America's Test Kitchen

-Welcome to "America's Test Kitchen" at home.

Today, we're cooking breakfast.

I'm going to show you how to fry the perfect egg.

Erin's going to talk to us all about cold brew coffee.

Adam has a roundup of tools for eggs.

And last but not least, Elle's going to show us how to make yeasted waffles.

We've got a lot in store today, so stick around.

-There are three recipes that I think every home cook should know how to make.

First up, the perfect roast chicken.

Second, a killer vinaigrette that you could put it on anything from salad to grilled vegetables to meats.

And last but not least, a perfect fried egg.

One that has crisp edges, tastes a little buttery, the whites are fully cooked through, but that yolk is still a little runny, which is what I'm going to show you how to make today.

Okay, now, first up, let's talk about the pan.

We're going to use a 12-inch nonstick skillet because I'm making four eggs, so you want a lot of surface area.

Nonstick for the obvious reason that you want the eggs to come out of the pan without breaking the yolk.

Also, I have 2 teaspoons of veg oil.

This pan is heating up over low heat.

And you want to let it preheat for five minutes.

That way, there's no hot spots in the pan, so the eggs will cook evenly.

All right.

So while that's heating up, let's talk about the eggs.

I'm going to use four large eggs.

And you don't want to crack them one at a time into a hot pan because the cooking time on these eggs is really short, about a minute.

So if you crack them one at a time, they're all going to be at various stages of doneness.

So you want to crack them into two bowls so you can add them at once.

No magic here, just cracking, except you don't want to break any yolks, because in my world, a broken yolk means you have a rough day ahead, so take your time.

All right.

Now we're just going to season with a little salt and pepper.

And if you want to, this is when you can jazz it up a bit.

You want to add a little cayenne, a little smoked paprika, a little chili powder, or a little Syrian pepper.

If you've ever had that on eggs, it's good stuff.

All right.

So the eggs are ready.

And now this skillet has been heating up for five minutes.

I'm going to turn the heat up to medium high, and I'm going to look for this oil to start to shimmer.

That's going to let me know that the skillet is hot enough to fry the eggs and get those crisp edges.

So while that is heating up, I'm going to get some butter that I've been keeping cold in the fridge.

The oil is starting to shimmer.

Now I'm going to slice off just a little bit of butter, about 2 teaspoons, a little less than a tablespoon.

Again, this butter is nice and cold.

Cutting it into small pieces.

We're going to add it to the skillet.

Yeah, that little bit of sizzle is perfect.

Now the butter just adds flavor.

We're going to swirl the skillet around, get that butter to melt nice and quickly.

Mm.

Oh, perfect.

All right.

Now, in go the eggs, and as soon as the eggs go in, I'm going to put the lid on.

Cooking the eggs under the lid is the other thing that most people skip.

But it's really important because you want to trap the steam, and that'll help cook the egg whites that are sitting on top.

And the timer gets started for one minute.

Okay, here I have some plates all ready to go with some nice oven-cooked bacon.

If you don't cook your bacon in the oven, you are missing out because it cooks through perfectly.

And my favorite -- whole grain toast, some coffee and orange juice.

You can find that bacon recipe, by the way, on our website, americastestkitchen.com.

[ Timer beeps ] All right.

That's been a minute.

And now, last but not least, the key to perfectly cooked eggs is to slide the skillet off the heat to let them finish cooking.

That way, you won't overcook the yolk.

Now, you're going to let this sit off the heat anywhere from 15 seconds up to a minute or more, depending on how you like your yolks.

Now, I like my yolks on the runny side, so I'm usually around 15, 20 seconds.

Okay, now look at these eggs.

The top of the yolks, that albumin, that egg white, has just clouded over.

You can see the yolks are still runny.

All right, I'm going to cut this in half.

Here we go.

We're going to slide -- ooh -- on one plate.

Ohh!

Time to dig in while they're good and hot.

I love doing it with a piece of toast.

Best bite of the day right here.

Oh, yes.

Mm-hmm.

You break in -- Oh, look at that.

Mm-hmm.

[ Crunches ] Mm-hmm!

Mmm, mmm, mmm.

Good morning.

Now I'll use the fork.

[ Laughs ] This part, this fried edge.

It's like diner-style eggs, right?

Dip it a little in the yolk.

Oh, yeah.

Let the day begin.

So if you want to make perfect fried eggs, remember to heat that skillet up first for five minutes.

Next, you want to make sure you cover that skillet while you're cooking the eggs, and last but not least, slide that skillet off the heat to finish cooking the eggs.

From "America's Test Kitchen" at home, perfect fried eggs.

I started drinking iced cold brew coffee about 10 years ago, and since then, I drink it pretty much regularly, especially during the warm weather months.

I love iced cold brew coffee because it's a lot smoother and less bitter than regular iced coffee, which I also love.

But I also started making iced cold brew coffee concentrate at home, and I'm going to show you how to make that.

And it all comes down to the beans.

So we're going to start with medium roast coffee beans.

And it's important to use medium roast coffee beans because you can really taste the true flavors of the coffee bean.

It's also very important to grind your own coffee beans right before you make your concentrate so that it's fresh.

I'm going to start by weighing out 7 ounces of the medium roast coffee beans.

If you don't have a scale, all you have to do is measure out 2 1/2 cups.

All right.

So now that we have our beans, now we're going to grind them.

So you have two different grinding options.

You have a blade grinder and you have a burr grinder.

A blade grinder is designed where it has one hopper.

And inside of it, it has a blade.

It's just like a little mini food processor.

And what you do is you put your coffee beans in there, put the lid on it, and you press the button, and the blade just really chops up those coffee beans.

And you have to shake it a couple times, and it does generate heat, and it does take away a little bit of the flavor of the coffee.

So a more gentle approach is using a burr grinder.

So a burr grinder has three different parts to it.

It has a hopper, where you put your beans into, and then inside it has a chamber where it grinds up the coffee beans as the coffee beans go through it.

It's kind of like how a pepper grinder works.

And then as it grinds, it falls right into this little removable container.

So I have it set at coarse.

When it comes to iced cold brew coffee, we want coarse.

All I'm going to do is pour the coffee beans right into the hopper.

Before I start to grind my coffee beans, as I've made this over the years, I've discovered that static is created as it grinds.

So when you open up the chamber, little coffee bits go flying everywhere.

So I found a little trick to avoid that from happening.

And that's basically taking a paper towel, dipping it into water, and then just dripping maybe about 10 drops of water over it.

And then I stir that in with the base of a spoon.

And what this does is the water really just kind of keeps the beans from flying around.

I used to make a mess every time I made this until I figured out how to fix it.

All right, so now you put the lid on and we're ready to grind.

[ Whirring ] Okay, if there's static, we're going to find out.

And there's no static, so it's this... perfect thing, it's a game changer.

Okay, so here is our French press, and I'm just going to add this coffee into the French press.

[ Tapping ] And grind the rest of the coffee beans.

[ Whirring ] I wish you could smell this right now.

The smell of fresh ground coffee, it just wakes you right up.

Okay, so that's our coffee.

It's waiting for us in our French press.

So let's go on to our second ingredient, which is water.

So when making cold brew concentrate, it's really important that you use good filtered water.

And that will allow the true flavors of the coffee bean to come through.

You can taste all the little nuances and the caramel notes and the coffee notes and the chocolate notes.

So we want 2 1/2 cups of water.

What this comes down to is basically a ratio of one to one.

So one part coffee to one part water.

We're using 2 1/2 cups of coffee.

We're using 2 1/2 cups of water.

I'm going to pour this water over the coffee grinds.

If you have a larger French press, by all means, just increase the ratio accordingly.

And see, all the coffee's kind of rising to the top.

And so I'm going to use a chopstick.

And what this chopstick is going to do, it's a very gentle method for stirring the water and the coffee together.

So now I'm kind of making a ground coffee slurry.

And it's really important that all the coffee grinds come in contact with water.

All the flavors are going to come out of the coffee and into the water, which is what we want.

And so I'm feeling pretty good about this.

It's definitely loosened up.

But just to be sure, I'm going to let this sit for 10 minutes and I'm going to come back and stir it one more time.

Okay, so it's been about 10 minutes.

And as you can see, a raft has formed.

The coffee grinds have slowly risen and the water is settled.

And so now I just want to make sure that I give it one more stir.

It's very important that the coffee grinds have full contact with the water.

So I'm breaking up the raft and giving it another stir.

I should mention that there's a lot of recipes out there that call for constant agitation, stirring it often.

It's really not necessary.

This is it.

This is all that you have to do is just stir it this one last time.

And now I'm going to cover it with plastic wrap.

And this is where it's going to do its thing.

Takes a little bit of time, but it's all hands off.

So I'm going to sit for about 24 hours, and you can let it sit from anywhere between 12 hours and 72 hours, whatever works best for you and your schedule.

But I found that the 24-hour mark is the perfect mark for the extraction that I like.

So I'm just going to let this sit for 24 hours and we'll come back.

It's been 24 hours, and our coffee has steeped.

And it's ready to press, so I'm going to remove the plastic wrap.

It's good to give it a little quick, gentle stir, and that will help the raft to kind of break up again and the pressing will be a little bit easier.

So then I'm going to take my plunger and I'm going to start pressing.

This does take a little bit of muscle.

You don't want to put a ton of muscle into it because remember, you are pressing on a glass jar and you don't want it to break, which has happened.

Okay, so now it's ready to strain.

So over here I have a fine mesh strainer, and I put a coffee filter in it.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to pour the coffee that I've pressed, and then it's going to drain again through the coffee filter.

And this step really is not 100 percent necessary, but what it does is it removes any extra kind of coffee sludge that I really don't want in my coffee.

Some people like it.

I don't really care for it, so I'm going to strain it out.

Oh, smells delicious.

All right.

Smells amazing.

I'm getting excited.

Okay, so while that's starting to drain, I'm just going to slide this over here.

There's another step.

So I have a large bowl and I have a triple layer of cheesecloth that I've lined it with.

I want to get every drop out of the coffee grinds that are still in this coffee press.

So I'm just going to transfer them to the setup.

Scrape them in.

This is gold, ah.

I gather all the corners together, make a little -- little pouch.

So I'm just going to give it a couple of squeezes.

And now I'm just going to pour this right into the coffee filter as well.

Okay, so now we're just going to let this sit.

And it takes about a couple of hours for all that coffee to go through the filter.

And you can take a rubber spatula and help kind of move any silt and any sludge that is left behind so that the coffee can flow through a little bit faster.

It's been a couple of hours, and our coffee has fully gone through the filter.

So as you can see, it's really strained out quite a bit of coffee grit.

So I'm just going to put this aside, and now we're ready to basically put this into a jar and refrigerate it.

It keeps for about one week.

What I like to do at this point is put it into individual servings.

So I have a couple of jars.

So I take my concentrate and I'm just going to divide it up.

A 1/2 cup of concentrate is a full portion.

This makes two portions.

Now it's ready to put into the refrigerator, and I have my individual portions ready to go.

My cold brew has chilled, and it is showtime.

I have 1/2 cup of concentrate.

Now I have cold-filtered water.

So I'm going to measure out 1/2 cup.

Again, you want to use really good water when you're making your cold brew, so you really want those coffee flavors to come through.

The ratio here is one to one, but if you like your cold brew stronger, you can use a little less water.

If you like it a little bit weaker, you can use a little bit more water.

So I like it at one-to-one ratio.

So I'm going to pour that into my cold brew.

And this is kosher salt.

I'm going to add just a little pinch, and what this does is the salt really kind of rounds out the flavors of the coffee, and it also tames down any remaining bitterness that might be left over.

So just going to swish that around to let that salt dissolve a little bit.

Okay, so now it's ready to pour over my ice, but I want to point out that I actually made my own ice cubes from filtered water.

You start with filtered water, you should really have clean ice cubes as well.

So all you do is just pour this right over those ice cubes.

And when I drink cold brew, I like to add almond milk to it.

So I'm going to foam some.

I don't do this all the time, but it really does make it a little extra special.

The head of the foamer you want to be at the bottom of the liquid, and then as it becomes greater in volume, you can slowly lift up the tip of the foamer just so it's just under the surface of the foam.

So this milk foamer is really kind of a fun gadget to have.

I use it when making lattes or cappuccinos.

You can foam milk or you can foam almond milk.

All right.

So now all you do is just hold a little foam back, pour almond milk in.

Look at that beautiful, beautiful, beautiful foam.

All right.

My iced cold brew is ready to drink.

You can really taste the coffee.

I'm getting, like, little chocolate bits and roasted coffee, but it's not too roasted, it's not too strong, it really doesn't dominate.

And making the foam is really nice because you can actually taste the foam as it's sitting on top.

You can also really enjoy it as it's mixed into the cold brew as well.

But this is well worth every step that I have taken.

The payoff is having a couple bottles in your fridge at all times so that you have this to pour and make yourself, and it's a nice treat.

If you want to make the best iced cold brew concentrate, remember to use medium roast coffee that's coarsely ground, filtered water, and a one-to-one ratio of coffee to water.

So from "America's Test Kitchen" at home, a spectacular recipe for cold brew coffee concentrate.

It's such a treat.

-Eggs serve more culinary purposes than I could possibly rattle off, but around here, the most important one is they're the basis of all kinds of simple, satisfying meals that I would eat morning, noon, and night.

Here are a couple of our favorite tools that you need to achieve "egg-cellence."

First, let's start with a nonstick skillet.

That's the right choice for making omelets or fried eggs.

We've tested them all, and the one that we like the best is the OXO Good Grip's Non-Stick Pro Open 12-inch fry pan.

It's about $42.

It's got a good, slick cooking surface.

It's broad also at 9 3/4 inches, and the pan is light and easy to maneuver.

It also comes in a 10-inch size and an 8-inch size.

Now, if you're going to follow the "ATK" recipe for fried eggs, you'll need to cover the pan.

And most of these nonstick skillets don't come with a cover.

We've tested all of the universal covers out there.

Weren't really impressed with any of them except for one.

It's not, strictly speaking, a universal cover, but this one is the $36 Lodge Tempered Glass 12-inch cover.

It seals really well to our favorite 12-inch skillet and it's definitely the cover to get.

Even if you have the cover and the right skillet, it's super easy to overcook eggs.

So timing them carefully is paramount.

And for that, obviously you'll need a timer.

Our favorite timer is this one.

It's the OXO Good Grips Triple Timer.

It's about $20, and it's got lots to recommend it.

There are three timers, which you can read simultaneously so that you can monitor three different projects at once.

It's got a clock, it's got a stopwatch, it keeps track of elapsed time.

And our favorite feature is the direct entry keypad.

So you can type whatever time you want right in there without all kinds of irritating scrolling.

You really cannot "eggs-aggerate" the need for the right equipment when you're cooking eggs.

-If y'all know anything about me, you know I love a "make ahead" moment.

So the idea of having a waffle recipe in the fridge waiting for me Saturday morning is kind of exciting.

Let me show you how I do it.

I start with 1 3/4 cup of low-fat milk.

And to that I'm going to add 8 tablespoons of butter, a whole stick.

So you know it's going to be good.

I'm going to turn this on to a medium low heat, about three to five minutes.

All right.

It's been about five minutes.

The butter has melted.

This is exactly what we were looking for.

I'm going to go over to the table and start mixing our dry ingredients while I let this buttermilk cool until it's warm to touch.

In the meantime, I'm going to start to make our dry mix.

I'm going to start with 10 ounces of flour.

Perfect.

To the flour, I'm going to add a tablespoon of sugar.

Also, 1 1/2 teaspoons of yeast.

And finally, 1 teaspoon of salt.

And I'm going to whisk together these dry ingredients until they're well combined.

So the yeast here plays two roles.

It provides leavening and it adds great flavor.

All right.

I'm going to set this mixture to the side.

I'm also going to test my milk to see if it's warm to touch.

Still a little hot.

So I'm going to start with the eggs.

And we have two large eggs.

And I'm going to add a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Now I'm just going to whisk the vanilla and the eggs until they're well combined.

All right, that looks great.

Before I put this in, I have to add the milk and butter.

And make sure it's ready.

Warm to touch.

Perfect.

So I'm going to slowly whisk this in.

So the warm milk jump-starts the yeast.

All right, so I'm just going to mix it well.

I'm using my whisk to scrape any flour from around the edges of the bowl.

All right.

And now I'm going to add our egg-vanilla mixture.

And I'm just going to whisk it until it's well combined.

I'm just going to use my spatula to scrape down the edges to make sure that all of the batter is mixed well.

So the warm milk jump-started the yeast, but now we need to slow it down by putting it in the refrigerator, or else we'll have a sour, tangy batter, and no one wants that.

I'm going to cover it with plastic and put it in the fridge for 12 to 24 hours.

It's been 12 hours, and our batter is ready.

And you can tell that it's ready because it's foamy and it has doubled in size.

I'm just going to use the whisk to kind of reconstitute it.

So it will deflate once you start to whisk it, but that's perfectly normal.

So I have my waffle maker preheated.

I'm going to spray it with some cooking spray, top and bottom.

So I'm going to put about a cup of batter into the waffle maker.

And this cool dude makes two waffles, so I'm saving some time.

So to go with my very special waffles, I have a very special guest for brunch today, my mom, Dr. Price.

-Hi.

-Hi.

I made waffles!

-Hi.

I'm excited.

You know I love waffles.

-It's your favorite.

It's your favorite.

-It's my absolute favorite.

-All right.

So these waffles are done.

Oh, my.

And they're nice and golden.

-Oh, they smell so good.

-All right.

A lot of butter for you.

-Lots of butter.

-I know you like a lot of butter.

-Yes.

Mm.

-On your waffle.

-That looks good.

-Is that good?

A little syrup.

-Oh.

-[ Laughs ] -It goes right into the little -- -You get so excited over the little things.

-I do.

I do.

This is good.

-Do you want peaches, Mama?

-I want everything.

Heavy on the goodness.

Thank you.

Mmm.

-All right.

Ah, let's dig in.

-Let's get started.

-I'm so excited.

-Yes.

-Mm.

-Mm.

Mmm!

Oh, that's fantastic.

-Mm-hmm.

-Did you almost rub your belly?

-I did.

I did.

I caught myself.

[ Laughter ] This is so good.

Mm-hmm.

-[ Humming ] Yeah.

-Singing a little tune.

-If you're not dancing and singing... -Humming.

-Right.

-...it's not good.

-Right.

-That's the number one sign that it's delicious.

Okay, I need to finish this up.

You can enjoy.

-Okay.

-So if you want to make special waffles for your special mom, just remember these key steps -- kickstart it with warm milk and rest it in the fridge overnight.

-So from "America's Test Kitchen" at home... -Crispy, fluffy yeasted waffles.