America's Test Kitchen

-Today on "America's Test Kitchen," Keith makes Bridget the ultimate pork, fennel, and lemon ragu.

Jack challenges Julia to a test taste of Fontina cheese.

And Becky makes Julia the perfect pasta alla Norma.

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

-The term "ragu" conjures up thoughts of a rich, meaty, tomato-based sauce, but before the early 1800s, ragus didn't contain tomatoes.

Now, Keith is here.

He's gonna show us a ragu that actually predates that classic red sauce.

-That's right.

Most people think of those ragu Bolognese, that red Bolognese sauce.

Those red ragus are fantastic, but today we're gonna do a ragu bianco, a white ragu.

-Oh.

-It's similar -- shredded meat, aromatics, usually has some white wine in there.

We found a lot of recipes that have boar, duck, any type of game that you might find.

We're actually gonna go a little simpler.

We're gonna start with pork.

So the first pork we're gonna use is 4 ounces of pancetta that I've chopped up here.

Now, this is gonna form our aromatic sofrito, so I'm gonna put that into our Dutch oven.

-Mmm.

Beautiful.

A little cured pork belly.

-Yep.

And now I'm gonna add 2/3 cup of water.

Now, a lot of recipes would simply start to brown the pancetta, render that fat and juices, but we found it was much more efficient to start with some water.

The water's gonna help bring out all that fat, all those juices, and then we're gonna evaporate that liquid and create a wonderful fond.

So I'm just gonna put this on medium-high heat, and that's gonna go 8 to 10 minutes.

-All right.

-Now, sofrito also has a vegetable component.

You think of carrots, celery, and onion.

-Sure.

-That's the traditional sofrito.

We're actually gonna get rid of the carrot and celery in favor of fennel today.

We like that herbaceous flavor.

It's a little bit more lively, a little fresher in flavor.

So I have one large fennel bulb here.

You can see that I still have the fronds attached.

Before I discard these fronds, I'm gonna take some of these smaller little pieces off right here.

So, these fronds have kind of a subtle fennel flavor, but we're actually gonna use them as a finishing component for the final dish.

We're gonna treat this like an herb almost.

-Got you.

It almost looks like dill.

-It does look like dill.

I'm gonna give that to you for safekeeping.

-All right.

-Now, like I said, I'm gonna take these top fronds off, just set these aside, and I'm gonna take the fennel bulb, cut it in half.

I usually start with the core up so you can see where that is and half it right down through the core, and then just hold it like this.

Take the tip of your knife and cut that core out on either side, just like that.

-That's great, and if you're a little afraid to use a chef's knife to do that, you can use a paring knife to get that core out.

-Now, there are a couple ways that you can chop fennel.

Some people treat it like an onion, so put it cut side down and make horizontal cuts, followed by vertical cuts, like you would with an onion.

So, we're looking for a fairly fine chop here.

It'll melt down a little bit as we cook it.

-Okay.

-Now, the other way is to take these pieces apart, and that way, you can lay them flat on the cutting board.

It's a little easier if you've never chopped fennel before.

-Right.

-If it's a foreign vegetable, it's much easier to kind of create a smaller pile of strips to cut through.

Okay, so, our fennel is done.

This smells fantastic.

You can see we have this nice, rich fond.

You can smell that pancetta.

That's gonna add a ton of flavor to our sofrito.

So, we're gonna add our fennel bulb.

Again, one large fennel bulb that we finely chopped.

We're also gonna add one large onion that we finely chopped.

I'm just gonna stir this in.

It's gonna be 5 to 7 minutes, and what we're looking for is, the fennel is gonna soften.

That onion is gonna soften.

And we'll get a little bit of color.

Okay.

It's been 5 minutes.

Our vegetables are nicely softened.

We're gonna add four cloves of minced garlic, 2 teaspoons of fresh thyme, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, 1 teaspoon of pepper, and we're just gonna stir that in until we can smell that garlic.

Shouldn't take but 30 seconds to a minute.

Okay.

Now, for our liquid component, we have 2 cups of water here and 1/3 cup of heavy cream.

Not a lot of heavy cream.

It just adds a little bit of velvetiness to that sauce, a little bit of richness, but we don't want so much that it overwhelms the pork flavor.

Okay, so, we have our liquid component.

We're gonna turn that up and bring that up to a boil.

-All right.

-Now we can add our pork.

Now, I have a 1-1/2-pound pork butt here, so what I've done is, I've taken this and cut it in half across the grain... -Got you.

-...just to shorten those muscle fibers up a little bit.

-All right.

-Okay, so, now that we've brought this up to a boil, we're gonna cover it, and we're gonna actually braise this in the oven.

Oven heat is a little gentler, a little bit more even than cooking on the stovetop.

We normally braise at 300, 325 degrees.

We're gonna braise at 350 degrees here, the reason being we want to create some fond around the edges of the pot.

It will boil.

It will create a fond on the side, and we can scrape that down and add a little bit more flavor later on.

So, we're gonna be in the oven for about 90 minutes, until that pork is nice and tender.

Okay.

It's been 90 minutes.

We can check on our pork now.

-Oh.

[ Chuckles ] -Oh, it smells delicious.

Remember I was talking about that fond around the edges here?

That's exactly what I was talking about.

That's gonna add a lot of flavor to this.

Oh, yeah.

That pork, it feels nice and tender.

I can feel it with my tongs.

-It's barely holding together.

That's a good sign.

-While it's in the oven, all that collagen has broken down into gelatin.

It's gonna be nice and tender.

It's gonna be nice and moist but also very, very flavorful.

I'm gonna recover this and let that fond steam for about 15 minutes or so while that pork cools down.

Okay, so, it's been about 15 minutes, and we should be able to scrape our fond into the sauce now.

If you have any stubborn bits, you can take some of the sauce on your spatula and kind of get more liquid up on the sides there.

Okay, so, I think we've gotten all of our fond in there.

Now, I'm just gonna finish this with some lemon juice.

I have 1/4 cup of lemon juice here and 1 1/2 teaspoons of lemon zest.

-Every time Keith stirs the pot, the most amazing blend of aromas come out of there, and the lemon just added to that.

-Now we have to finish letting our pork cool, and we can cook up the pasta.

Okay, so, I'm shredding this with two large forks here, and that allows us to kind of pull these pieces of pork apart and get rid of any fat that we might have missed during cooking or trimming.

You can see how this pulls apart so easily, but it's still really moist... -Oh, yes.

-...tender.

I'm just gonna put this back into our sauce here.

So, that's our sauce.

We'll just cover that.

We'll keep that warm while we cook our pasta down here.

-Okay.

-We're gonna cook pappardelle pasta today.

We like these nice broad egg noodles.

Very hearty pasta.

Very tasty pasta, too.

-Okay.

-So, I have 4 quarts of water here at a boil.

I'm gonna add a tablespoon of salt.

This is just table salt.

I'm gonna add 12 ounces of pappardelle noodles to this water.

I'm just gonna give it a quick stir.

And we're gonna cook that until it's al dente.

We'll drain it, and then we can eat.

-All right.

That begs the question, what exactly do we mean by "al dente"?

Well, pasta is composed of starch granules and protein.

When you boil pasta, the starch granules absorb water and start to swell.

Eventually, as the process continues, the granules burst, and they release starch into the cooking water.

In a piece of pasta, this process happens from the outside in.

The granules on the surface of the pasta are the first to swell and eventually burst.

As the surface granules burst, the inner granules swell and so on.

When a piece of pasta is al dente, the innermost granules are just beginning to swell.

If you overcook pasta, those inner granules will swell and eventually burst, and you'll end up with waterlogged and bloated pasta.

-Okay, so, we should check our pasta, see if it's done yet.

Just hook a little piece here.

Mmm.

Perfect.

-Great.

-Perfect al dente.

So, before I drain the pasta, I want to reserve some of this starchy liquid to finish our sauce.

-Okay.

-So, I have about 2 cups here.

Just set our pasta liquid aside, and then we can drain this pasta.

-All right.

-So, our pasta is ready for the sauce.

We're just gonna put that in here, and I'm gonna stir in some Pecorino Romano cheese.

A little sharpness, little nuttiness.

I have 2 ounces, which is about 1 cup, finely grated here.

I'm gonna add 3/4 cup of this pasta liquid, and I'm gonna save the rest of that.

We don't want to get rid of that quite yet because that will allow us to loosen our sauce if we need to after it's cooled.

-Okay.

-Okay.

We're just gonna toss this in here.

We're gonna let this go for a couple minutes.

We want that cheese to kind of melt and dissolve into that sauce.

Okay.

It's been about 2 minutes, and you can see that the cheese has melted in there nicely, and now this is our adjustment period.

I'm just gonna taste the sauce for seasoning.

Mmm.

That's great.

And I also want to check for consistency, as well, but this looks really nice right now, so we don't need to add any more liquid.

But what I am gonna add is our 2 tablespoons of fennel frond that I chopped earlier.

-Got you.

Oh, beautiful.

And another nice, light hit of that anise, that little bit of licorice right at the end.

Oh, beautiful.

-Okay.

It's time to eat.

You can see that little bit of heavy cream in the sauce is really coating that pasta nicely.

-The heavy cream, and it's the gelatin from the pork, as well.

It's beautiful.

-Little bit more Pecorino here at the end as a nice touch.

-Lovely.

All right.

I'm just going right in for the Holy Grail here... -Go for it.

-...the pork.

I am not kidding when I say this is one of the best pasta sauces I have ever tasted.

-Isn't it?

-It's rich without being fatty.

It's bright.

That lemon juice, so good right at the end.

-Yeah.

When you hear the name "ragu," you always kind of think heavy and, you know, kind of big, bold flavors.

This has big, bold flavors, but it's really, really light, especially with that lemon juice and with that fennel.

-Mm-hmm.

The fennel -- That's what it is.

It gives an earthy sweetness.

It's got a little bit of that licorice flavor, but it's not overwhelming at all.

Actually, anise, fennel, the more that it cooks, it softens, and it sweetens.

It almost becomes caramelized.

Best pasta sauce I think we've ever done.

Thanks, Keith.

-You're welcome.

-For an authentic ragu bianco, start by rendering pancetta.

Cook onion and fennel, and then add heavy cream and water to the pot.

Add pork butt and cook it all in the oven until nice and tender.

Add lemon juice and zest.

Shred the pork and add it back to the pot.

Toss in pappardelle, pasta-cooking water, and Pecorino Romano, and then sprinkle with fennel fronds.

Serve with a little bit more Pecorino.

So, from "America's Test Kitchen," pork, fennel, and lemon ragu with pappardelle, AKA ragu bianco.

Thanks, Keith.

-We love cooking with Fontina cheese because it melts well, and it has a wonderfully mild, nutty flavor, but buying it can be a bit confusing because there's a variety of styles with a variety of price tags, so Jack's here to tell us what's what.

-So, this might be the most confusing shopping exercise we've ever done.

-Really?

-There's so many different products that are in the Fontina family, so we should start with the real deal.

-All right.

-Comes from Northwest Italy in the Alpine region.

-All right.

Mm-hmm.

-It is called Fontina Val d'Aosta, which is the region.

-Mm-hmm.

-And it has a brown rind, and it has a DOP stamp on it.

It has mushroomy, earthy flavors.

So, that is the original cheese.

But we are tasting that cheese, along with Swedish-style Fontina cheeses made in Wisconsin.

They are in the red wax rind, you know, the covering that you would get with Gouda.

-Yep.

-And, in fact, they use the same cultures as Gouda and have more buttery, creamy notes, rather than -- I think the Italian real-deal cheese has more the earthy, mushroomy notes.

-Mmm.

-So, that's one style.

-Mm-hmm.

-Then there are Italian-style Fontinas and Fontinellas made in Wisconsin that are made with cultures that are similar to the cultures from Parmesan and Asiago.

-Interesting.

-So they have more nutty notes, rather than buttery notes or mushroomy notes.

And then, to really confuse you 'cause this is -- If you're with me still, you're good.

-Barely.

-There's a style of cheese called Fontal from Belgium that's also in this family, and it's probably closer to the Swedish styles in the sense that it is creamy and buttery, rather than nutty or mushroomy.

So, I've completely and utterly confused you, no doubt, so let's just focus on how these things taste.

-Mm-hmm.

-Are you noticing differences?

-Mm-hmm.

-Are there things that you really like here?

-Mm-hmm.

-Mm-hmm?

-Mm-hmm.

-You're just gonna keep on eating?

-This is lovely.

I wish you had some crackers and wine.

-There are no bad things here.

They're just really different.

-There really aren't.

Yeah, they're very different.

I definitely have a favorite, and that's this guy -- deep flavor, lots of notes, lots of complexity, a little bit of an edge, which I like.

This one is the other end of the spectrum in that it was incredibly mild, very bendy... -Okay.

-...I noticed, so it must be a great melter, is what I'm guessing.

I liked both of these.

I liked this one.

This one was a little Gruyre-y, if that's even an adjective, but you know what I mean.

It tastes like Gruyre.

And this one was lovely, too.

But I have to say, this one was my favorite, followed by this one.

-Okay.

You have very strong opinions here.

-I do.

-So, we are perfectly in alignment here in the sense... Flip that over.

-All right.

-We like the real deal.

-Yep.

-Not all the tasters liked this.

-Oh.

-This was controversial.

Some people really love those mushroomy, earthy notes.

It's a big cheese.

-It is something.

-Put me in front of that with a bottle of wine and a nice loaf of bread.

-Oh, yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

-It is expensive.

It's $20 or more a pound, depending on where you're shopping.

You may not see it in most supermarkets.

-Right.

All right.

-So... -And so, this one, I also liked.

This is interesting.

So, this was our second-favorite overall of the supermarket options.

-Mm-hmm.

-This is that Fontal from Belgium that is in this family.

It is very sort of buttery and creamy.

-Yeah.

-And it melts beautifully.

-Oh, interesting.

Okay, and this one, which wasn't bad, either.

-So, this was our favorite among the Italian styles.

So, again, this is using the same cultures as you would get in an aged cheese like Parmesan or Asiago, and it has more nutty notes, I think.

-Mm-hmm.

And last, but not least, this guy, who was mild.

-So, this is the Boar's Head.

-Hmm.

-This is the Swedish style.

The tasters liked this the best in part because it was creamy and mild.

-Yeah.

-It melts really nicely.

-I could tell.

-So when we made stratas, which was another one of the tastings that we did, it did really nicely there.

They're all good options, but they are different from each other, which is just so interesting.

-Yeah.

So, there you have it.

When you're buying Fontina, you have some options.

If you want to get a good cheese for cooking from the supermarket, check out Boar's Head Fontina cheese.

It's about $8.50 for 9 ounces.

Or if you want a really complex cheese that's great for eating out of hand, check out the original, Fontina Val d'Aosta, which is about $20 a pound.

Pasta alla Norma is a classic Sicilian dish named after Bellini's famous opera, "Norma."

And, today, Becky is gonna show us how to make it.

-So, the key ingredients in this recipe are eggplant, tomato, and a firm, tangy cheese called ricotta salata.

-Mmm.

I like ricotta salata.

-Yeah.

It's really good.

The dish is a little bit more understated than some pasta recipes, but the meaty texture of the eggplant really gives it a nice heartiness.

-All right.

So, dealing with the eggplant, that's the issue with this recipe.

-That is the key to this recipe, and it can be sort of a production sometimes, but we streamlined it, made it a lot more straightforward.

-Awesome.

-So, we have a 1-1/2-pound eggplant here, gonna trim off the ends, and then we'll cut this into 1/2-inch pieces.

And the way to do that is to cut some planks.

-And I like that you're leaving the skin on because, personally, I love the flavor and texture of the eggplant skin.

-I do, too, and we actually tried this recipe with and without the skin, and we found that when it's cooked properly, it's not tough at all.

Now, this is a globe eggplant.

The Italian eggplants and the Asian eggplants are a little bit smaller.

They tend to have more seeds.

And this has a nice, firm texture that's really gonna hold up when we cook it.

-Okay, so, use a standard globe here.

-You got it.

Now, the next step when you want to cut a dice is to cut long strips.

-Mm-hmm.

-So, again, we're looking for 1/2 inch.

Now we turn it a quarter turn, and now we'll cut our 1/2-inch dice.

All right.

It shrinks down so much when you cook it.

You want to start with a decent amount.

So, a lot of recipes call for tossing the eggplant with salt and just letting it sit to draw out all that moisture, but we're gonna use the microwave to speed things up.

-Oh, clever.

-I'm tossing the eggplant with 1/2 teaspoon of salt here.

And now we have some coffee filters, and I know that's sort of a weird thing to use here.

-A little bit.

-But they're food-safe, and they're microwave-safe, so we're gonna go ahead and line a plate with them here.

-'Cause many paper towels have a printing on them, and that printing isn't necessarily heat-safe or food-safe, so using something without any printing on it is key.

-That's right.

If you can find food-safe, undyed paper towels, that's fine to use, too.

So, let's do a double layer of the coffee filters here.

-This looks like a craft project.

-I know, right?

I got to kind of flatten them out a little bit.

Okay.

Now I'm gonna give the coffee filters a little spritz with veg oil spray here.

This will prevent sticking.

-It looks a little odd.

I'm just gonna say it.

-Just roll with it, Julia.

Trust me.

Let's put the eggplant onto the coffee filters.

So, we're going to microwave the eggplant on high for 8 to 15 minutes, and it'll shrink down to about a third of its size, and it'll really dry out quite a bit, but we don't want it to brown.

Okay, so, the eggplant microwaved for about 10 minutes.

-Mm-hmm.

-I took it out, and I put it onto a paper-towel-lined plate.

I made sure to get it out of the microwave pretty quick so we could let that steam escape.

-Okay.

-So, now we'll put the eggplant into this bowl here.

This is the same bowl we were working with before.

I just wiped it out.

-Clever.

-One less dish to wash, Julia.

Right?

-I can tell you do the dishes in your house.

-That's right.

I actually do.

-So, now I'll add a tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil.

-So, you're adding oil to the eggplant, and you have a pan over here heating up with oil in it, as well.

-I'm just trying to coat that eggplant.

We don't want to use a ton of oil because it will soak up quite a bit.

So... -Got you.

-...we're just trying to get it nicely coated here, and then we'll add it to the other tablespoon that's already in the pan.

-And I can see it's smoking now.

-All right.

So, we put that in.

That was a tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil, and we have medium heat.

We want the eggplant to get nice and caramelized and brown here so it'll taste really good.

-Mmm.

-All right.

So, it's been about 10 minutes.

-Those look great.

-Looks awesome, right?

Nice and brown.

Okay, so, we'll kill the heat, take this out, put it on our plate.

Same plate that we used in the microwave.

So, now, just in the residual heat here, I'm gonna do some quick aromatics, so there's a tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil.

-Yeah, 'cause that skillet is still pretty hot.

-It is hot, yes.

If it's not hot enough, we'll turn the heat back up to medium, but I hear a little bit of sizzle there.

That's four cloves of minced garlic, and then we have two anchovies minced up.

-Mmm.

-This is not gonna make the pasta sauce taste fishy in the slightest.

It's just gonna add a really nice umami flavor.

Now, I have some red pepper flakes.

I'm definitely adding 1/4 teaspoon, but I would love to add another 1/4 teaspoon if you're down with that.

-I'm down.

-All right.

Let's do it.

We're going to heat the aromatics until they're fragrant.

That'll take about a minute.

-Oh, it smells good.

-Smells amazing.

So, now let's add one 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes.

We tried this with diced tomatoes, but we really wanted the chunkiness of the eggplant to stand out, so that's why we're going for a smoother tomato product.

Now we'll turn our heat back on to medium.

So, we're going to let this simmer away.

We want it to thicken up just a tiny bit.

That's gonna take 8 to 10 minutes.

In the meantime, I have 4 quarts of water boiling there.

And a tablespoon of salt, if you'll go ahead and do the honors.

And we have a pound of ziti.

You could use penne or rigatoni.

Any tubular pasta would be great here.

So, we're gonna cook that until it's al dente.

It's been about 10 minutes.

You can see the sauce has thickened up just a little bit here.

-Yeah, really did.

-Yeah, really nice.

And now we'll add our eggplant for another 3 to 5 minutes.

We just want to warm that through.

We didn't cook the eggplant that whole time because we found that when we did that, it soaked up too much of the tomato juice, so it's best just to kind of warm it up at the very end here.

-I'm gonna check this pasta.

And there's really only one way to test if pasta is cooked, and that's to taste it.

Mmm.

-Perfect?

-Mm-hmm.

-All right.

So now it's time to drain.

-Here we go.

-All right.

So, now, it's been about 3 minutes here, and our sauce is looking great, so I'm gonna turn off that heat, and I have 6 tablespoons of fresh chopped basil.

-Yum.

Mmm.

-And then just one final tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil.

We really want to preserve that beautiful taste of the oil, so we're adding just a little bit at the end here.

-Oh, I can smell that.

That smells amazing.

It's the basil hitting that hot sauce.

It really got instantly fragrant.

-All right.

So, because I'm the cook, I get the first little taste here.

I just want to check for salt.

-When you're working with canned tomatoes, testing for the sodium content before serving is pretty important because every brand adds a different amount of salt to the can.

-And I think this is actually perfect.

I don't want to add anything, so we can go ahead and add this to our pasta.

And I think we will be needing a little bit of that pasta water 'cause this is pretty thick.

-Now, pasta water is great because it's already got some of that pasta starch in it, which will help the sauce cling, and it's already seasoned.

-All right.

Guess what time it is, Julia.

-That looks delicious.

-Let's eat.

-All right.

Oh!

Mmm.

-You can see that sauce is not greasy.

-Not at all.

-Has a really nice consistency.

-Well, and it's not a ton of sauce.

It's just enough to gently coat the pasta.

-So, I have 3 ounces of ricotta salata, and this is a sheep's milk cheese that's very different from the ricotta that you find in tubs in the grocery store.

It's pressed, and that makes it nice and dry and firm.

-So, ricotta salata is an authentic part of a pasta alla Norma, but if you can't find it, you could substitute feta, Cotija, or a Pecorino.

All right.

I'm gonna dig down, get some eggplant.

-Yeah, have to get all the good bits.

-Yeah.

I want to get a complete fork.

-Mm-hmm.

Oh.

-Mmm.

That has a lot of flavor.

-I know.

I told you at the beginning that it was kind of subtle.

-Yeah.

-I think I should walk that back.

-Well, you know, it doesn't look like a ton of sauce, so you think you're gonna have mostly a pasta flavor, but you get the eggplant.

You get the tomatoes, the basil.

-And the ricotta salata.

Remember that, too, when you're seasoning it.

It has a little bit of salt to it, but it adds a ton of flavor.

-Mmm.

-Garlic, little bit of anchovy that you can't taste, but... -It has a meaty heartiness to it.

-Yeah, the eggplant has such a nice texture because we took the time to collapse it down in the microwave.

It's got a really nice denseness to it.

-Yeah, and that browning added a lot of flavor.

-Mm-hmm.

-Becky, this is delicious.

Thank you.

-You're welcome.

-So, if you want to make this classic Sicilian pasta, cut up a 1-1/2-pound globe eggplant and toss with some salt.

Microwave the eggplant until most of the moisture has evaporated.

Then saut it until beautifully browned.

Build a simple pasta sauce using canned crushed tomatoes and add the cooked eggplant for just a few minutes towards the end.

And garnish with ricotta salata and fresh basil.

From "America's Test Kitchen" to your kitchen, an authentic Sicilian recipe for pasta with eggplant and tomatoes.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with our tastings, testings, and select episodes at our website -- americastestkitchen.com.

Mmm.

I love how quick this was.

-Let us help you with dinner tonight.

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