America's Test Kitchen

-Today on "America's Test Kitchen," Julia makes Bridget spinach and ricotta gnudi with tomato-butter sauce, Adam reviews utensil crocks, Dan explains the science of tempering chocolate, and Bridget and Julia bake baci di dama.

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

-Like many Tuscan dishes, the little dumplings called gnudi are a product of their environment.

You've got soft cheese and field greens, and they're turned into pillow-soft mounds and served with some simple but beautiful sauces.

Julia's here, and we're lucky because she's going to show us how to make this extraordinary dish at home.

-That's right.

So, gnudi is all about texture.

The two main ingredients, the cheese, ricotta; and the greens -- in this case, we're using spinach -- are very wet, and that moisture can really make a heavy dumpling.

So you got to get rid of the moisture to start.

And that's what we're going to do.

Setting the spinach aside for now, let's focus on the ricotta.

-Okay.

-This is 12 ounces of whole milk ricotta.

What I'm doing is very weird.

I am spreading it out onto two layers of paper towels here.

Now, this is a trick we've done many years ago with pumpkin when we were making pumpkin cheesecake.

-That's right.

-You can drain the extra moisture away this way.

It's very easy.

The cheese actually won't stick to the paper towels.

It's a magic trick.

Just spread the ricotta out to a nice, thin layer over paper towels.

By doing this, you reduce that draining time down to just 10 minutes.

There we go.

Going to set this aside.

Again, it only takes about 10 minutes.

-Okay.

-Next, the spinach.

So, we're going to use frozen spinach.

It's not only convenient, but it actually helps make very tender gnudi.

So, this is 10 ounces frozen spinach.

It's thawed.

You can see that thawing liquid's right there in the bottom.

I'm just going to use my hands to squeeze it out.

Going to get about anywhere from 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of liquid coming out.

You just don't want this in the dumpling.

This is how you get a lead sinker, right here.

-Yeah.

-Alright.

So I'm just going to drop it right into the food processor after I squeeze out the water.

You want to do this in a few batches.

So, this squeezed spinach is all in the food processor.

Now we're just going to buzz this for 30 seconds to chop it all up.

Alright, that looks pretty nicely chopped up.

Let's take a look here.

Oh, yeah.

Not superfine, not minced, but just chopped up with no big stems.

Alright, so we're going to set this aside for now, and it's time to make the gnudi dough.

-Okay!

-[ Chuckles ] So, here I have 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour.

To this, we're going to add an ounce of grated Parmesan cheese, which is about 1/2 cup.

And you can see this was nicely finely grated on the fine holes of a box grater or a rasp-style grater.

So it's very fluffy and it incorporates nicely into the dough.

Alright.

Now just a little bit of panko.

Just a tablespoon of panko, which I love because panko for me is a pantry ingredient, and it just absorbs some of the extra liquid and helps that gnudi dough to hold together.

-Okay.

-A little bit of salt.

It's 3/4 teaspoon of table salt.

1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper.

Now we're going to add a little bit of lemon zest.

Just 1/4 teaspoon of fresh lemon zest.

Lemon and spinach is a lovely, classic combination.

-Yeah, that is true.

-Now we're going to add some egg whites.

This is two egg whites.

That'll just, you know, help bind the dough together.

Next, we'll add the spinach.

Okay.

Last but not least, the ricotta.

What we want to do is fold the ricotta onto the ricotta, and ricotta will stick to ricotta, and you can just peel away the paper towels.

-Look at that!

-Yeah, it's kind of fun.

And if it sticks like that, you just kind of pat it onto the ricotta, and there you go.

And pull it back.

Alright.

-Look at that.

-Yeah, so you can kind of keep spinning the pan 90 degrees and folding it over -- -Mmm.

-...and just making a cheese fold.

Alright, we're going to make it a bit smaller.

Alright, we're going to add that to the dough.

I'm going to keep this tray because this is what we're going to shape the gnudi onto.

Alright, so you really want to just stir this all up.

You don't want any clumps of anything.

That looks nice and uniform.

What we're going to do is I'm going to portion of the dough, a generous teaspoon per gnudi.

I'm going to portion it out and you're going to roll it into a little ball.

And this will make anywhere from 45 to 50 little dumplings.

-Just gingerly, because this is very soft.

And as soft as it is, it actually rolls out quite nice.

-Yeah, and it doesn't really stick your hands either.

-No.

-So after we roll these all out, we can get to cooking.

-Sounds great.

-The gnudi are rolled and waiting, and it's time to start with the sauce, because the gnudi cook so quickly that it's nice to get the sauce done right before you drop them in the water.

-Very convenient.

-Mm-hmm.

Now, classically, gnudi is served with either a bright tomato sauce or a brown butter sauce, but nowadays there's lots of modern interpretations, and we're kind of going to mix the two to a brown-butter tomato sauce.

-Oh, gorgeous.

-It's delicious.

Alright.

So in this little saucepan, I have 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter.

We're just going to melt this.

While that melts, I'm going to slice some garlic.

So, this is three peeled cloves.

Just going to trim off those little ends, and I'm just going to slice it thinly because the more you chop garlic, the more garlic flavor you get.

-It's exactly true.

Yeah.

-Alright, I'm going to set that aside.

I'm also going to prep the tomatoes.

Using cherry tomatoes here.

You could also use grape tomatoes.

Always in season, always have a good sweet flavor.

And we have to cut them in half, so I'm going to do our little trick -- -Love it.

-...of easy cutting in half tomatoes.

Two deli lids.

You put the other lid upside down on top.

-So easy.

-I know.

It's fun every time.

-Now, how many tomatoes is that?

-That's 12 ounces of cherry tomatoes.

-Great.

-How's our butter doing?

Melted?

-It is melted.

-Alright, so now I'm going to add the garlic, and we're just going to cook this for a few minutes.

We're looking so the butter gets a little brown, the edges of the garlic get a little brown.

We're going to keep our eye on that.

Don't let it get too dark.

-I will keep my eye on it.

-I'm going to finish up these tomatoes.

Oh, you can see that butter is browning.

-Ah!

-Those garlic chips are turning a little bit golden, so we're going to add the tomatoes.

[ Sizzling ] -Ohh!

-All that tomato juice comes right out with that heat.

To this, we're going to add 2 teaspoons of cider vinegar just to brighten the tomatoes up.

A little salt and pepper -- 1/4 teaspoon of each.

And we're just going to let this cook for a couple minutes.

We don't want the tomatoes to break down completely.

We just want them to soften a bit.

-Gorgeous.

-Alright.

So, let's turn this down.

Let it simmer away.

Now it's time to cook the gnudi.

So, here I have a nice big pot.

Not a ton of water.

-No!

-Just a quart of water -- should measure about an inch.

We're going to add a decent amount of salt.

That's a teaspoon and a half of salt.

And then in go the gnudi.

I like using this to help transfer them over.

-A little spider or a skimmer.

-Yeah.

Just a little more gentle -- gentle than I am, anyway.

I can be a little rough in the kitchen.

In case you didn't know that.

Alright.

So, you wait for the water to come back to a simmer, which it has.

Now these are just going to cook for five minutes.

Alright, these have been cooking for five minutes.

Only one way to test for doneness, and that is for me to taste it.

Mmm!

They are perfect.

So we're going to turn off the heat.

I have four serving bowls.

You can see the cherry tomatoes are softened, but they haven't broken down.

-Oh!

Oh, look at that.

-I know.

It's like a tomato-butter gravy.

Time to get the gnudi out of the pot.

The gnudi is so delicate, you don't want to top it with sauce.

You want it to be on top of the sauce.

Fresh basil.

-Beautiful.

-About 2 tablespoons.

And a little bit of grated fresh Parmesan.

-Mm.

I'm going to poke right into one of these.

-Oh, yeah, and then swirl it around in that butter sauce.

Mm-hmm.

Oh, man.

-It's like spinach and ricotta barely being held together.

-Mm-hmm.

Just with a -- with a prayer.

-Kind of.

-[ Laughs ] -Well, they are heavenly.

-Mm-hmm.

-They're light.

They're feather-light.

Pillow-light.

-Yeah.

Mmm!

-So good.

Gnudi under a Tuscan sun.

-[ Laughs ] Well, it feels almost like comfort food.

Even though it's very fresh and very light -- -Mmm.

-...it's really satisfying.

-To make this gorgeous gnudi at home, drain ricotta on paper towels, squeeze thawed frozen spinach by the handful, and use egg whites and a small amount of flour and panko to bind the mixture.

And don't forget to serve it with a sweet and quick tomato sauce.

So, from "America's Test Kitchen," a beautiful, pillowy soft, tender, and easy-to-make spinach and ricotta gnudi with tomato-butter sauce.

-Mm-hmm.

-I'm going to go for a whole one.

Can she do it?

-[ Chuckles ] Oh, I know she can.

Today, we're testing utensil crocks, which might sound a bit silly unless you've ever been stuck with a terrible one that constantly falls over, or it doesn't really hold more than one or two pairs of tongs.

So today Adam's going to show us all of our options.

-A lot of people keep these next to their stovetops at home.

I do, too.

Half the time, I pull out one utensil, three others tumble out with it.

-Ah!

Mm-hmm.

-I just mutter something uncivilized, jam it back in, and move on with what I'm cooking.

I've never thought to ask whether another utensil crock might solve the problem.

-Ah, well, there's a lot here to choose.

-There definitely are.

We have nine of them, in fact.

The prices that we paid ranged from $14 to $50.

The materials were ceramic, plastic, metal, or bamboo.

You can see some of them were round like the ones in front of you.

Two of them were oval.

And there were even some that had special features.

Why don't you give that one a little spin?

-Oh, that's kind of fun.

-Lazy Susan action on that one.

This one is expandable.

-That seems useful.

-And also it has slots to keep knives in it.

And some of them have dividers.

Some of them are fixed, some of them you can move so you can organize your tools differently.

You may be wondering what this array of utensils before you is, Julia.

-[ Chuckles ] -Testers tried to fit all 20 of those -- they're some of our favorite utensils -- into each crock.

Ideally, they would have been able to fit all 20 tools in.

Some of them did.

Usually, about 17 would fit in.

In terms of the shape, testers were not crazy about the oval ones, because the ends are tapered.

That meant that the bulkier tools or the ones with little hooks at the end had to go in the center only, not the ends.

Round ones were a lot more successful.

In terms of size, bigger is better.

You want to fit in as many tools, so at least a 6-inch diameter.

And in terms of height, they ranged from 5 1/4 inches to 9 1/2 inches.

They liked something in the middle, about 6 1/2 inches, because it was tall enough to keep the tools upright and organized, but not so tall that you would lose your little pastry brush down there.

-Yeah, that's a short guy.

-Exactly.

-That would never fit in my crock at home.

-You mentioned crocks falling over.

-Mm.

-So testers checked out the stability of each one by loading and unloading one side only.

And most of them passed the test just fine, except for our old friend, the lazy Susan.

-Oh, yeah.

-Little wobbly, there.

-Oh, yeah, well, you can see it has these feet on the bottom.

So that would make it unsteady.

-Exactly.

Exactly.

So, let's talk about those dividers I mentioned.

In an oval crock like this, not that helpful.

-Hm.

-They just took up space we would rather have filled with utensils rather than these things.

And also, again, it made it hard to fit bulkier tools in the tapered ends.

-Makes sense.

-In the round ones, maybe that white one in front of you -- -Yeah.

-...a lot more helpful because you can organize tools by category, and it kept them upright.

-Interesting.

So, you'd keep metal tools or whisks on one side, wooden spoons on the other.

-If you're more organized than I am, yes, you would.

[ Both laugh ] -Well, and it's removable, so you can clean it.

-Exactly.

You can move it around.

Speaking of cleaning -- good point.

These usually live, like, next to a stovetop.

They're going to get splattered.

Most of them were easy enough to clean up, except for two.

The expandable one was hard to get inside the area where it expands.

-Mm-hmm.

-And the perforated one -- super hard to clean this.

-That makes sense.

-So, the winner is right in front of you, Julia.

That is the $34 Circulon Ceramic Tool Crock.

It's the tool crock of my dreams.

-[ Laughs ] -It held all 20 of our utensils.

It's got a removable insert.

It's very good-looking.

-Mm-hmm.

-It's actually available in different colors.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah.

I'm going to get one of those.

-Which color?

-Oh, cerulean.

[ Both laugh ] -So, there you have it.

If you're in the market for a new utensil crock like Adam, check out the Circulon Ceramic Tool Crock for about $34.

-Are you sitting down?

Because we're going to talk about chocolate.

In front of me is a bowl of melted chocolate, which flows like this.

I also have a bar of untempered solid chocolate, which bends like this.

And this bar of solid tempered chocolate, which snaps like this.

So, why the differences?

It all comes down to their interior crystal structure, which you can't see.

You can, however, see these chairs.

This pile of chairs is our melted chocolate.

There's no order to it.

The chairs easily flow around one another.

If we let melted chocolate simply cool off, we end up with a stack of chairs like this.

Now, they have some structure, but it's not very orderly and the stack bends.

But if we properly temper our chocolate, the crystals stack together neatly, just like this.

One bite or push, and the chocolate snaps cleanly.

[ Clattering ] It's delicious.

-The Piedmont region of Italy, located up north along the borders of France and Switzerland, are known for many sophisticated foods, including lush red wines, fresh truffles in the fall, and these little hazelnut chocolate cookies called baci di dama, which means "lady's kisses."

And that's what Bridget's going to show us how to cook today.

Mwah!

-Yeah, I'm not going to show you how to kiss.

But these little cookies are absolutely delightful.

They're a little crumbly, a little fragile, hazelnut and chocolate, and these are tiny cookies, so we're going to make a lot of them.

-Mm.

-We need to streamline the process.

-Okay.

-Okay, so first thing, we're using a food processor, and we're starting off with hazelnuts.

Now, these have been toasted and skinned.

There's a little bit of the skin still on there.

That's actually good.

They're a little bit dry, those skins, and they're going to help to keep the dough from being a little too fragile.

-Oh, cool.

-So, these have cooled off, and I can process them.

These are 3/4 cup of hazelnuts.

And we're not going to process these on their own.

So I've got some flour.

This is all-purpose flour.

2/3 cup.

That's 3 1/2 ounces.

It's always a good idea to weigh your dry ingredients.

So, we have here some sugar.

This is 1/3 cup of sugar, or 2 1/3 ounces -- just granulated sugar.

We're letting that hazelnut flavor shine.

And a wee bit of salt.

We've got 1/8 teaspoon of table salt.

I'm going to process this for about 20 to 25 seconds, and what I'm looking for is the nuts to be really finely ground.

We don't want any large pieces in there, because that's where the cookies could literally start to crumble.

Alright, let's give this a look-see in here.

Alright, I just want to give you an idea of how finely ground that is.

If we kept the nuts in larger pieces, it'd be way too fragile.

So, now butter.

-Mm-hmm.

-This is 6 tablespoons of unsalted butter here cut into 1/2-inch cubes.

And this is very cold because this is going to help us cut in the butter into the flour mixture.

-More like a pastry than a cookie dough.

-Exactly.

Kind of like a shortbread.

-Mm-hmm.

-And now I'm going to pulse it in.

-Mm-hmm.

-So, between 20 to 25 pulses until it's starting to come together.

We want some of those oils to be released, the butter to be really well incorporated so that we can start to turn this into a proper dough.

Right now, it's just a crumbly mixture.

And I'm just going to bring this together.

Just knead it until it forms kind of a cohesive mass, really ensuring that any streaks of flour are incorporated.

I'm going to place this in an 8-inch baking pan.

I've got a little bit of parchment in here -- just going to make release a little easier.

This is going to make one big cookie.

-[ Laughs ] -No, we're using this pan as kind of a mold so that we can get really even portions later on when we go to make our 32 little baci di dama.

-Gotcha.

-And to make 32 baci di dama, which has two halves, you've got to make 64 cookies.

-Oh, that's a lot of cookies.

-That's a lot of cookies.

So I'm just taking my fingertips and pressing this out.

Get these edges pretty well pressed here.

-That looks perfect.

Nicely done.

-Now, we do want the dough to firm up, so I'm going to go pop this in the freezer.

-Okeydoke.

-Alright, this is really firm.

10 minutes in the freezer.

-Oh, yeah.

-Yeah.

Now we need to get it out of the pan, and it might take a little gentle coaxing.

Just want to take a paring knife and run it around the edges of the pan, or you can use a bench scraper.

Alright.

Let's see if it comes out.

If not, I'll just go back in there with a knife.

There we go.

And now, because we don't want to eat paper, so let's get rid of the parchment here.

And you see this is totally flat, right?

-Mm-hmm.

-Nice.

It's going to be easy to portion things out.

So, we need to cut this into 64 little pieces.

-That's 8x8.

-That's 8x8.

Exactly.

Before I cut through, I like to score it.

So, that would be two.

And then half of each half, and then each quarter in half again to make eighths.

Now, I haven't committed at this point, so I can always go back in and score again if I think that the lines aren't great.

But that's looking pretty good.

-Looks good to me.

-Alright, so I'm going to go ahead and make these cuts right through.

We're going to do the same again.

So I need to cut these eight strips into 64 pieces.

So again, same thing.

I'm going to do a little scoring.

So now I can go ahead and make my cuts.

This is so much faster than just balling up by sight.

It's just a great way to portion things out.

-Ta-da!

-Well done.

-So now we are going to roll these into little balls.

-Okay.

-And I'm going to need your help.

So, we're going to start off with 32 little balls on each sheet pan.

-Okay.

-That's great.

Just take a little bit of the dough... -Mm-hmm.

-...warm it up in your hands if you need to, and then roll them into little balls.

Alright, let's get cracking and roll out the rest of the 32 onto the sheet.

Again, they're not going to spread, but we do want to give them a little space so that they can bake evenly.

So, before we roll out the rest of these, we're going to bake these one sheet at a time, and they're going to go into a 325-degree oven.

We're not looking for a lot of browning here.

We want them to stay kind of blond, just maybe a little toasty, but they should look set.

Only going to take about 20 minutes, and I want to rotate the sheet pan halfway through baking.

-Okay.

-Look at our sweet little kisses here.

Aren't they great?

So, these are all cooled, still on the pan.

-Mm-hmm.

-You want to let them cool completely.

Usually takes at least 30 minutes.

And now we need to take the little halves and turn them into a sweet little sandwich.

-Mm-hmm!

-So we're going to need something to put in between those two cookies.

How about chocolate?

-Mm-hmm.

-So, I've got here 2 ounces of bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped -- it's just going to help with melting.

Going to melt this at 50% power in the microwave just until it's melted.

I'll stir it every 20 or 30 seconds, and it might take just about a minute.

Alright.

This is looking good.

-Mm, nice and smooth.

-It's melted.

Mmm.

Looks good.

-Looks good.

-We want it to thicken up just a little bit, so cool down slightly to about 80 degrees.

-Mm-hmm.

-That's how we're going to know that it's thick enough that we can use it as a mortar in between our two little kiss halves.

80 degrees.

-Nice job.

-Pastry's all about precision.

-It's true.

-Alright.

So, let's move this up here.

We're going to flip over every other row, and you can do it any way you want.

You could do two rows in a row, but I kind of like the fact that those sandwiches are right next to each other.

-I see.

-Alright.

-Precision.

-Exactly.

Now we want to use a precise amount... [ Both laugh ] ...for our filling.

We've got 1/4 teaspoon here.

So, 1/4 teaspoon on each cookie just to make sure it's not overfilled.

Alright.

Just right in the center.

And it's slightly thickened, but still going to be able to pour it onto that cookie, scrape it right into the center.

-Oh, nice.

-It's not going to go anywhere.

-Right.

It's not going to run out the sides.

-And I like to start away from me and work towards me, especially when I'm working with chocolate.

Now, these are great little cookies, of course, to eat on your own, but they're so beautiful, they make great gifts.

So I like to spend a little bit of time doing this.

This is one of those things, if your chocolate starts to set up a little bit or thicken, you can just pop it back in the microwave for 10 seconds on 50% power and stir it again until it's slightly looser.

Alright, let's get this last one on this sheet here, and we can go ahead and work with these.

I'm going to need your help.

-Alright.

-So, just need you to take one of the halves and squish it together just a little bit.

Not too much.

-Ohh.

-To make our little sandwiches.

-That is very satisfying.

-You should just see a little bit of the chocolate starting to peek towards the edge, just like that.

Alright.

-Mmm.

-So, just going to top this one here, and then we're going to do the same thing on this second sheet, every other row.

-Okay.

-Chocolate, assembly, and then you want to let them set up for at least 15 minutes before we eat.

-Okay.

-But we are close.

We have an adorable boat here of lady's kisses.

Our baci di dama are all cooled, assembled, and ready for you to eat.

And it's lovely with a cup of coffee.

-Oh, I can't wait.

Mmm.

-Mmm.

-Mmm!

-Mm-hmm.

-It's hitting me right here and making me smile, those flavors of hazelnut and chocolate.

-Mm.

-The cookie -- a little crumbly, a little chewy, a lot like shortbread.

-I love cookies like this with a cup of coffee.

-Mm-hmm.

-Espresso would be great.

-Mm-hmm.

-Cup of coffee is absolutely fine.

And what's great about the cup of coffee is it gives you a little platter to put 85,000 little... -[ Laughs ] -Wait.

Alright.

I'll put a couple back here.

-Yeah.

It looked like a teeny amount of chocolate when we were assembling the cookies, but it's the perfect amount to marry those two halves together.

-And believe it or not, these are built to last.

-[ Laughs ] Not in my house.

-You can just -- You can assemble these and store them at room temperature for 10 days, and they're still really good.

-Mm.

-They'd be good for a cookie swap.

-Mm-hmm.

-Although I don't know I'd want to swap them for anything else.

-Mnh-mnh.

Mnh-mnh.

-Bridget, these are magical.

Thank you.

-You bet.

-To make these sweet little Italian cookies, make a cookie dough using toasted hazelnuts in the food processor.

Press the dough into a square baking pan to make portioning easy, and assemble two cookies into a confectionery kiss using melted chocolate.

From "America's Test Kitchen," a whimsical recipe for baci di dama.

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

[ Chuckles ] -Mm-hmm.

-How many of these?

32?

-32 -- well, what's that one over there?

-[ Chuckles ]