Cook's Country

-Today on "Cook's Country," Bryan makes Julia the ultimate Greek chicken, Jack challenges Bridget to a tasting of crumbled feta, Adam reveals his top pick for liquid measuring cups, and Lawman makes Bridget foolproof crushed red potatoes with garlic and herbs.

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

-At the beginning of the 20th century, Greece was in turmoil with widespread poverty and political unrest, and that encouraged many young men to emigrate to the United States.

-Now, between 1880 and 1920, more than 400,000 Greeks came to America in search of opportunity.

And many moved to Birmingham, Alabama.

-It was around that same time Birmingham was rapidly growing around the steel industry and provided plenty of jobs for the new immigrants.

-Not surprisingly, this influx of Greeks had a big effect on the local food.

-It resulted in a Mediterranean meets the south kind of cuisine that's made a lasting mark in the area.

-And today, Bryan is gonna show us how to make a hometown favorite known as Greek chicken.

Bryan recently spent some time eating his way around Birmingham.

And although you tasted a lot of Greek food, you fell in love with a very simple dish called Greek chicken from Johnny's Restaurant.

-That's right.

I spent time with Timothy Hontzas, who's the chef/owner of that restaurant.

And of all the things on the menu, he was a little bit shocked that I wanted to discuss Greek baked chicken because it's a relatively simple dish -- tons of herbs, lots of lemon, good hit of garlic and lots of spices.

So we're gonna start off with fresh herbs.

We're gonna use 2 tablespoons of fresh, chopped thyme leaves.

Now, we don't want to chop these herbs too finely.

We want to have those big pieces on the chicken so you get a real big pop of flavor when you eat it.

So we're gonna go with 2 tablespoons of thyme leaves.

So next, we have 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh rosemary.

And again, I'm just gonna take a couple of passes with my knife and try to avoid doing too much of the rocking motion.

So next, we're gonna talk about lemon zest.

I'm gonna use a vegetable peeler, and I'm gonna peel off six strips and they're about 3-inch strips of the zest.

So I'm just gonna stack those up, give them a coarse chop.

Alright.

-Oh, that does smell good.

-You can already smell how good that smells.

Okay, what's a Greek recipe without a little bit of garlic in it?

So we're gonna add five cloves of garlic.

Similar to the herbs and lemon zest, coarsely chopped pieces.

So five cloves of garlic go in there.

Okay, and now we're going to add to that 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon of kosher salt.

And then we're gonna add 1 1/2 teaspoons of dried oregano.

And then we're gonna add 1 teaspoon of ground coriander, 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes, and finally 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper.

So we're just gonna mix that together, and then the marinade is ready to go.

Now we're gonna talk about the chicken.

So this recipe calls for 3 pounds of chicken parts.

And whenever a recipe calls for that, it's best to reach for a 4-pound chicken and break it down yourself into its individual pieces.

Here we have our 4-pound chicken, and we're just gonna do a quick breakdown with this.

I'm gonna go leg quarters, wings, breast.

-Alright.

-So I like to first hold the chicken up here kind of at an angle and just nick away at the skin here between the thigh and the breast.

And then I'll pull the chicken back and then run the tip of my boning knife right down through that joint and set that aside.

And we'll do the same on the second side.

Again, use the weight of the chicken and kind of nick away at this joint right here around the wing.

And that pops right off.

Then I'll switch knives to something a little bit more sturdy.

So I'm gonna go on either side of the breast here, really cutting through the rib cage all the way down.

So I'll work with one side at a time.

And then I'll spin it around and do the second side.

You can discard this or use it for chicken stock.

Now we're gonna break down these larger quarters into individual pieces.

So we're gonna split the breast right in half.

We're gonna score the meat until we feel that bone.

And then we're gonna put some pressure on the tip of the knife and rock the back of it right through the bone.

Then for the thighs and the legs, there's a little seam of fat that runs right here.

And if you could just run your knife right on top of that, it'll go right in between that joint.

And now's a good time to trim up any excess fat from those thighs.

And again, we'll do that with the second leg quarter.

Then we're just gonna remove the wing tip here so you can just pop right through that joint.

-Oh, those are so good for stock.

They have so much cartilage in them.

-And then the same with the second wing.

So this next move is something that I started doing at home because I don't have a lot of time to marinate chicken when I get home from work.

What we're gonna do here is we're gonna score the chicken to let the marinade penetrate a little bit deeper and get in contact with that meat.

So for the breast, we're gonna cut three 1/2-inch-deep slashes straight across.

We want to increase the surface area of the meat so the marinade is really gonna stick.

And with the thighs, we're gonna make two slashes perpendicular to the bone.

Again, about 1/2 inch deep.

Okay, and for the drumsticks, we're gonna do two 1/2-inch-deep slashes, one on either side.

The wings are small enough and thin enough that the marinade will work on those without having to tinker with them at all.

-Alright.

-Alright.

So we're just gonna toss all this chicken in the marinade.

You can see already those little slashes are taking in all those big chunks of herbs and garlic.

We're gonna cover it with plastic wrap, and we're gonna refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 hours.

But you don't want to go too much longer than two hours because there's a ton of salt in here, and it can get a little bit salty.

It's been two hours, and we're ready to cook off our chicken, so we're gonna cook the chicken in the skillet, one, because the chicken is gonna be a little bit more crowded in the pan than it would be in a baking dish.

So all the juices that come from the marinade and then come out of the chicken are gonna create a nice pan sauce for us at the end.

They're not gonna evaporate in the oven.

Number two, the skillet is broiler-safe.

We're gonna broil the chicken at the end to get some nice browning on the skin.

And the third, skillet's got this nifty little handle here.

-Nifty -Did you ever notice that?

But it's easier to move in and out of the oven.

Okay, so the chicken is all positioned in there and we're gonna take all of our leftover marinade and we're gonna make sure we get all of that into the skillet.

-Oh, yeah.

-We've got the oven rack set about 6 inches from the broiler element because, again, we're gonna broil at the end.

And the oven temperature is currently at 425 degrees.

We're gonna bake the chicken for about 30 minutes until the breast meat hits 160 and then dark meat hits 175 degrees.

It's been 30 minutes and we're ready to take a look at our chicken and give it a temp.

-Oh, it smells good.

-Julia, do you mind turning that oven to broil for me, please?

-You got it.

-Alright, Julia, we're gonna temp the thickest part of these chicken breasts, and we're looking for 160 degrees.

We're at 161, and that's perfect.

-Pretty good.

-So now we're ready to broil the chicken.

But before we go under the broiler, we're gonna spoon some of these pan juices, which contain a lot of olive oil and chicken fat, over top of the chicken.

That's gonna help the chicken brown really nicely under the broiler.

Alright.

So we've given each of these pieces a little bath in its own chicken fat and olive oil.

-Goodness.

-And we could throw them back under the broiler for about three minutes.

And we want to pay close attention because like anything you're broiling, they can go from perfect to burnt in a matter of seconds.

So we'll keep an eye on it.

And if we see that it's burning unevenly, we'll just give the skillet a bit of a rotation.

-Sounds good.

-Julia, let's take a look at this gorgeous-looking, well-browned chicken.

-That is beautiful.

-We are gonna get this chicken rest in these pan juices for a good 10 minutes.

And as it rests, some more of those juices will come out and really fortify our pan sauce.

Julia, this chicken is ready to be plattered.

And it smells good, huh?

-It looks gorgeous.

-So we are gonna put these pieces on the platter, and then we have our delicious pan juices here.

We're gonna add a tablespoon of juice from that lemon we zested earlier to really send it back to Alabama.

Spoon these pan juices right over top of the chicken.

-This dish is a looker.

Alright.

-Can I serve you a piece?

-Absolutely.

-So this is great to eat with a crusty bread or boiled potatoes.

-So all those juices could soak in.

Alright.

First, I'm gonna dive right into this chicken thigh.

Mmm.

That is good.

-So simple, big flavor.

-The herbs really don't overpower, and the sauce, or the jus, is lovely with that hit of lemon.

-Yeah, it's a really good balance of everything.

You get a little bit of heat from the red pepper flakes.

The lemon really carries it.

-Bryan, this is delicious.

-Thank you.

-Well done.

So if you want to make this simple but flavorful recipe for baked chicken, start by making a marinade, cut a chicken up into parts, then cut deep slashes right into the meat before rubbing with the marinade.

Arrange the chicken skin-side up, roast it and finish under the broiler.

From "Cook's Country," an incredibly easy recipe for Greek chicken.

[ Cheers and applause ] -Well, I guess we're at the point in our society where we just don't have time to crumble our own feta cheese.

So Jack's here and he's gonna tell us whether this convenient product comes at a cost.

-This is what it's now gone down to.

Someone else has already crumbled the cheese for you.

-I'm just gonna say doing this, you know, which everybody does these days, is a lot like crumbling feta.

So if you have time to do this, you have time to crumble feta.

-These are all -- Somebody crumbled them, whether we did it or the manufacturer.

I'm beginning already to tell you that one of these is actually our favorite block of feta that we crumbled ourselves.

Interesting thing here is, first of all, all of the crumbled cheeses are domestically produced.

They don't do this in Greece.

They make you buy the whole block.

What that means is that the domestic cheeses are made with cow's milk.

Our favorite feta cheese that's imported from Greece is made with sheep's milk.

So it's like night and day.

Sheep's milk is barnyardy, gamey, cow's milk is delicious, funky, but they're different from each other.

So that's the first thing.

Crumble size varied.

And the reason why crumble size matters is because all of the crumbled cheeses, like all the preshredded cheeses, have cellulose.

It's like an anti-caking agent.

And if they're little, teeny crumbles, they have a lot of cellulose and they seem really dry and they don't melt very well.

They just aren't that nice.

And so bigger crumbles tend to be a little bit moister and not quite as dry.

So anything to your liking or not liking?

-I'm not liking this one.

-Okay.

-It's actually tough.

It's really weird.

It's, like, fibrous.

I'm not a big fan of that one.

-Okay.

-Not sure what that is, but I'm pretty sure it's a picture of cheese and not actually cheese.

-Fibrous is not an adjective that you would want with pretty much any cheese.

-Yes.

If you opened up the walls of my house, I bet you'd find that inside.

It's a little bit like insulation.

-Alright.

Well, duly noted.

I will not open up the walls in your house.

-Good policy.

This one's incredibly salty.

And I actually might really appreciate that in a mixture of a bunch of other things.

I like the tang it has, too.

-Okay.

-So I'd say that's my favorite, that's my second.

And that can go all the way over there.

-Let's start with your favorite.

So you're a natural girl.

You like the real deal.

This is our favorite imported block feta made with sheep's milk.

-Mm-hmm.

-You said, "Tang."

-Yeah, it has some tang.

-It has more flavor.

You know, it's a strong feta.

-Sure.

This was like a ghost of feta.

It wasn't bad, but it didn't have as much flavor.

-So that's the favorite of the crumbled.

-Okay.

-So this was the top-rated choice -- Athenos.

The studio audience actually, this was their favorite of the three samples.

-Really?

-It was close, but more people in the audience favored that as opposed to the sheep's milk feta.

-I wonder if it's because eaten on its own, it was more balanced.

It didn't have as much of that assertiveness.

-Yeah, it's not a nibbling cheese -- feta -- especially with your fingers like this.

-No, it's not.

-And this last one, which is the... -I'll put it all the way over here.

-Yeah, this was Treasure Cave.

It's not recommended.

It just was so dry.

It just felt like all the moisture was gone from the cheese.

It was, I thought, tough.

-Yeah.

-Rather than fibrous.

But, you know, it was -- it was not a tender cheese, and it didn't really get better in the other applications so it was not recommended.

-Well, there you go.

Pre-crumbled feta cheese does not have to come at the cost of flavor.

Our winner is Athenos crumbled feta cheese, and it's $4 for 4 ounces.

That's a good deal.

-Liquid measuring cups have one job.

And today Adam is gonna tell us which brand measures up.

-If they're accurate and you can read them.

Just like you said, job done, walk away.

Not always the case.

We have 10 different sets here.

We tested the 1-cup measures.

A lot of them were sold just in 1-cup measures.

Some were sold in sets.

These two were made of glass.

-Mm-hmm.

-These ones in the middle -- these six -- were plastic and those two by you were silicone.

And the price range was a low of about $5 to a high of about $35.

-Ooh.

-We, of course, measured the accuracy.

We measured them at the six most important measurements from 1/4 cup on through 1 cup, and we used a lab-grade scale to weigh out the water and then compared them to the measurement markings.

And in about half of these, come on, they're measuring cups, they weren't accurate.

-You're kidding.

-I'm not kidding.

Half of them were spot on.

About half of them had inaccuracies somewhere along the lines.

And in a couple of these cups, at the 1-cup measurement, they were off by almost a tablespoon.

-That's substantial.

-Which that's enough to really kind of mess with a recipe a little bit.

-Mm-hmm.

-Now, you may notice that two of these cups, these two here, actually have two sets of measurement markings, one on the side and then a set inside the cup so that you don't have to crouch down.

You can read them from up top.

-I appreciate that sometimes.

-You know, some of the testers really liked that.

This one with the two sets of measurements, both sets of measurements were accurate, not the case with this one.

The side markings were accurate.

The top markings weren't.

-That's just silly.

-It's crazy.

Now, the vessel design itself also mattered to testers.

And there were a couple of aspects.

Let's start with the opening at the top.

If it's wider like this, at about 4 inches in diameter, it's just easier to pour into it to check the volume of a pan sauce, especially if you're using like a big 12-inch skillet.

Certainly easier than trying to get in something narrow like that.

You also want to make sure that these things are easy to pour from.

Not all of them were.

This one, for instance, you can see that the pouring spout is a little bit off center.

There were swear words flying in the test kitchen as testers dribbled liquids out of this one.

And they actually tried a couple of different units on this.

They thought maybe it was a manufacturing flaw in the one that they were testing.

All of them had the same problem.

Now, if you're crazy about getting every last drop of a viscous liquid out of the cup... -That's me, too.

-...then you want to take a spatula and run it around the cup to get, you know, cream or oil, something that's a little thicker out of there, harder to do on these cups with a secondary measurement.

There's a ridge there and it's harder to get the spatula in and around.

Obviously, legibility is very important.

Number one, you want them to be transparent so you can see the water level.

So the advantage there went to the glass and plastic models because the silicone ones are a little opaque.

You can't really see it quite as quickly and easily.

Also, you want to make sure that the graphics are easy to read.

There are a lot of different kinds of graphics.

There's some thin lines, some bolder lines and shorter and some longer.

What was most important to the testers -- that they not get all jammed together because they can be hard to read like that one, some of those lines.

-And that's a tough color.

-Yeah, not easy.

The second thing that was important is that they line up really clearly to measurement numbers.

And believe it or not, one of these cups, this guy right there, some of the lines did not have corresponding measurement numbers.

-Guess the number on this line.

Yeah.

That would take a little deciphering if you were actually using it.

-Yeah.

Who's designing those things?

I just don't get it.

Testers also assessed how well these cleaned up and they did that by filling them with turmeric-spiked marinara sauce that was warm, letting them sit for three hours, then running them through the dishwasher and inspecting them for, you know, the smell, the look of the marinara sauce.

And there were a couple of plastic and silicone models that actually had traces of that marinara.

They also washed them another 24 times.

And to check into the durability and how solid the markings were on the material, they used an all-purpose kitchen sponge to wash them out by hand.

But they used that slightly abrasive side.

-Yep.

-And one of these cups, believe it or not, the markings... -Oh!

-...got washed right off.

-That is a total bummer.

-Not very durable there.

So in the end, there were actually two recommendations.

This is the Pyrex 1-cup measuring cup.

It's about $10.

This is a fantastic basic measuring cup.

It was accurate.

It's legible and easy to read.

It's easy to work from.

It's got a nice, wide opening.

It's microwaveable.

It's sturdy.

This is a terrific measuring cup.

If you have those days where you don't want to bend over and you like the dual measurement cups, the one that the testers preferred was this one.

This is the OXO Good Grip's 1-cup angled measuring cup.

It's about $7.

It was easy to use, easy to see, and both sets of measurements were accurate.

-Good information, Adam.

Thank you.

-My pleasure.

-So we have not one, but two winners.

The first is made of glass.

It's by Pyrex.

It's the 1-cup measuring cup that's about $10.

The second is made of plastic and you can view it from above.

It's by OXO Good Grips and it's the 1-cup angled measuring cup and it's about $7.

-New potatoes are called new potatoes because they're picked from the vine at the start of the growing season, often when the leaves on the vines are still nice and green.

Now the skin on the outside of the potatoes is very thin, but it can be red, yellow or white.

And the interior flesh is firm and a little bit waxy.

We love to simply boil them.

But Lawman's here.

He's gonna show us a new way to jazz up those potatoes.

-The secret to easy, flavorful potatoes, it's simple.

You got to crush 'em.

-Crush 'em, alright.

-Here I have 2 pounds of small red potatoes.

I'm gonna add to this 8-quart Dutch oven.

Now, you could use a small yellow potatoes, but to be honest, I like the look of the red potatoes better in this dish.

-Gotcha.

We're going for red.

Alright.

-I'm gonna add 2 tablespoons of salt.

I'm gonna cover the potatoes with 1 inch of cold water because we want the potatoes to cook evenly, and then we're gonna bring it up to a boil over high heat.

The potatoes are boiling nicely.

We want to reduce the heat to medium high.

And this is important so that the potatoes don't blow out.

We want to be able to crush the potatoes later.

If they blow out now, takes away all the fun.

-Okay, well, good.

-So they're gonna simmer for about 20 minutes.

-Alright.

-Bridget, it's been about 20 minutes.

Now it's time to check the potatoes for doneness.

-Okay.

-The best way is to take a paring knife and you want to slip it into the potato easily with no resistance.

There's no resistance.

I like to check a couple of potatoes just in case they moved around.

-Yes.

-And you get that one potato that's done and the other ones are still like rocks.

-Oh, yeah.

-And now I'm gonna drain the potatoes.

Now I'm gonna dry the pot out because we don't want any liquid when we make our butter sauce.

While the potatoes are resting over here, we're gonna start prepping our butter sauce.

First things first, we're gonna chop our aromatics.

-Alright.

-Bridget, at my house, 10 fingers is overrated.

But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't take care of chopping your herbs.

First, we need 2 tablespoons of minced chives.

So I'm gonna use the claw method, keeping my fingers away from the blade.

The edge of the blade is right on my knuckles and... -It smells good.

-Next, we're gonna chop our parsley.

I'm gonna do it a little differently.

Gonna start with the knife in the middle.

My left hand is gonna be right on the back and it's gonna keep the blade from jumping around.

I'm mincing this parsley.

I'm looking for 2 tablespoons.

Now that I've showed off my knife skills a little bit, for garlic, I like to use this garlic press.

-You and Julia both love that garlic press.

-It's just one clove of garlic.

-Okay.

-Now we have 6 tablespoons of unsalted butter that I'm gonna melt over medium heat.

-Okay.

-Bridget, the butter is just about melted.

Now I'm gonna add one garlic clove.

You want to add the garlic clove and cook until fragrant -- about 30 seconds.

The garlic is nice and fragrant and toasty.

I'm gonna turn the heat off so we can add our herbs.

First, I'm gonna add 2 tablespoons of minced parsley and then the 2 tablespoons of fresh chives... -Mmm.

-...along with half 1/2 salt and 1/4 of pepper.

Thank you.

-You bet.

Even off heat, you can smell the chives blooming in that.

-Give this a nice stir.

And now we can add our potatoes.

So right now I'm just gonna stir the potatoes, make sure they're covered in that nice herb-butter sauce.

Now we're gonna pop the potatoes.

We're gonna crush the potatoes.

It's similar to bubble wrap.

It's strangely satisfying.

We want to take the back of the spoon and just press it up against the potato until you hear, like, a little bit of a pop sound.

Think of it as you're opening the potato's mouth so it can take in all that herby-buttery goodness.

-Ooh, I like that.

-Now that I've opened them all up, I'm gonna give them a stir so that the butter can get all around them inside.

Now the moment you've been waiting for, it's time to eat.

-Oh, thank goodness.

You're being very polite.

I was about ready to dive into that Dutch oven.

Beautiful.

Oh, yes.

They look beautiful.

-Thank you.

-They're crushed, not really smashed, not mashed.

Potatoes are hard.

They're difficult to cook well.

But when you get a recipe that allows all this flavor inside the potato, the potato itself is beautiful, it's creamy, really well-seasoned.

-Buttery, herby, little garlic.

-All that butter juice has been sopped up by the potato.

And you think that this is good?

There are some more versions on our website.

There's smoked paprika and capers and oregano.

-Creamy inside, buttery outside, herbs, garlic.

-One might say that you crushed it.

-I think I did.

-I think you did, too.

Believe you me, you're gonna want to make these potatoes at home, and they start by simmering red potatoes until they're tender.

Cook garlic and butter, then add chives and parsley, then pour in the potatoes.

Use the spoon to crush each potato and toss to coat in the garlic butter.

So from "Cook's Country," fast and foolproof crushed red potatoes.