off. -That makes sense. -And now I'm adding three cloves of garlic. -Ooh, hello! -Minced up. Now, in Brazil, they typically marinate the fish in lime juice. We tried that, and we found that it made the fish a tiny bit dry, a little bit stringy. -It's almost like ceviche. -Yes, because the lime starts to de-nature the proteins in the fish. It starts to cook a little bit. -Right. -So, we're gonna leave that out. We'll add the lime juice later. -Okay. -We're just adding 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. And we'll give this a little stir. Now, the salt and the pepper and the garlic will season the fish. It's gonna have a really nice flavor. Okay, so, now the fish is done. Let's move on to make the base of the stew. -Okeydoke. -So, I have one 14.5-ounce can of whole tomatoes here. Just a little bit. It's gonna add some brightness. Moqueca gives you a surprising amount of flavor with just a few ingredients. -A lot of liquid must come out of that fish. -Yes, it does, and that's gonna flavor the stew, as well, and is gonna loosen up the broth, too. So, that was the can of tomatoes with their juices. One onion, chopped up. And 1/4 cup of fresh cilantro, also chopped. -It almost looks like you're making salsa. -I know. Actually, I want this to be the texture of a pured salsa. -Oh, okay! -So, I'm gonna let this rip for about 30 seconds. All right, that looks good. It doesn't need to be perfectly smooth. Like I said, just like a pured salsa. So, we'll let that sit for a second. -Smells good. -And we'll move on over here. I'm gonna get some medium-high heat. I have 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. It's just about starting to shimmer here. -Mm-hmm. -So, I have one green pepper, one red bell pepper. I've seeded, stemmed them, and chopped them into 1/2-inch pieces. And I'm putting in 1/2 teaspoon of salt. This is gonna make the stew nice and colorful. It's gonna give a little bit of flavor. We'll cook these over medium-high heat, just until they start to soften a little bit. That'll take five to seven minutes. -Okay. -It's been about seven minutes, and you can see the peppers have started to soften a little bit, but they're still holding their shape. -You can smell them. -I know. I love these aromatics. Let's put in our tomato-onion mixture here. And would you mind turning the heat down to medium for me? -You got it. -Thank you. And let's add another 1/2 teaspoon of salt. So, I'm gonna cook this for three to five minutes. I don't want the pot to get totally dry, but I do want it to reduce down a little bit. It's been about five minutes. You can see the tomato mixture has really cooked down there. -Yeah, that's quite thick. -It is quite thick. Not totally dry, but it really did reduce down. The flavor's concentrated a little bit. So now I have one 14-ounce can of coconut milk. -Mmm! -This will make the stew nice and creamy and rich. It'll balance out the acidity from the tomatoes. So, I'm gonna crank the heat up to high. We want to bring this to a full rolling boil. Okay, so, our stew is at a rolling boil here. It's bubbling all the way across the surface. So lets add our seafood into the Dutch oven. And now I'm adding the lime juice that I talked about before -- 2 tablespoons. Add a nice, tart flavor. I'm gently going to stir in the fish, and now I'm gonna do something crazy. I'm gonna turn off the heat. Put the lid on, and slide this off the heat. Now, the liquid -- the coconut milk -- was at 212 degrees. It was boiling really rapidly. The fish was basically at 40 degrees -- fridge temperature. Now, we're gonna let this sit for 15 minutes. As it sits, those temperatures will equalize. The fish will come to about 140. The shrimp will, too. And that's the temperature we like our seafood at. -Yeah, and it protects the seafood from overcooking. -Foolproof way to cook your fish. So, while our seafood is finishing up, we're going to make a nice hot sauce that's a traditional accompaniment to the stew. -Mmm! Lovely! -So good. In Brazil, they use something called a malagueta pepper. It's a spicy chili pepper. -Hard to find here. -Yes, very hard to find. So, we're gonna be using pickled hot cherry peppers instead. These are pretty easy to find. You can find them near the pickles, near the roasted red peppers in the supermarket. So, for these, you don't need to take the stems off. We're gonna put this in the food processor. They're tender. They're gonna get all chopped up. So four of those. And then I have half an onion chopped up. 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil. And 1/8 teaspoon of sugar. Just a teeny bit to balance out those pickled peppers. So, let's put this in the processor. There we go. Okay, 30 seconds. All right, let's take a peek. That looks pretty good to me. Take a whiff of that. -Ooh, that's spicy. -This stuff is so good. I would make a double batch 'cause you'll want it on eggs, on rice. -Oh, really? Ooh! -You're gonna want this in your fridge. All right, let's get that in a bowl. The onion and the pickled peppers -- so simple, so good. I'm just gonna add a little touch of salt. Stir that in. That is done. Our seafood's just about done. So we'll tidy up, and then we'll come back and eat. All right, the time has come! -All right! Can I take the lid off? -You can. -Ooh! -15 minutes. Okay, I'm just gonna doctor this up a teeny bit before we eat. I'm gonna add another 1/2 cup of chopped fresh cilantro, and I'm gonna add 2 tablespoons of the pepper sauce that we made just to give it a little kick. -So that's where that bright, citrusy punch comes from. -That's right, along with the lime that we added right at the last minute. So I just want to gently stir. I want to be careful. I don't want to break up all that beautiful cod. -It is beautiful. I could see you serving this for company. -Yeah, and it's low stress for the cook because it's off-heat. You really can't overdo it. Your friends will be amazed. Just like I'm about to amaze you, right? So we have some white rice already in the bowls. It's really nice to serve this with rice. Oh, that looks so good. -That looks delicious! -That's for you. Would you like some more of the sauce? -Well, based on your recommendation, I am gonna put a little dollop on the top. -Yeah, I recommend it. Yeah, the fish is so perfectly cooked. It's nice and tender. You're not gonna find rubbery shrimp. -Mmm! -So... -Mmm! -Mmm! -It's rich, but it's bright. And it's hard to have something that tastes rich and bright at the same time. -Yes, it's so satisfying, but it's on the lighter side still. -Oh, I just ate a little bit of that relish. Mmm! -So good. -Fish is perfectly cooked. -Mm-hmm. It's so fresh-tasting. -Yeah. Becky, this is delicious. Well done! -Thank you! -So, to make moqueca, cut a piece of cod down into 1-1/2-inch pieces and toss with one pound of peeled and de-veined large shrimp, some garlic, salt, and pepper. Make a quick salsa in the food processor with a small can of peeled tomatoes, an onion, and some cilantro. After sauting a red and green bell pepper in a large pot, add the salsa, and cook for just a few minutes, until thickened. Stir in the coconut milk and bring to a boil, then add the seafood and some lime juice, cover, and remove the pot from the heat for 15 minutes. Finish with a hot cherry-pepper relish, and you're eating moqueca. From America's Test Kitchen to your kitchen, a wonderful new recipe for Brazilian shrimp and fish stew. I am definitely making this. -Oh, I know! -The legionnaires of Ancient Rome fought hard, but they ate well. They bought and milled their own grain to make bread, and their rations included lentils, figs, and, according to the poet Virgil, 27 grams -- that's just under an ounce -- of Pecorino Romano. That's pretty good, but I need a lot more in my fridge. I love the stuff. So Jack's here. He's gonna tell us which Pecorino won the tasting. -Yeah, I've got a lot more than 27 grams. -Good. -This is really a taste test about imported Pecorino Romano and domestic Romano. So, Pecorino Romano originally was made in Rome, hence the "Romano," but it's also made with sheep's milk. And the word for "sheep" in Italian is "pecora." The domestic cheeses came up with the name "Romano" to indicate the lineage, but they're made with cow's milk. -Oh! -So, it's a very different cheese. If you think about sheep's-milk cheeses -- Roquefort, Manchego -- they have funk. -Funk. -They're fruity, they're funky. The fats in sheep milk are just a lot different in terms of their flavor when they make cheeses than the cow's milk. Romano cheeses are really quite different than Pecorino Romano, which is, I think, one of the things that you're gonna see here. And I actually have two Pecorino Romanos from Italy and two domestic Romanos. Domestic cheeses are good. They're just different. And they don't have the crystalline texture that we kind of expect. A Pecorino Romano's typically aged eight or nine months. Also, just doesn't have the gaminess. -Mm-hmm. -Yeah. So, did you know that a third of all the Italian cheeses that we import are actually Pecorino Romano? -Really? -Yeah, Pecorino Romano doesn't get the love. You know, Parmesan is the king. -It's always a bridesmaid. -Yeah, and we use it a lot in the kitchen when we want more flavor, when we've got a dish that requires a cheese with more personality than Parmesan. So, in addition to the way that you're tasting the cheeses here, we also made the most classic recipe you can make with Pecorino Romano, which is the Roman dish cacio e pepe. -Mm-hmm. -It's a pasta. It basically just has three ingredients -- pasta, Pecorino Romano, and lots of black pepper. The tasting was very similar, whether it was plain or with the pasta. We liked all the cheeses, but we felt like the Pecorino Romanos tasted quite different than the Romanos. The domestic cheeses, in addition to being made with cow's milk, they add an enzyme that tries to break down the dairy fat to create some different flavors. So they have some interesting notes to them, but again, they're not the same as what you get from sheep's-milk cheese, which has all that gaminess. I will say that even though Pecorino Romano has the word "Romano" in it, most of the cheeses are now made in Sardinia. The hills of Sardinia covered with sheep, making cheese for us here in the United States. So, any impressions of the four cheeses? Things you're noticing that are different? Things you're liking? Things that you're less drawn to? -Definitely less drawn to that. In terms of Pecorino, it's not what I would think of as a Pecorino Romano. It tastes a little Muenster-y. Which is a real word, I promise you. -You can put a "Y" on the end of anything to make another word, so... -This one is my favorite. I've already made that decision. That's going home with me. -Okay. -This -- I'm not crazy about this one, either. This one's my favorite. -All right. You want to see? -I do. -So, you have chosen the runner-up, the Locatelli. Now, we liked all the Pecorino Romanos. All of the Italian cheeses were recommended. The tasting panel liked them. Locatelli is a brand name. Some people think Locatelli is actually a cheese. It's not. It's just a brand name. -It's very salty. -It's very salty. This one, I would say, is the gamiest. -Yes, it is. It is funkiest, and it was, to me, the most well-seasoned out of all of them. -Why don't you go down to the end over there? -All right. -So, this is actually the winner, which is the Boar's Head Pecorino Romano. It is a little bit tamer, let's say, than the one that you chose. You went for big funk. -I went for big funk. -That's, like, medium funk. -It was tamer for me. Yeah, this one I actually didn't mind, but... -I'm surprised. This is the Stella. This is one of the domestic Romanos. They were all recommended with reservations. They're fine cheeses. They're just different. Surprised that you liked that one. -Yeah, maybe it's -- I have bought that before. So maybe it is tongue memory there -- palate memory. This one I just did not like at all. -This is Sartori. Again, it's another domestic Romano cheese. These two were right next to each other in the rankings. They were fine cheeses. They just -- They didn't have the funk of the one that you chose that is the real Pecorino Romano. -Well, there you go. If you want to buy the winner, it's Boar's Head Pecorino Romano, and it retails for $6.99 for 7 ounces. -This first bowl contains vinegar. The second bowl contains oil. And this third one contains oil and vinegar that I emulsified together with an immersion blender. Now, I've dyed them all red so that we can see them better. Check out what happens when I dip a garlic clove into each. Now, the vinegar is very thin, and you can see that it actually barely clings to it, only in small drops. Mostly comes right off the garlic. The oil is a little bit thicker, so it clings better but still mostly slides right off. The emulsion, on the other hand, clings beautifully. It's really thick, and it sticks perfectly to the garlic. Now, the reason that the emulsion is thicker is that the droplets of oil are dispersed throughout the vinegar, and that interferes with its ability to flow. So if pouring vinegar is like the Tour de France and pouring oil is a fleet of race cars, pouring a vinaigrette is like both of them using the same road at the same time. They get in each other's way, and the whole thing slows way down. The more oil we add, the thicker the emulsion becomes. This mayonnaise is about 16 parts oil to one part vinegar. As you can see, it's much thicker than our vinaigrette, which is three parts oil to one part vinegar. So, for a rich, buttery coating on spring vegetables, a vinaigrette that grabs every bite of your salad, or a thick, clingy mayo, it pays to take the time and effort to emulsify. -A core ingredient in Brazilian cuisine is manioc, and here it is. Now, this is a tuber. It's also known as yucca or cassava, and it can be ground down into a coarse or fine meal. Now, here in the states, we know it as tapioca, and we use it in two applications, usually. There's a fine powder. It's a starch. Use it to thicken cobblers. Or we have these larger pearls. You might know this from tapioca pudding or even bubble tea. But Julia's gonna show us how to use tapioca in a new, to us, recipe called pao de queijo. And that is a Brazilian cheese bread. -Mm-hmm! It is! I love cheese bread. -I know! Anywhere it comes from, we love cheese bread. -Yeah. And the great thing about this is that it's made entirely with tapioca. There's no flour in it. And so, it has a very different texture, a very chewy texture that's a little bit lighter than flour. -Perfect. -Now, we're gonna use a very specific method to make this dough. It's the pte choux method, and that's when you heat up the liquids and you add hot liquids to the flour that traps some steam and moisture that helps it puff up in the oven. So, we're gonna heat up our liquids to get started. I'm gonna add, first off, the milk -- 2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons of milk. To this we're gonna add 1/2 cup of vegetable oil. And last but not least, a little bit of butter for flavor. That's 1 1/2 tablespoons of unsalted butter. I'm just gonna heat this up over high heat, until the butter's melted and that has come to a boil. -Okay. -Meanwhile, we're gonna take a look at our dry mixture. So this is about 3 cups of tapioca starch, but I highly suggest you weigh it because the starch is a lot like cornstarch. It's hard to pack into a cup. -Sure is. -So you can get some very different amounts. So weigh it. It should be 12 ounces. -All right. -To this, I'm going to add 2 teaspoons of kosher salt and just 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder. Now, we are going to rely on the steam to really give it its lift, but that baking powder's just a little bit of insurance. -Gotcha. -All right, so, I'm just gonna mix this for a couple seconds on low, using the paddles just to mix those ingredients together. And let's take a look at our -- Oh, perfect. You can see this has come to a boil. And while it's still very hot and while the mixer is still on low, I'm gonna add it right to the mixer. All right, we're gonna let the mixer go for about two to three minutes and let all that tapioca starch hydrate. -Okay. -All right, so, all that starch is hydrated. It is time to add the eggs. We have two large eggs. Now, we're just gonna keep it on low and keep mixing it until it's nice and shiny and it begins to stick to the bowl. Kind of looks like frosting. And that takes about eight minutes. All right, you can see the transformation that that tapioca starch made as it was whipped and allowed to incorporate air and hydrate. -It really does look like frosting. -It does, doesn't it? -Yes. -All right, so, now the best part -- the cheese. So, classically, they used a cheese called aged Minas in these Brazilian rolls. Really hard to find around here, but it has a very similar flavor to Parmesan, which we're gonna add. But we're also gonna add a little bit of Pecorino 'cause that little sheep-y tang is beautiful in it. So, 3 1/2 ounces of each -- finely grated Parmesan and Pecorino Romano. -Mmm! -All right, so, we're just gonna turn this mixer back on low and let that cheese get incorporated, which should take about 30 to 60 seconds. All right. That is good to go. -Smells cheesy. -Mm-hmm! So, as you can see, this dough is very sticky. And believe it or not, this is a drier dough than many of the recipes we found. A lot of the recipes were almost more like a batter than a dough, but it made the insides of the rolls just really gooey. We wanted it to be a bit breadier. So, we're using a little bit of a drier dough, but there's no way we could shape this into rolls now. It's just too sticky. So, what we're gonna do is we're gonna put it in the refrigerator and let it rest and chill for about two hours, and that way, we'll be able to form rolls really easily. So here I'm just gonna compact the dough into the bottom of the bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, and into the fridge for two hours it goes. -All right. -All right, so, this dough is nicely chilled and ready to be shaped into rolls. -It's very firm now, yep. -It is, isn't it? And it's sort of unusual for a bread dough to be this firm when you're ready to roll it out. But that is the key to gluten-free baking. Everything is backwards. It's hard to tell when things are done, and it's hard to tell when dough is ready to go. -We're gonna put this in a cold oven, right? -So we're gonna make eight rolls out of this. So I'm just gonna score the dough in the bowl with a bowl scraper into eight sections here. -And the reason you're not dumping it out on the counter is because...? -You could if you wanted to, but it's just very sticky. -Gotcha. -I'd rather not get the counter dirty if you didn't have to. -Right, plus you might be tempted to add flour to it. -That's right. What you want to do is get your hands just a little wet. It helps the dough from sticking. You're just making meatballs. That's it. That's it. You're just making round, little balls here that will turn into rolls. -Okay! -It's that simple. -Really? All right. -Yep. All right, here's some water. -Can I? -Absolutely. -Thank you. -Gonna get you some dough out here. I'm kind of eager for you to see the texture of this dough because it's just so unlike other doughs that we usually bake with. -What is that like? -It's kind of like a sugar-cookie dough, is kind of what it feels like to me sometimes. -It's what it looks like, as well -- a giant sugar cookie. -All right, there you go. -Thank you. -We got a little assembly line going on there. -I like this. -So, a lot of times, a lot of recipes made these rolls a lot smaller. We liked them big because we wanted to serve them on a sandwich or with a meal. -It's so malleable. I mean, it's not springy or anything, like a wheat-flour dough. And it's got this sticky substance on the outside that I imagine's gonna bake up into a really, really crisp texture. -Mm-hmm. All right, now, before we put these in the oven, we're gonna brush them with an egg glaze. That'll get them nice and brown and sort of that crackle top that is iconic. So here I have a large egg. To this I'm gonna add a teaspoon of water and 1/4 teaspoon of kosher salt just to give it a little seasoning. All right. We're just gonna brush these on the rolls. -You're right about this dough being stiffer than a lot of recipes. It's more like a batter. I've even seen these scooped into muffin tins. -Ah! Yep! There's that last roll. Looking good. Looking good. -It almost looks like you lacquered them with butter. -

Chuckles

And they're so perfectly round. I love that. -They're beautiful. -So, this wasn't a mistake that there are two baking sheets here. These rolls have a tendency to burn on the bottom. So an easy way to prevent that is just to insulate it with a second sheet underneath. That way, the top and the inside can bake at the same rate as the bottoms. -That's great. -So, we're gonna put these into a hot oven. Now, right now, that oven is at 450 degrees to heat up, but when we put these in, we're gonna lower that oven to 375. We just want that initial blast of heat so we can get that steam going. -Okay. -And then they're gonna bake for about 40 minutes. Of course, halfway through, we're gonna spin them around.

Sniffs

Can you smell it? -I can smell them a mile away. -Ohh! -Beautiful! -Aren't they? Perfect little round rolls with that crackle top. All right, so, these are pretty hot right now, obviously, so we're not gonna eat them right away, but we're not gonna let them cool for too long. Just five minutes. -Okay. -'Cause you definitely want to eat them while they're warm. -Mmm! -Five minutes is up. -Thank goodness! -Pick your roll. Any roll. -I'm gonna go right there. Boom. -I'm gonna pick this one. So, they're still warm, but they're not as blatantly hot as they were. -Ohh. Wow. -Right? -Mm-hmm. -Oh, I love that little bit of stretch in there, too. -Mm-hmm! -Oh, yeah. This for breakfast would be beau-ti-ful. -Which is how they're commonly eaten. But I just think they're good any time of day. The crust is where it's at. -Absolutely amazing. It's cheesy. It has this really toasty cheese flavor but, also, that crisp texture. -Mm-hmm. -Just incredible. -Well, it's the cheese flavor, it's the crackle top, and it's that chewy texture that I love. -Thank you, Julia. -Thank you! -And you're gonna want to make this quick cheesy bread at home. Mix tapioca starch and baking powder with a hot mixture of milk, butter, and oil. Add eggs, Parmesan, and Pecorino, then refrigerate. Roll it into balls and bake until crunchy, hot, and steamy inside. So, from our Test Kitchen to your kitchen, an easy, not to mention cheesy, pao de queijo, or Brazilian cheese bread. And you can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with our tastings, testings, and select episodes on our website -- americastestkitchen.com. -I knew you'd love these 'cause they're cheese balls! -They're cheese balls! In another form! -There you go. -Mmm! -Let us help you with dinner tonight. Visit our website anytime for free access to the newest season's recipes, taste tests, and equipment ratings, or to watch current episodes, log on to americastestkitchen.com.