America's Test Kitchen

-Today on "America's Test Kitchen," Bridget makes Julia the ultimate pizza al taglio, Jack challenges Bridget to a taste test of black pepper, and Dan makes Bridget pasta alla gricia.

When in Rome, right here on "America's Test Kitchen."

-The most popular street food in Rome is pizza al taglio, which translates to "pizza by the cut" or "pizza by the slice."

Along the streets, you'll find dozens of pizzerias with these big rectangular squares of pizza lined up side by side with a variety of toppings, and today, Bridget is going to make pizza al taglio for us.

-It sounds so, I don't know, dangerous.

Yes, we're gonna make one of the best pizzas out there, as you mentioned, pizza al taglio, and the crust is what makes this so different.

It's very similar to Sicilian pizza.

It's baked in a big pan, but it has almost a focaccia-like feeling to it.

-Mm.

-It's got this lacy, open holes and smaller holes, and the bottom gets nice and crisp.

So we're gonna make a great version here today starting with the dough.

-Bread flour is what we want here.

It has a higher protein content, so that is going to help us create more gluten.

So this is 14 and 2/3 ounces.

Always a good idea to weigh it out, but it's about 2 and 2/3 cups of bread flour.

Now, to that, I'm going to add a teaspoon of instant yeast.

You could also use rapid-rise yeast.

I'll just whisk this together.

So next -- water.

This is 1 and 1/2 cups or 12 ounces of water, and this is room temp, and 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.

So I'll just mix this in.

It looks kind of stiff at this point, but you'll see later on, it'll start to loosen up, and what I'm looking for is this to come together into a shaggy mess and just no dry pockets of flour at this point.

So this is all mixed up.

I'll put a little piece of plastic on it, and we're going to leave this here for about 10 minutes, and during this time, it's the magical time of autolyse.

Autolyse is when enzymes are formed, and they break down these little balls of protein that are in the dough, and break them apart into smaller pieces so it's going to be easy to manage later on.

-Okay.

-All right.

-Let it relax.

-We have accomplished autolyse.

That was a good 10 minutes.

Take off the plastic.

I'm gonna reuse that in just a second.

Now this is 1 and 1/4 teaspoons of table salt.

So I'll just mix this in as best as I can, and this is gonna get mixed up a little later, too, but we're not using a mixer at all because mixers don't develop enough gluten, and they create a crumb that's just too fine.

So we like that shaggy, irregular crumb.

All right.

So this is going to go back on, this piece of plastic, and now we're going to let it rest.

It's gonna be a good 20 minutes.

All right, 20 minutes later, and you can see that the dough is starting to smooth out a little bit.

We're gonna fold it.

So I've wet my hands here.

I'm gonna pull up one side and then start to bring it to the middle, and I'll turn the bowl about 90 degrees, and I'll do the same thing, and anytime my hand starts to get a little bit sticky, I'll just dip it right back in the water.

So we're gonna go around the bowl a total of six times.

We're gonna put a piece of plastic back on it.

Now we're gonna let this sit for 20 minutes, and then I'm gonna go back in there and do the same thing with wet hands, start to fold it again.

Now, at that point, I might find that the dough is just starting to feel a little tighter, so I might only get three times around the bowl instead of a total of six turns, but anywhere from three to six turns is great, and after that, plastic goes back on, and 10 minutes before we move on.

-Okay.

-All right.

So, again, this was after the second series of folds, and we let it rest for another 10 minutes.

Now we're gonna get this out of the bowl.

Now, I've got here a baking pan, a 13x9-inch baking pan.

The dough is going to go right in there, and once it's in there, I want you to feel this dough.

-Wow, you can't even touch it.

-I know.

-I almost have to slap it or else it'll stick to me.

-Well, don't slap it.

What did it do to you?

-Hmm-hmm.

-But you can see it's all relaxed.

It's very supple.

-I went ahead, and I sprayed this baking pan with vegetable oil spray.

I'm gonna spray the top of this as well, and I'm going to use my fingertips to start to dimple this out into about a 10x7-inch oval roughly.

Again, we're just starting the coaxing process here.

If it starts to snap back a little bit, you know what?

Just listen to it.

So now I want to put it on a piece of plastic.

This is just the easier way to wrap, connect it on top... -Wow.

-...nice and tight at this point.

I'm just gonna set this aside for a moment because we're gonna make our sauce.

-This is a 14 and 1/2 ounce can of whole tomatoes that we've drained.

-Mm-hmm.

-That way, we can get rid of all the liquid, and we don't have to precook it, and I've got 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.

I've got two anchovy fillets.

This is a teaspoon of dried oregano, 1/2 teaspoon of table salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes.

All right.

Lid goes on.

We're gonna process this until the sauce is nice and smooth.

It's gonna take about 30 seconds.

Enough of that.

-Mm.

-I'm gonna get this out of the blender -- -Mm.

-...put this into the fridge and let it chill just until you use it, and this could actually go into the fridge and stay in there for two days.

If you wouldn't mind covering that with plastic -- -Sure thing.

-...and the dough is also going to go into the fridge for at least 16 hours, but up to 24 is great.

-Okay.

-All right.

So here is what the dough looks like after about 24 hours.

-Wow.

-Now, we want to start working it into this pan, but again, this pizza, one of the hallmarks is it's sort of like focaccia.

It gets that almost fried crust from lots of good olive oil.

-Mm-hmm.

-So I'm gonna paint the top of this with 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.

Now, I'm going to invert this onto this pan, and this is why we didn't start to form the dough right in that rimmed baking sheet.

If we had started it with all that olive oil on the bottom, by the time that we got to this point, a lot of that oil would have been soaked into the dough itself.

-A-ha.

-So by leaving it on there, it's going to help to fry the bottom of the dough.

-All right.

-So now we're going to start to dimple this just with our fingertips into about a 15x11 oval.

We're gonna start working it towards the sides at this point, not even gonna attempt the corners.

So that's looking good.

Starting to work it out, coaxing it gently.

We're gonna spray this with a little bit more vegetable oil spray.

We're just gonna cover it loosely with a little bit of plastic wrap, and now this is going to sit right on the counter until it starts to get a little bit bubbly and a little bit puffier, and that's gonna take about an hour, maybe up to an hour and a quarter.

All right, so you can see that dough has gotten a little bit puffy.

It's been about an hour.

-Mm-hmm.

-So at this point, I'm going to start working from the inside out and pushing it to the edges and into the corners.

If it was starting to snap back, cover it again for another couple minutes if necessary, but really, I mean, that's pretty darn good.

-Mm-hmm.

-All right.

Now, this is 1/2 cup of the sauce we made earlier.

It makes more than 1/2 cup, but you can actually freeze the rest of it for up to two months.

-Oh, very clever.

-We're going to drizzle it right over the top.

I'm gonna use the back of a spoon and just spread this out to a very thin veneer all the way to the edges because, again, this is pizza by the cut, so every piece has to be saucy.

A little bit more extra virgin olive oil, and that's a tablespoon to drizzle right over the top, and this is just really gonna keep the top nice and rich and help with browning, as well.

So I'm gonna use the back of my spoon gently over the sauce right on top.

-The one thing I don't see out here is cheese.

-Usually, if there's any sauce, it goes without any cheese on top.

-Interesting.

-Yes.

All right, so that looks beautiful.

All right, and this is going to go into a fairly hot oven -- 450 degrees.

I've also moved the rack all the way down to the bottom, and that's important.

We actually don't need a baking stone because of that.

This pan is going to be really close to the heat source.

There's all that oil underneath the dough.

It's gonna fry the bottom and get really good and brown.

So that's going to go into the oven, and we're gonna leave it in there for about 20 to 25 minutes until the top starts to get nice and golden brown, and about halfway through baking, I'll go in there, and I'll rotate the pan.

-Ooh.

-Ah.

-Mm-hmm.

-Oh, you can really smell that sauce.

Now, before we move it and cut it, I need to let it cool in this pan for about five minutes, so hands off.

-Okay.

-It's eating time.

-All right.

-Almost.

Got to get it out of the pan, so I'm gonna take a knife and just release it from the sides anywhere it looks like it's touching the sides of the pan.

So I'm gonna bring this up here, and I like to use an offset spatula for this.

It just gets under very easily, and slide it right out.

-Mm.

-Just like that.

So we're gonna top this with a really fresh topping.

This is 4 ounces of baby arugula.

We're gonna dress this arugula with a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil almost like a salad on top of our pizza.

The pizza is still warm, so it's gonna wilt the arugula just a little bit -- -Mm.

-...and start to release some of that peppery flavor.

Now, I do need to cut the pizza before I add the arugula.

-Before adding the toppings.

-You would cut and crush the arugula -- no good.

-Makes sense.

-So we're gonna cut this into eight pieces, right?

-Mm.

-Arugula goes right on the top.

Scatter it all the way to the edges again.

You want every bit to be evenly covered.

It's just so nice and fresh, and it's beautiful.

So next, fresh mozzarella.

-Ooh!

-This is whole milk fresh mozzarella, 8 ounces, and we've torn it into bite-size pieces.

So we're gonna scatter this on top, as well, and quite a bit of it.

Finally, Parmesan, and this is Parmigiano-Reggiano.

It's 1 1/2 ounces.

-That turned a corner right there at the end in terms of looks.

-So, Julia, this is precut.

-Ooh.

I'm gonna go for this corner edge because it's closest.

-Mm, there you go.

-Oh, yeah.

Mmm.

That's delicious.

-All about that crust.

-The flavor of that crust is so deep and hearty.

-I love that crispness from all that olive oil.

It all pays off here.

-I like this.

This is a change of pace from your average pizza.

The sauce, like you said, it's intensified.

-Mm-hmm, and the arugula is just right especially with all that peppery bite just softened just a little bit.

-Mm-hmm.

Bridget, this is delicious.

Thank you.

-Prego.

-So if you want to make this classic Roman-style pizza, mix together a very wet dough using bread flour, instant yeast, and a little olive oil.

Fold the dough a few times to develop the gluten and let it rise slowly in the refrigerator.

Make a no-cook sauce using the blender and canned whole tomatoes.

About an hour before baking, transfer the dough to a greased rimmed baking sheet and stretch it into shape.

Top with sauce and a little olive oil before baking and finish with fresh arugula and some cheese.

From "America's Test Kitchen" to your kitchen, a killer recipe for pizza al taglio.

-Before peppercorns were used as a spice on the table, they were used as medicine and currency.

The Romans kept a lot of pepper on hand, and they used it as ransom to keep the Visigoths and Attila the Hun at bay, at least for a little while.

Now, the Dutch have a term called "peppe duur," which means "costly," and I think I'm in front of a test that may cost me my career.

I'm here with Jack.

He's going to explain peppercorns and tell us which one we should buy.

I'm a little scared.

I'm kind of intimidated here.

-Feel at ease.

-Okay.

-No money will change hands no matter the result, and no one will be hurt.

-Would a $20 change things, though?

-No.

-Okay.

-So we mixed these with white rice.

-All right.

-I will tell you this was a hard tasting to do.

When we cracked the peppercorns in our favorite mill -- so, these are all whole black peppercorns, 10 different brands -- we felt like after two samples, the palate was obliterated.

-Right.

-You couldn't taste anything.

In a lot of cooking applications, I'll be honest with you.

You really couldn't tell much of a difference.

-Interesting.

-We found, like, in egg salad, you could tell the difference, but even in something like steak au poivre, once you cook with the peppercorns, they all taste like peppercorns.

-And you would think that's a dish where you would really taste it.

-Some of them are Tellicherry.

Some of them are not.

Tellicherry simply means that it is a large peppercorn, at least 4 millimeters, that comes from India.

We ended up measuring all the peppercorns no matter their source, whether it was from Vietnam or India, and turns out almost all of the brands here would have qualified based on the size to be Tellicherry, but of course, they have to be not only large but from India to be labeled Tellicherry.

-I got you.

-The reason why that is so important is because the larger the peppercorn, the more you get the other things besides the heat.

I mean, a good black pepper, yes, it's bringing some spice, but you're getting citrus.

You're getting woodsy pine.

You're getting some warm spice, and those are all things that make food taste even more delicious.

So any initial impressions about the many bowls of white rice?

-Well, as I'm going down, this one down here doesn't seem to have the same heat as some of the others.

-All right.

Is it time for me to fess up?

-There's a ringer?

-There's... -You put a ringer in here?

-Well, there's always a ringer.

-That's true.

You're the ringer.

-The reason why there are five samples is one of them is with preground pepper.

-Now, Jack, you lied to me because you told me that they were all whole -- I guess once, they were all whole peppercorns, right?

-They were born as whole peppercorns.

We really felt like that was 100 times more important than brand was to get a whole peppercorn, put it into your own pepper mill, and grind it yourself.

The two things that are the difference are texture.

It gets dried out and woody, basically sawdust.

-Right.

-Freshly ground pepper is softer.

Second thing, and more important, is flavor, that, yes, you still get the heat in preground pepper, but you get no citrus.

-Mm-hmm.

-You get no warm spice.

You get no clove.

You get no pine.

You get nothing other than spicy.

-Spicy.

I would say that my two favorites are these two, this one especially.

I think there's a really nice balance in here.

-This one is your favorite?

-Yes.

Oh, my God!

Is that our winner?

-Yeah, that is our winner.

-All right.

This was a close second.

-Oh, this was our runner-up, from Penzeys.

-Whew.

-So this is a Tellicherry.

It's a mail order brand.

-I like that one, too.

So I have a sophisticated palate is what you're saying?

-You like to pay more.

-I have a sophisticated palate is what I said.

-This one?

-McCormick.

-Oh, okay.

This one?

Ground.

-Oh.

-Now, wait a minute.

Is this preground out of a bottle, or is this preground that you did?

-No, it's preground out of this.

-Really?

-Yes, and this is actually the same brand -- -As this.

-...as this, and we found this doesn't matter if you buy the best brand out there.

If it's preground, I mean, this is, like, enough ground pepper for, I don't know, 10 years?

-Exactly.

-But this is the biggest mistake you can make, even though it seems like, oh, it's such a good deal.

-I have to say that in terms of ground black pepper, that ain't so bad, and then this one.

-This is another mail order brand -- Kalustyan's.

-Okay.

-This one had some mushroomy, earthy notes that some of the tasters didn't really love.

-It tasted a little bit old.

-Musty was the word that the tasters were using.

-Okay.

There you go.

Our winner is the Tone's whole black peppercorns, and it's $2 for a 2-ounce bottle.

If you've got a chunk of Pecorino Romano on hand and maybe some ground black pepper, then you're on your way to making one of the four classic Roman pasta dishes.

There's carbonara, amatriciana, cacio e pepe, and what we're making today, pasta alla gricia.

Now, it's not as well-known, but Dan is here to tell us why we should be making this every single day.

-Every day is perfect.

It's a short ingredient list, huge, huge flavor.

So of the pasta quartet that comes from Rome, this one puts pork at the very top.

-Which is why I love it.

-I know.

It's perfect that we're doing it together.

-Mm-hmm.

-So let's talk about pork first.

So the traditional pork choice here is guanciale, which is cured pork jowl, and that is different than pancetta.

So pancetta is from the belly, and that's cured and then usually rolled up like this.

So that's what we're looking at here.

So this is the jowl right here.

You can see it's got more fat, and it's just got a funkier, porkier flavor.

So this is really gonna season the entire dish nicely, a little less acidity.

This has a little more ferment-y flavor, the pancetta.

-Right.

-So if you can get your hands on guanciale, it's becoming a little bit more available in the States, go for it.

So we're gonna have chunks of guanciale in the pasta itself, but the fat that renders out is also going to make our sauce possible.

It's a really creamy sauce that has no cream in it, and it's all through the magic of emulsification.

And so we need the fat to come out of this, and first, we're gonna start by cutting this into 1/4-inch pieces this way, and then I just stack a couple.

So we've got basically 1-inch pieces this way, 1/4-inch that way, and we're gonna cut a 1/2 inch this way.

-Okay.

-So we're gonna leave them nice and chunky.

So this is 8 ounces of guanciale so 1/2 pound.

It's a significant amount, but we're gonna need that much in there.

So I'm adding this to a cold Dutch oven with a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil in here.

We're gonna put it over medium-low heat.

We're gonna do this pretty gently.

So that's gonna take about 10 to 12 minutes.

-Okay.

-We can just kind of monitor that.

So let's talk about pasta.

Rigatoni is the traditional choice for this dish, so that's what we're going with.

We're working with a pasta that is really rough textured on the outside.

It's gonna help grab onto lots of sauce.

We're gonna do two things kind of differently with this pasta.

We're gonna cook it in just 2 quarts of water.

-Are we allowed to do that?

-We are allowed to do that.

It's actually gonna be key to this dish.

What we want is a really starchy pasta water.

A bunch of it is gonna go into the sauce, and that, along with the fat and the water, is gonna help create a really nice velvety sauce.

The second thing is we're not gonna add any salt to that water.

Guanciale is really salty.

The Pecorino we're gonna use is really salty, and we're gonna use a lot of pasta water.

So we want to leave that salt out.

All right.

So here we go.

We're going in.

-That looks so wrong.

-Looks so wrong, I know.

So the only thing you need to do a little bit differently is just stir a little bit more in the beginning.

-Okay.

-There's a little bit more tendency to stick because everything is a little closer together, but this will absolutely work.

-Sure.

-So we're going to cook this to perfect al dente, and we're gonna do that by tasting it.

-Okay.

-So right around maybe 9 minutes, I'll check it and taste it, and then we're gonna cook this for about 10 to 12 minutes.

We want really beautiful browning, and you'll see that the fat turns translucent, and we'll render out a bunch of that fat.

Okay.

Look at this guanciale.

-This is, like, fantasy kitchen.

-Right?

Just pork and pasta going on right here.

-Yes.

-I'm gonna use my slotted spoon here and transfer it out, leave that fat behind.

-How crispy, oh.

-So I am going to drain this.

So we're looking for at least 1/4 cup and up to 1/3 cup.

So we've got a little bit of extra here.

I'm gonna take it down to 1/3 cup.

Beautiful.

So our fat is gonna go back into the pot, and now it is time to drain our pasta.

-Okay.

-So you can see we got really starchy water in there.

-Very starchy.

-I think this pasta is probably good, but I'm just gonna do a quick taste on it.

Nice bite to it.

That's awesome.

So it's time to drain, and we're not gonna do this over the sink.

I've actually got a colander in a bowl here.

We're gonna capture all of this pasta water.

-All of the pasta-cooking rules are gone.

-We're not wasting anything.

All right.

Let's take a look.

-You can't even see through that water.

-I know.

It's so nice and starchy.

I love it.

So we're gonna set this pasta aside for just a second, and then we're gonna use 2 cups of the pasta water actually to make the sauce.

-Okay.

-So I'm just gonna pour that off here.

Perfect.

-Wow.

-I'm gonna add this to the pot along with that fat.

The third big flavor is black pepper.

-Yes.

-That really helps to cut through all of the fat and richness in this dish.

So it's a teaspoon of ground black pepper.

Gonna bring this to a boil over high heat, and we're gonna cook it until it reaches about 1 1/2 cups, which takes about five minutes.

This is one of the coolest parts of this recipe.

So we want a really creamy sauce, and this is actually the key to emulsifying all that fat.

This boiling action, all of this violent action breaks the fat into tiny little droplets, and the starchy water helps to keep all of that fat separated, so it stays really emulsified and creamy instead of separating back out.

-Mm.

-So the boiling step not only reduces it and concentrates things, actually forms the emulsion.

-Creamy.

It looks beautiful.

-It looks beautiful, right?

It smells incredible.

-Yes.

-Yes.

-Yeah.

-So this has been cooking for about five minutes, and it's looking really nice and creamy and emulsified.

-Mm.

-So I want to get a measurement on it.

It's really important to have the right amount of sauce.

So I'm just gonna pour this off.

We're looking for 1 1/2 cups of this gorgeous sauce.

Perfect.

So that's 1 1/2 cups.

So I'm gonna put this heat on low.

Now we just put the whole thing together.

So we've got our pasta over here, so pasta goes in.

We've got our beautiful browned guanciale, every last bit of that -- -Mm-hmm.

-...and then we've also got Pecorino Romano.

You want to buy a really high quality one that's nutty and sharp.

-Mm-hmm.

-A lot of good funkiness is going to match with the funkiness of that pork.

So this is 1 cup, which is 2 ounces finely grated, and we've got it over low heat here.

So I'm gonna stir everything in, and we want to stir for a decent amount of time, about a minute, and what we're trying to do here is get everything beautifully coated, and this is what's gonna give us the gorgeous, creamy, creamy pasta.

So you can see that it's really starting to get super creamy.

-That's beautiful.

-This looks gorgeous.

It is time to eat.

-Thank goodness for that.

The aroma, the cheese, the pork, the pepper.

You can get a lot of that pepper because it blooms in that hot oil.

-Exactly.

All right.

-Now, I have a bone to pick with you.

-Yeah.

-I counted at least three more pieces of pork in your serving than mine.

-You're good.

Let me get you over here.

All right.

Can I grate a little more Pecorino Romano on top?

-Please do, yes.

Snow falls on pasta.

-I know.

It's so beautiful.

-All right.

I'm gonna tuck in to it and make sure I get one of those missing pieces of pork.

-Like my big one here?

-Yeah, exactly.

All right.

I think I've won the prize here.

It's pork in the middle of rigatoni.

-This is, like, the original pigs in a blanket, right?

-That's what I was thinking.

-You were thinking?

-Yeah.

I think that's what "alla gricia" means.

-[ Laughs ] Mmm.

-Ah, that pork flavor, it's so good, and you didn't add any salt to the pasta cooking water.

-Which, yeah, you were a little skeptical about.

-Yeah, a little skeptical, but you didn't need to season it afterwards, either, and it's perfectly seasoned.

-I love it.

We have these really salty ingredients that bring so much else to the table.

We're getting all of our salt from that.

-It's, like, tangy from the cheese and the pork.

It's got those funky flavors in there, a little bite of black pepper.

-Yeah.

-It's as good as it gets.

We really should make this every day.

-I agree.

-And by we, I mean you.

-Happy to do it.

-See you tomorrow.

-Okay.

-Well, if you want to make pasta alla gricia at home, render guanciale until browned, and in the meantime, start cooking rigatoni.

Add black pepper and pasta cooking water to the pork fat and boil it all together until the mixture becomes an emulsified sauce.

Add the pasta and guanciale back to that sauce and stir in Pecorino Romano.

Serve with more cheese and a little black pepper if desired.

So from "America's Test Kitchen" to your kitchen, pasta alla gricia, and you can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, including tastings, testings, and selected episodes on our website, americastestkitchen.com dot guanciale.

Where's all the pork?

-Where did it go?

-You didn't put any in my bowl.

-I did.

I gave you some.

-I didn't see you.

-Let us help you with dinner tonight.

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