Cook's Country

[ Theme music plays ] -Today on "Cook's Country," Christie and Bridget unlock the secrets to foolproof, spice-crusted steaks... Adam reveals his top pick for electric griddles... Jack challenges Bridget to a tasting of supermarket bacon... and Ashley makes Julia the ultimate grilled bacon burgers.

That's all right here on "Cook's Country."

-Though we call black pepper a spice, it's actually a fruit.

In fact, black, white, and green peppercorns are all from the same flowering vine.

-Pepper grows in tropical regions and is native to India, but today, Vietnam leads in production, producing over a third of the world's supply.

-Now, prior to the 1900s, Americans were not big consumers of pepper.

The highest import amount was around 65,000 pounds a year.

-And that sounds like a lot, but by the late 1930s, that amount grew to 50 million pounds.

-Whew!

-Yeah, Americans love their pepper.

-And in World War II, when servicemen complained about the lack of pepper in the mess hall due to rationing, the spice was quickly returned to the table for the sake of morale.

-Well, we've got good morale today because we're celebrating pepper and using a good dose to make spice-crusted steaks.

So, let's head into the kitchen with Christie to see how it's done.

You want to cook a steak?

Well, what do you want?

You want it to be tender and juicy and full of beef flavor.

Well, you can't beat a rib eye for the job, and it comes from the cow, just on the top part of the rib, right behind the shoulder.

Now, I like to think of it as a miniature prime rib.

It's that good.

But Christie's here.

She's gonna show us how to gussy it up a bit.

-Right.

We're going to come up with a really great spice blend that's going to stay on the steaks, and that's not going to burn when we cook them.

-Great.

-So, these are two one-pound boneless rib eye steaks.

They're 1 1/2 inches thick, and that's really important, so that they'll cook evenly.

There's a lot of fat going through the rib eye, and that's great, and you'll see the pockets of fat inside.

-Mm-hmm.

-We don't have to worry about those.

It's fat that's on the outside.

These are very nicely trimmed already.

-Beautiful.

-You just want to make sure there's not more than about an 1/8 inch of fat along the outside of the steak.

So, we can go right to the spice blend.

-Good.

-Now, we wanted to grind our own pepper, but we found if we used a pepper mill, often, it'd end up too fine and it would burn.

-Okay.

-So, we're going to crush our own.

I have a zipper-lock bag.

1 tablespoon of peppercorns.

Now, here's the fun part.

I'm just gonna rock and roll.

-Nice.

-So we just want to have a nice, coarse grind.

-You're just cracking them open, really.

-Mm-hmm.

What we really wanted was a good, all-purpose spice blend.

So I have 2 tablespoons of chopped rosemary.

-That's fresh.

-Fresh, yes.

I also have 2 teaspoons of grated lemon zest.

-Hmm.

-2 teaspoons of ground coriander.

-Okay.

-So this was one of the warm spices that we used.

And 1 1/2 teaspoons of dry mustard.

We have to have a tablespoon of kosher salt.

We didn't salt the steaks.

-Right.

-And then the last thing is dried red pepper flakes.

It's 1 teaspoon.

So we'll just mix this all up.

So we have the blend.

Now, normally, after we've trimmed the steaks, the first thing we'd do would be pat them dry.

But we found that if we just let them be, that their surface moisture became a really great adhesive to keep the spice blend on the steaks.

-Okay, we're making it work for us.

-Yes.

So I'm just going to rub this all over the steaks.

And I'm using all of this.

-That is great.

-So I'm gonna get messy here.

I think we've adhered as much as we're going to adhere.

-Very well done.

-Thank you.

I'm just going to clean up, and then we'll come back, and we'll cook them.

-Great.

-So, Bridget, I've added a tablespoon of vegetable oil to the 12-inch nonstick skillet, and I've been heating it over medium heat.

Now, we're looking for it to be just smoking before we add the steaks.

So, I'm using a fork instead of tongs because it does less damage to the spice coating.

I'm going to cook these for 10 to 13 minutes, but the key to getting a nicely toasted outside is to keep flipping them.

So I'm actually going to flip the steaks every two minutes.

-And you're building a crust doing that?

-Yes.

Okay, we're just at two minutes.

I think we can flip.

-Ahh, seeing some color there already.

-And notice very little spice left behind in the pan.

-Yes.

Ohh, gorgeous.

-And we're cooking these to medium-rare, so we'll cook these until they're 125 degrees.

We have flipped over the course of 10 minutes.

Now it's time to check.

-They look gorgeous.

-So we're just gonna temp this along the side of the steak.

And again, we're looking for about 125 for medium-rare.

And I think we're -- Yeah, we're good.

-Great, great.

-All right, so now I'll transfer these to a rimmed baking sheet, where I put a wire rack in it because we have this nice crispy crust.

-Mm.

Mm-hmm.

-If I put this on a plate, it would kind of start to steam and sog out.

We don't want that.

-Right, right.

-We have to let these rest for five minutes, so I am going to just tent them with foil so they stay warm but they don't steam.

-Right.

So you don't want to wrap it too tight.

-No.

So five minutes.

It's been five painful minutes.

-[ Laughs ] You said it.

-[ Laughing ] I'm just judging by the look on your face.

-Yes, yeah, it was painful.

-So it is time to slice, but we needed that time so that the juices would redistribute so we don't have cutting board juices.

So now, we're just gonna cut these between 1/4 and 1/2 of -- Oh, my goodness.

-Beautiful.

-Sorry, I just can't even talk.

-Between 1/4 and 1/2 of "Oh, my goodness."

-[ Laughs ] -All right.

First piece.

Gorgeous.

Mmm!

-It's like the lemon kind of hits you first.

-There's so much going on in the spice blend that I'm catching.

-Mm-hmm.

-That lemon is really coming through.

-Mm-hmm.

-And just enough of that warm spice.

-The ratio of spice to steak is so nice.

-Absolutely perfection.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

Well, if you want to make these beautiful steaks, and you do, you need to start off with 1-1/2-inch-thick rib eyes and then coat them with a mixture of cracked black peppercorns, grated lemon zest, fresh rosemary, warm spices, and, of course, salt.

And then cook in a nonstick skillet, flipping over every two minutes until the steaks are medium-rare.

Tent them under foil for just five minutes, slice, and serve.

So, from "Cook's Country" to your kitchen, what I would call the ultimate spice-crusted steak, these steaks.

Make them today.

-[ Laughs ] -Using an electric griddle is a great way to take the pressure off your stovetop when cooking for a crowd.

And today, Adam's gonna tell us which brand is best.

-When I was a kid and the electric griddle came out, it was always a joyous event... -Mm-hmm.

-...because it meant that the pancakes were not far behind.

-Yes.

-We put together this test of six different electric griddles.

-Mm-hmm.

-The price range was $29.99 to $99.

-Whew!

-And we tested them by making buttermilk pancakes, French toast, and burgers.

-Ahh.

-The pancakes and the French toast told testers a lot about how evenly they heat, so they went across the cooking surface of each one with a surface probe thermometer to take the temperature across the cooking surface, and they were really inconsistent.

The worst of these things varied by 80 degrees... -Wow.

-...from one corner of the cooking surface to the other.

-Wow.

-One corner was 319 degrees, the other corner was 399 degrees, which is why testers were getting pancakes that were raw and overdone from the same batch of pancakes on this one.

-That's not good.

-The best one of all varied only by about 10 degrees.

That was way better.

The pancakes were nice and evenly browned, good and fluffy.

Let's also talk about the size of these things, because when you're cooking for a crowd, size is important.

All but one of them had at least 165 square inches of cooking space.

And that was usually enough for eight pancakes, not always enough for a full recipe of French toast, which is eight slices of French toast.

Two of them were a little larger.

-Yeah.

-This one has 234.6 square inches of cooking space.

-Ooh!

-This one has 252.9 square inches of cooking space.

-That looks nice and big.

-That's definitely a good big one.

Of course, testers also paid attention to how easy these were to clean, and that got down to two factors.

-Mm-hmm.

-One is whether the power cord is detachable.

-Yes, 'cause you don't want to have it plugged in when you're washing it.

-This one was the only one where the power cord was not detachable.

-That's not good.

-The other cleaning factor was grease drainage.

-Mm-hmm.

-If you're doing burgers or maybe bacon, you'll want the grease to drain off.

Most of these are flat cooking surfaces, and they would allow accumulated grease to sort of pool around the food.

And if it got hot enough, it could even start splattering, sputtering.

Two of them had answers to that, and that is that you could prop up the back legs just a little bit.

-Oh!

-And that creates a gentle tilt on the cooking surface, which facilitates the grease running down into the grease trap.

-That's pretty clever.

-This one did the same thing.

So this is actually our winning electric griddle.

This is the Broil King Professional Electric Griddle with a backsplash which fits on like that so that you can contain some of the grease from splattering.

-Wow!

-It's $99, and it was great.

It was the second biggest one we had, so you could fit a lot of pancakes or pieces of French toast on there.

It was the thickest cooking surface.

It heated the most evenly, with just a 10-degree variance from spot to spot.

And it solved the grease drainage problem with legs that you could prop up.

Now, in case you don't want to spend $99 on one of these things, there's also a Best Buy, which is this one.

This is the Presto 19-inch Electric Tilt-n-Fold Griddle.

It's a lot less expensive at $43.99.

It was actually the biggest cooking surface of all of them.

There are three caveats that we wanted to mention with this, though.

It didn't heat quite as evenly as the winner.

There was a little cold spot towards the center.

Number two, it took a little longer to heat up.

And three is that the back legs fold, and that's to make it a little easier to store.

But our testers found that they would accidentally buckle, even if you wanted to move this a couple of inches while you were cooking.

So just keep it put while you cook, and make sure that it cools down completely before you try and move it when you're done cooking.

-All right, so there you have it.

Brand does matter when it comes to electric griddles.

Our favorite is Broil King Professional Griddle with backsplash at $99, or there's our Best Buy, which is a Presto 19-inch Electric Tilt-n-Fold Griddle at $43.99.

[ Cheers and applause ] -It's estimated that Americans can eat up to 18 pounds of bacon per year.

I'd call that a good start.

So, Jack's here.

He's gonna tell us which supermarket bacon is best.

-I've known Bridget 20 years.

If I had to sort of describe Bridget's food preferences to a stranger, I would begin the list with bacon.

-Sure.

I think that's fair enough.

-I might end the list with bacon, as well.

So, this is a mix of regular and thick-cut.

-Okay.

-I've brought three samples.

You can just get in there and start munching.

-Must I?

-Yeah.

You know, it's bacon.

They're all going to be delicious.

Some are going to be a little saltier.

Some are going to be a little sweeter.

-Mm-hmm.

-Some of them may have natural smoke.

Some of them may have artificial smoke.

The biggest thing you're gonna notice is, because it's a mix of regular bacons, which are roughly 2 to 2 1/2 millimeters in thickness, as opposed to the thick-cut, which is somewhere between 3.2 and maybe getting closer to 3.8 millimeters thick, is that there are textural differences.

-Mm-hmm.

-It is crispier versus chewier.

The thicker cut holds on to more moisture.

The lean protein has a lot of water in it, and it is less likely, in a thick slice, to evaporate.

And so, it's less brittle and crumbly and more like, you know, we got to tug at it.

-Right.

-Which some people love.

I will tell you right now, half of the studio audience picked our top-rated regular bacon.

The other half picked our top-rated thick-cut bacon.

-Oh, really?

-So... And nobody else picked the ringer that's in here.

Well, it's not a ringer.

-It's not turkey bacon, is it?

-It's not turkey bacon.

-Okay, thank you.

-It's just -- It was the least favorite of all the bacons in here.

There is, believe it or not, in my research, a real Oscar Mayer.

He was an immigrant from Germany who was the first person to sort of turn the slicing and packaging into a business.

There were a couple of people who had had the idea before he did, but he was the one who really took it and ran.

It made bacon so much more accessible to Americans, and bacon consumption went up.

This was in the 1920s.

Before that, you bought slabs, and you cut them at home.

They weren't that well-preserved.

I mean, this packaging keeps things fresh until you open them.

And, of course, you can get much thinner when they're sliced by machine than by hand.

-Sure, sure.

-So, anything that you're liking here?

-Yes.

-Anything you're loving?

-Yeah, I mean, this tastes very familiar to me.

I actually like the fact that it's not too thin.

I like the fact that it still feels quite greasy.

It should.

It's bacon.

And this is lovely.

This is -- This is what I would have with my eggs.

And the reason I like thick-cut bacon with my eggs -- I use it in place of toast to scoop up the eggs 'cause, you know, why fill up on bread?

-When there's bacon, I'm kind of with you.

-I like this one, too, but it's paper thin.

It's almost like bacon chips.

So I would just stay with these two.

-Okay.

-Uh-oh.

-I'm not passing judgment, at least for the next 10 seconds.

-Not outwardly.

-Where would you like to go?

-I'm gonna go with this one, which I think was a mistake.

-No, it was not a mistake.

This is Oscar Mayer regular bacon.

It was our overall favorite.

-It's familiar.

It's familiar to me.

-It was our favorite of the regular bacons.

Half of the audience chose it as their favorite, and it is very classic, perfectly balanced of salt and sweet and porkiness.

-It reminds me of the BLTs my mom used to make.

-All right, where do you want to go next?

-Let's go down here to the thick-cut one.

-And this is Oscar Mayer Thick Cut.

This was the runner-up in our thick-cut.

I wanted you to see both of the Oscar Mayer products.

We liked a brand called Sugardale, was our number-one choice among the thick-cut by one, and you just sort of see the two Oscar Mayers.

-I gotcha.

The other half of the audience, this is what they picked.

-Right.

And this is?

-It's not bad bacon, but nobody gave it its top choice.

-Okay.

-It's still bacon.

It was really thin, and it seemed less substantial.

-It's gossamer thin.

Well, I learned I really like bacon.

-I think we knew that already.

-[ Laughs ] So if you like bacon, why not get the winner?

It's Oscar Mayer Naturally Hardwood Smoked bacon.

And it's $6.99 for a 16-ounce package.

[ Laughs ] [ Cheers and applause ] -Any novice can throw bacon on top of a burger and call it a bacon burger, but Ashley's no novice.

And today, she's gonna show us how to put bacon inside the burger.

-I sure am.

So we tried many different things.

So we started with the most simple thing first, and that was to chop up some raw bacon and incorporate it into the ground beef, make a patty, and eat, right?

-Mm-hmm, sounds simple.

-See, it sounds pretty simple.

Turns out, by the time we got the bacon evenly dispersed in the ground beef, it was overworked.

The ground beef was too tough.

So, then we tried the opposite.

We tried cooking bacon first, dispersing it through the ground beef.

But then it was, like, super pebbly and crunchy bits.

-It'd be like a bacon bits burger.

-Yeah, which sounds kind of good, but it wasn't perfect, and we were striving for perfection.

So, what we ended up doing was finding a way to process the bacon, and that's with a little help from our good friend Mr. Food Processor.

-And you don't have to cut the bacon first before you put it in there?

-Nope, whole is all you need.

Process this for one minute, until a smooth paste forms.

-Mm, that looks interesting.

-It does look interesting.

-[ Laughs ] -All right, so now we are going to cook this bacon over medium heat for about five minutes.

And the bacon's still gonna be pink at that point.

That's a good thing.

You only want some golden-brown spots.

You don't want to take it to the point where it's super brown and you think it's done, because at that point, it's gonna be too crunchy in the burgers.

-All right, so parcooking the bacon.

-So as you can see, we do have some golden browning just in some of the spots, but the rest of it is still pink.

-Mm-hmm, looking better.

-Looking better.

So I have a fine mesh strainer set over this bowl, and using my spatula, I'm gonna slowly pour the bacon and that liquid gold grease into the strainer.

So I'm gonna set that aside because I need to prepare an onion.

We're going to be caramelizing some onions to put on our -- -Mmm, bacon onion burger.

-Bacon burgers, exactly.

I'm just gonna trim the root end right there.

Slice this right down the center.

By trimming the sides first, you have a really nice stable work space.

And there are a few different ways to slice an onion.

We want to do pull to pull.

And what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna hold my knife parallel to the board.

And you have these lines, these striated lines, and I'm gonna use them as a guide and just follow them around the onion.

And when it gets a little wobbly, I turn it over just so it's nice and secure on the board.

-Mm-hmm.

-All right, so now, I'm gonna set this pan over medium heat one more time.

And here we have our drained bacon.

-Mmm!

-So I'm gonna grab this plate that I went ahead and lined with some paper towel.

And then we should have about 2 tablespoons of bacon fat.

All right, so the bacon fat is now shimmering.

It's time to add the onions.

We're actually gonna take these for about 20 minutes, until the onions are nice and well-browned.

I'm gonna add 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

-All right, so 20 minutes over medium heat.

-Yep.

-Well, things are definitely looking up.

-All right, so I am just gonna take these and transfer them to this serving bowl here for later.

And now we have our beef.

1 1/2 pounds of 85% lean ground beef.

-Okay, so that was 1 1/2 pounds of beef and 8 ounces of bacon, so that's a 3-to-1 ratio of beef to bacon.

-Yes, that's right.

So let's season the beef.

We have 1/8 teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of pepper.

And you'll notice I have it on a rimmed baking sheet, which is a little different.

But this is the best way for us to incorporate everything evenly into the beef.

-Without overworking it.

-Exactly.

-Because overworked beef makes a tough burger.

-So here, I'm going to add our parcooked bacon.

Now, a couple forks.

-Mm-hmm.

-I'm gonna use these forks instead of my hands, and that's one more way of not overworking the beef.

And I'm just gently tossing the salt, the pepper, and that bacon in with the beef.

All right, now one last step before we go outside.

We need to make these look a little bit more like a burger, don't you think?

-Yep.

-So I gently put them into four mounds.

-Mm-hmm.

So they're about the same size.

-Yep.

Same size.

And again, not overworking that meat.

And then from here, you kind of gather it with your two hands, and then we're gonna shape them.

We're going for 4 1/2 inches by 3/4 of an inch thick.

-Okay.

Oop, I'm at 3/4 of an inch thick.

-You're good.

-Let's see.

Ah, you're pretty good.

-Yeah.

All right.

These are almost done.

We are gonna do the remaining two, but we do need to put a divot into the center of the burger.

-The divot.

When you put a divot in, when it goes on to the grill, that divot fills in, and you get a flat burger.

If you didn't put a divot, you'd come out with a softball.

-Just about a quarter of an inch.

-All right, there we go.

-All right, so now we're gonna just continue to make these burgers, and it's time to head out to the grill.

-All right.

-So the grill has been heating on high for 15 minutes, and now it's time to oil and clean the cooking grate.

-All right.

Ooh, that's a hot grill.

You can see the heat coming off the grill grate.

-Hot grill!

-Now, this grill looks pretty clean, but oftentimes, like if it's in my backyard, the grill is a lot dirtier than that.

And it's much more effective to clean the grill grate right before you start cooking while it's good and hot than when it's cold.

-All right, so I'm using this wad of paper towels and these long grill tongs.

I'm just gonna dip this in some oil.

Have a nice, neutral oil, canola oil, and run it over the grates.

And that helps to create a nonstick surface.

There's nothing worse than a sticky grill.

-Mm.

-It's almost time to put these burgers on.

I'm gonna just sprinkle them with a bit of pepper just before we put them onto the grill.

All right, so you notice I have the divot side up, and I'm gonna flip them divot side down.

So I'm gonna cook these until nice and well-browned, uncovered.

It'll take about three minutes.

Time to flip.

-All right.

-So here I have 4 ounces, which is 1 cup of chilled and crumbled blue cheese.

So let's talk about those divots one more time.

The divots were little perfect tea cups that are gonna house the crumbled and chilled blue cheese.

So I'm gonna do about 1/4 cup per patty.

-All right, that's pretty clever.

Fill the divots with cheese.

-Thank you.

-Yeah.

[ Laughs ] -So I'm gonna cover the grill and continue to cook these until they register 125 degrees for medium-rare or 130 for medium, which will take about two minutes longer.

All right, so it's been two minutes.

Let's check the temperature.

Again, we're looking for 125 degrees for medium-rare and 130 for medium.

-I hope you're going for medium-rare.

-I am.

Awesome.

-Perfection.

-All right.

-Here, I'm gonna bring the platter closer.

-Thank you.

-Mm-hmm.

-All right, now I'm gonna let these patties rest just for a few minutes.

But while I do, I'm gonna toast the buns.

-Yes!

What's a burger without a toasted bun?

-Right?

-And the buns go fast.

They just take about 30 seconds to a minute.

-Exactly, yep.

All right, let's get these buns off.

-This looks amazing.

-Thank you.

-Let's go eat.

-All right.

-Ooh!

-Ashley, these look amazing.

-I'm so excited.

All right, no more talking.

Let's get eating.

-All right.

I'm gonna grab a bun.

-Oh, yeah, baby.

-Ohh!

Oh, don't skimp on the onions on top.

-Okay.

-Because we're not gonna put ketchup or mustard on this burger.

It's too beautiful, and it wouldn't go with the blue cheese.

The onions take the place of any other condiment.

This looks like what I call a shirt killer.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, that's all right.

Mmm!

-Whoa.

-The bacon is in every bite, but it's not overpowering.

-Mnh-mnh.

-The whole thing just kind of melts in your mouth.

-It really does.

-And it's bacon and beef and blue cheese and onions.

Ashley, these are something else.

Well done.

-Thank you!

-So to make the ultimate bacon burgers, start by grinding 8 ounces of bacon in a food processor to a fine paste.

Then cook it quickly in a skillet and mix with 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef.

Shape the burgers, pressing a divot into the centers, and grill over a hot fire.

Fill the divot with blue cheese while it's still on the grill and serve with caramelized onions and toasted buns.

From "Cook's Country," the ultimate recipe for bacon burgers.

You can find this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with tastings, testings, and selected episodes, on our website, cookscountry.com.

Oh!

-[ Chuckles ] -I'm in the heart of it now.

-Let us help with dinner tonight.

Visit our website anytime for access to this season's recipes, taste tests, and equipment ratings.

Or to watch current-season episodes, log on to cookscountry.com.