Holiday Special: Celebrate and Learn How to Make Holiday Recipes (and Hear the Cast's Stories!)

[Music] welcome to a very special holiday episode of america's test kitchen the whole cast is home for the holidays and they're sharing their secrets to holiday planning i have a list and people make fun of me i have hour by hour what goes in and out of the oven never tell people the menu you can rename any dish so if you burn something just call it cajun turkey they're sharing their holiday memories oh am i gonna share this what have i really screwed up the list is too long the most memorable for me was when i was allowed to make the turkey i actually once had the turkey on the grill catch on fire and they're sharing their all-time favorite holiday recipes i like to call this my first tenderloin that's how easy this recipe is i usually get a good reaction from the porchetta recipe the millionaire shortbread is the most insanely delicious thing ever if you do the turkey and coconut the day before you have tons of leftovers and gravy for your barbecued turkey the gato breton it's luxury make a gator tong it's worth it it's all coming up right here on this america's test kitchen special home for the holidays [Music] [Music] when it comes to holidays i think the most important thing you can do is to plan something that's not too ambitious make as much as you can ahead uh know that freezer is your best friend i just get super nervous once i'm stirring the pot it all kind of fades away and then i can just cook and be happy the first time i cooked a holiday meal was for my in-laws how'd you do how did i do yeah well i'm still married so you guys are done the most memorable holiday for me was when i was allowed to make the turkey that was a big deal every new cook guest would do turkey once trial by turkey we'd always have this battle with the cranberry sauce where we'd have like canned yes and homemade favorite appetizer it's always always a cheeseburger does a cheeseball aren't you always a cheese ball i like to see cranberries you like to see that's crazy you want to see cranberries in your cranberry sauce i know i also am big on fondue there's cheese involved somewhere yeah just let me know i got that i'm italian-american on both sides just tons and tons and tons of food there was one meal like you know a ham or a roast beef or a turkey but then there was a full italian meal to go along with that like there's always manicotti and lasagna exactly if it's a celebration i want a beef tenderloin it just sort of says i spent a lot of money and i care the beef tenderloin is just the easiest i like to call this my first tenderloin that's how easy this recipe is it's the perfect holiday entree [Music] beef tenderloin is the perfect cup for a dinner party it's quick to cook mild in flavor and as advertised by the name it is tender but dinner guests do not live by beef alone potatoes whether you make them mashed or roasted they are a natural match but that means some last-minute cooking until today i have to tell you this recipe is one of my all-time favorites because it's a one-pot meal the potatoes and the beef tenderloin cook in the same pot and you know everybody loves tenderloin from grandparents to kids everyone's pleased with this meal yeah you get some medium rare cuts right in the middle and the ends are a little bit more towards medium so that's right kind of satisfies everyone you got it all right this is a three pound center cut beef tenderloin now we're just gonna season it with a little salt and pepper and here i have two and a quarter teaspoons of salt this is a teaspoon of black pepper and our super secret magic ingredient baking soda this is a teaspoon of baking soda and of course that raises the ph which encourages browning so i'm just gonna whisk this together pat this roast dry and then i'm gonna season it here we go nice and liberally i wanna make sure you get it on all sides and it's okay if you get on the board you know what i do i kind of use the roast as a little bench scraper and just make sure it gets seasoned even on the ends so that's coated nice and even and now we're just going to tie it it is a pretty uniform cut of meat but tying helps to ensure that it cooks through a little more evenly i'm going to start in the center and just make double knot the first time go around the string twice that helps it stay in place for that second knot it's great for holiday wrapping as well all right now i'm just going to work my way outwards did you ever work at a rodeo [Laughter] i do know how to wrangle a good piece of beef so that's about an inch and a half between the ties i'm going to trim off the long ends give them a little haircut now we're going to let this roast sit for about an hour that'll allow the salt to do its magic and make the meat more tender just right at room temperature just right at room temperature now it might sound counter-intuitive but salting meat retains its overall moisture it just needs time at first salting the surface of the cut naturally draws moisture outward if you roast the tenderloin too soon after salting that drawn out moisture will evaporate and sure enough the meat will be dry and disappointing but if you give the salted meat enough time the super concentrated moisture near the surface will seek equilibrium move back into the meat and bring the salt with it the salt causes the muscle proteins to swell ensuring a juicy tenderloin so make sure you give the salt enough time to work its magic all right so it's time to get cooking and we're going to start with the potatoes nice i thought we were going to play ball no we're going to use little red potatoes because they're lovely and creamy and they hold their shape during roasting and also when they're in the bottom of the pan they act like a rack for the roast so i have two tablespoons of olive oil heating up in this roasting pan over these two burners about medium-high heat you can see that oil is just starting to shimmer so here i'm going to add five scallions four cloves of garlic a tablespoon of smoked paprika just adds a little something special to the potatoes because that's an expensive piece of meat and you're blooming it in oil which is really going to enhance its flavor a little bit of salt that's a half teaspoon of salt and a quarter teaspoon of black pepper and now we're gonna add our potatoes this is three pounds of red potatoes of course we gave them a good scrub beforehand we're just going to cook this for about a minute really to help bloom those aromatics can't you smell that paprika when you're starting to smell the garlic this is going to go great with me all right so you can see we're starting to get some fond on the bottom of the pan so i'm going to turn off the heat and add half a cup of water this this two things helps scrape up the fawns we get all that flavor of the potatoes it's also going to create a little steam when we roast these potatoes to help them start cooking all right so we're going to put these in the oven this is a 425 degree oven we're going to give these potatoes a 15 minute head start oh you can smell that little bit of smoked paprika oh it smells so good if you wouldn't mind turning that oven down to 300 degrees please all right those potatoes have had a 15 minute head start and now it's time to add our beef tenderloin so i'm just going to give it a quick brush with a tablespoon of olive oil don't forget the ends all right so now as i said before we're going to use the potatoes as a rack so i'm just going to push them into the middle and i'm going to take this pretty guy put him right on top genius i know right so this is going to go back into a 300 degree oven for about 45 to 55 minutes the key is that the center of the roast is going to register between 120 and 125 degrees that's for medium rare and of course halfway through cooking i'm gonna spin the roast around so it cooks evenly all right so that beef is still in the oven but now it's time to make one of my all-time favorite sauces and i've been pronouncing it wrong for many years i've been calling it personality sauce but actually it's persian sauce much more fancy that way yes but regardless of what you call it it is delicious i put it on eggs i put it on tempeh and of course beef so it starts with parsley and this is three quarters of a cup of chopped parsley and that's our base and to this we're going to add a scallion we're going to want to mince it and what you want to do when you mince a scallion is this root end is pretty thick so i like to quarter it and then if there's any big green parts i just cut them in half and then you can just mince it really nicely all right one minced scallion next up cornishones which is french four fancy little pickle tiny gherkins yes and they're delicious we just want to mince these up that's about six tablespoons of cornichons these look pretty good and we're going to also add a little bit of that cornichon juice because that's good flavor very pickly a little salty so good so this is a teaspoon of the cornichon juice next up some capers and of course we rinsed these already to get rid of some of that extra brine this is a quarter cup i'm just going to give these a quick chop they're already pretty small but we really want to crush them open so you can really taste them so you're not quartering each one not today that's pretty good into the bowl they go to this we're going to add a little garlic this is three cloves of minced garlic a little bit of sugar to sort of balance all that brininess of the cornerstones and the capers this is a teaspoon of sugar last but not least a little salt this is a quarter teaspoon of salt and a quarter teaspoon of pepper yeah i'm all for sugar when it's used as a seasoning similar to salt and pepper just balances out flavors that way all right i'm just going to mix this up and then what's going to hold it together and really turn it into a relish is some olive oil so i have half a cup of really good extra virgin olive oil here pour this in tell you the truth whenever i make this sometimes i just eat it right off a spoon it's so good all those fresh sort of briny flavors and that is it a persian or is i like to say a personalized sauce oh it smells so good all right so again we're looking for a temperature between 120 and 125 for medium rare right there in the center i'm telling you it doesn't matter what it actually reads i'm going to eat it nailed it we're right on so we're going to let this rest for about 15 minutes let those juices redistribute of course we're going to tent it with foil help trap the heat in and now back to these potatoes now sometimes if you see the pan getting a little dry in the oven don't hesitate to add a little water i'm going to tent them as well so they stay nice and warm all right so this beef has been resting for 15 minutes so i'm just gonna get rid of these pieces of twine and a pair of scissors is ideal for this because it really can get under the twine which kind of bakes into the meat during roasting the browning of this beef is pretty tremendous we did not sear this in the pan it's all nice and brown that's from the baking soda that's right it's time to slice this roast up and now i'm not going to slice it very thin but also not into thick steak somewhere in the middle about half inch slices oh look at this meat so juicy perfectly rosy throughout almost no gray band and again that's because we didn't brown it so we saved a step and made perfectly rosy meat all right so a nice piece for you and now we've kept these potatoes warm under the foil over here oh yeah last but not least my favorite sauce persiad fit for king this is beautiful i mean it's a special occasion meal but actually i would eat this just about any night of the week you don't need a fork certainly don't need a knife just a spoon it's that tender and the potatoes that little bit of smoked paprika just gives them a little something special well our one pan wonder starts by seasoning and tying a center cut beef tenderloin cook new potatoes and scallions with smoked paprika right in the roasting pan add water and give the potatoes a head start in the oven top with the roast return to the oven and slice and serve with a quick persiad so from our test kitchen to your kitchen an easy and elegant one pan beef tenderloin with smoky potatoes and persiad relish [Music] i feel like we're missing the party seriously failures on holidays in the kitchen inevitable right oh am i gonna share this what have i really screwed up the list is too long to come up with things i actually once had the turkey on the grill catch on fire never tell people the menu you can rename any dish so if you burn something just call it cajun turkey or something like that it wasn't like it was just a little overcooked it was five alarm fire there was one year that i put a turkey in the oven and i didn't turn the oven on so you know slow roasting it was really slow roasted turkey caught i make this regularly at my house it slow cooks in there it gets super super juicy it's a great kind of french technique and the heavy pot makes that makes that work really well my daughter who tasted it she was like she just looked at me because she's first time having real gravy she's like winner so if you do the turkey and coconut the day before you have tons of leftovers and gravy for your barbecued turkey and life is good yes [Music] today we're roasting a turkey breast and believe it or not we aren't going to brine it instead we're going to cook it in a pot with a tight fitting lid which the french call cacote and that tight fitting lid is important because it prevents the liquid from evaporating during cooking and this creates a very moist gentle cooking environment inside the pot and produces some really flavorful drippings when you cook in the pot it's known as cooking and cocoa and today dan's going to show us how it's done i'm very excited that we're free from brining now it's going to be a very very simple recipe and it's gonna start with a six to seven pound bone-in turkey breast big guy big guy we can't put a whole turkey in a pot so we're just gonna go with the breasts but this method because it's so gentle it really does a nice thing for the white meat so we're gonna start by first taking off these ribs so i'm just going to use some shears to do this i'm going to follow along the bottom of the breast and cut right through these ribs and a good pair of polti shears are worth their weight in gold for this they are the best tool for this job definitely so i'm going to go down here and then i'm going to flip it like this kind of snip in and then there's a bone that where it connects right here that kind of goes out towards the wing and a lot of times like on this one it's still on there so i'm just going to take this and push down like that it's a very satisfying sound if you like breaking down poultry and then i'm just gonna go in between and take this off okay you can take this chance to you know trim up any areas that don't look good if there's too much skin in one place this recipe because it's cooked in a wet environment the skin doesn't get super crispy so this is not so much a skin focus recipe where we're going to jump through hoops to get it really crispy we want the meat to be extra juicy okay so now i'm just going to take some paper towels and pat it dry on all sides so i'm going to use some kosher salt do you want me to do the pepper since you're trying to love that yes thank you happy to help all right all right let me do a flip here and you can start peppering and i'll follow you with some salt all right there we go a nice coating i've got a couple tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil over medium high heat until it just starts smoking that sounds good doesn't it and i'm putting this in breast side down and now we're going to add a bunch of aromatics so we've got one onion here and these are just sprinkle right around the bird i also have one carrot one celery ribs and then we've got six cloves of garlic two pretty little thyme sprigs and finally one bay leaf last but not least last but not least so i kind of like to stir these around and get them in that nice oil we're gonna sear it this way until the skin gets nice and brown and sometimes you have to tilt it a little bit in order to get the skin on all parts nice and brown and that's going to take 12 to 16 minutes the vegetable is going to get nice and brown as well and we're going to get really nice fondant in the bottom of our pan that's it and the font is important for the gravy exactly this is all about the gravy mmm smell that you can really smell the change between the raw vegetables and now that they're cooked starting to smell a little like thanksgiving around here so the vegetables have really reduced down in size they've given up tons of liquid and they started to brown and i've really moved the turkey breast around as i've cooked so that we get good browning on all sides now it's time to flip we go in here we have tongs and a wooden spoon this is the hardest part of the recipe but you just take your time beautiful nice color okay so here's where the magic happens we're gonna turn off the heat we're gonna take our foil and we're gonna put it over the top we're gonna make a really nice seal so it's great if you have a really heavy pot here because the lid sits really nicely on top and it traps all that moisture inside even if you do it's still nice to put a piece of foil on here kind of fills in those gaps and it protects it a little bit more also makes it more foolproof so if you had a not so heavy lid it would still seal in all that moisture exactly so we're gonna just go around here and crimp this in we're gonna go into the oven about an hour and a half to an hour and three quarters and it's actually really low about 250 degrees which for turkey roasting is really low normally we're up around 400 degrees and our goal is to get browning and really crisp skin here all we want is super juicy turkey meat so going nice and low like that is going to keep it very very moist so it's been about 90 minutes and i'm gonna take it out we're gonna temp it over there so it's going here 165 is what we're looking for on the nose okay so that's fantastic we're going to get it out of the pot here i have to say getting out of the pot is one of the hardest parts about this recipe that's the only hard part of this recipe is maneuvering the turkey around absolutely i'm going to slide in my tongs underneath here i find that's good give myself lots of support and then i'm just going to use the wooden spoon as kind of a stopper there pick it up and pop it down on our board now we got to test it with foil and i'm going to slide this out of the way so we can deal with our broth so this is really intensely flavored stuff we've got that good browning from the skin on there and we've trapped everything in the pot so i'm putting this over medium-high heat and we're gonna cook it down and that's gonna take about 15 to 20 minutes and it's gonna smell really good while we're doing that all right so this has been going for about 15 minutes oh it smells even more intense than when it first came out of the oven we've got a good amount of fat in here and that's the perfect base for our roux so i'm going to dust over a quarter cup of all-purpose flour the fat really helps with preventing lumpy gravy because that fat's going to coat all the particles of flour so they're not going to clump together we're gonna cook this for about two to five minutes we wanna get some good color on it okay it's nice and dark you can see that fond on the bottom there we're gonna scrape all that up with four cups of chicken broth so the key here is to add it gradually and whisk a lot because if you add the broth all at once and try to whisk it vigorously you'll wind up with a lumpy gravy but if you add it slowly and whisk as you go that's how you get a smooth gravy so once you've got about two cups in about halfway you've diluted it enough that the rest can go in a lot more quickly that looks good it does look good doesn't it so i'm also going to go in with my wooden spoon and just scrape around the corners there's lots of fun and as it gets moist you can kind of scrape it back up into the sauce okay so i got most of that incorporated so i'm gonna bring this up to a simmer and we're gonna cook it until it's a nice gravy consistency about two and a half cups and it takes 10 to 15 minutes all right this smells so good it looks amazing i'm gonna shut the heat off so this is two and a half cups here it's reduced down it's nice and thick in that flour gave it a lot of good body and all we got to do is strain this now all right i know from experience this is a two-person job i was gonna ask for your help thank you that's yeah let me hold the pot and you can strain it now i can't see what's going on so you tell me if i'm dipping i'll tell you if you go too crazy nope a little bit more a little bit more that's great i'm just going to use this ladle to help things along you can keep going just a little bit more excellent make sure you get all that out that gravy is where it's at perfect that's great so we're gonna get back to the turkey here oh that is so not a looker it's not a liquor no and that's the point here it's not about the skin it's about the meat underneath the skin that's right so we're gonna do is just find the breastbone runs right through the middle there when i get to this point i like to just take a little peek inside make sure i'm following the right path that bone at the bottom there has an unusual curve so taking a peek means you can really navigate it easily all right that comes right off all right so i'm gonna use my knife and just get right underneath the skin there so i can peel it back very elegantly done i'm just gonna cut nice thick slices we're not making sandwiches right we're making dinner and you got to see how juicy that is oh look at that nice and low and slow you get the best results and julia i'm going to give you the center cut the big center cup pieces ugh now may i pour a little gravy on top of yours yes oh oh that looks beautiful it's so good it's the best turkey breast and gravy ever this turkey makes wonderful leftovers because it's so moist it's moist the next day when it's cold it doesn't make great sandwiches damn this is absolutely delicious thank you you're welcome for the juiciest roast turkey breast cook it and co-coat brown a bone-in turkey breast with a few aromatics cover the pot with foil then the lid and cook it in a 250 degree oven then use the drippings to make a flavorful gravy so from america's test kitchen to your kitchen an amazing recipe for turkey breast and cacote with pan gravy [Music] one thing that i do for holiday meals is never make a recipe i haven't made before i don't like to try new things and where i'm when i'm having a lot of people over it's not the time to roll the dice i have a list and people make fun of me i have hour by hour what goes in and out of the oven here's what i'm doing at one here's what i'm doing at 1 30. i'm doing it right 2 30 time for a drink uh three you know and i just sort of keep going through the day i mean when i start cooking for the holiday it's a month out so i just start packing that freezer checking things off my list and then when the day comes you're just eating oysters yeah exactly i usually get a pretty good reaction from the porchetta recipe it's rich fatty pork that gets nice and tender and it makes amazing sandwiches later it sure does it's not a holiday dish if you can't make a sandwich from it so when when when it's a win-win [Music] in italy porchetta is serious business roadside stores rub boneless whole hogs with fennel garlic and herbs then they spit roast the pigs until the meat is juicy and the skin is hard and crackly now it is so good that a porchetta sandwich is literally nothing more than meat on a white roll but we are not in italy and we're not going to ask you to cook a whole pig so dan is here and he's going to show us a great version of porchetta that you and i can make at home so bridget this is our pig right here it's shrunk it's shrunk a little bit tiny little pig american pigs are tiny now so we're actually going to turn porchetta which is a great street side food into a really nice roast and for that we decided to shrink it down and we're going to use a boneless pork butt same thing we use for barbecue it's going to get meltingly tender but we have to wait on that a second all right first we got to deal with the flavor and porchetta has a very distinctive flavor profile so we have three tablespoons of fennel seed we're gonna use our coffee grinder here we don't use coffee in it so it doesn't taste like coffee but it's gonna grind to a nice fine powder so we've got a lot of fennel in there it's gonna really come through in the meat which is great so the next ingredient is a half a cup of rosemary so this is fresh rosemary it's about two bunches next a quarter cup of fresh thyme we also have 12 cloves of garlic a tablespoon of black pepper and two teaspoons of kosher salt i'm just gonna pulse this until it's broken down a little bit okay so that looks good smells good this is amazing now you needed to pre-grind the fennel because it would have never ground down enough with all the other ingredients in the food processor next up we have a half cup of extra virgin olive oil i'm gonna process this until it gets nice and smooth [Music] okay that looks and smells really good so we have our nice six pound boneless pork butt here nice fat cap on top we don't have skin in this case to get nice and crackly and give us that nice comparison to the tender meat but the fat if we treat it right it'll do the same thing for you okay so the first thing i'm going to do is use my chef's knife and cross hatch it space one inch apart so it's going to allow some of the fat to render it's going to get really crispy and i'm gonna go in both directions i'm gonna go down through the fat but not into the meat so i've got a nice cross hatch on this and what i'm gonna do is actually split this into two roasts okay which we find cook better it's a lot nicer for slicing too so i'm gonna find the grain and we wanna cut with the grain because eventually we're going to carve against the grain we're going to use a boning knife you can do this with a paring knife and make some really deep slits into this meat here where we can get all that seasoning in we're going to go all the way through there i'm going to start like this and then i kind of tilt it out so i can make sure i get all the way through on that side set that one aside we're gonna do the same thing over here okay so now we're gonna start seasoning we've got all these places for that to go so we're gonna take them put them fat side down i'm going to season all sides of the meat except the fat cap with a couple teaspoons of kosher salt now dan looks like a super fancy chef because he's holding his hand way up high as he's seasoning the roast but that's actually a really good idea because you get a more even disbursement of the salt the higher up you go so now it's time to get into our paste this is where it gets really messy but also really fun so we're going to take it and put it all over and also really get into here so i worked some of that salt into the sides here but we're really going to get the paste in there really work it inside all these nice slits we made i'm going to tie these up with three pieces of twine on each one so they kind of hold their shape a little bit better and they're going to cook for a long period of time be very tender we want them to hold together okay so we're going to turn these fat side up i like to start in the middle so as dan ties these knots he's actually making that first loop twice right around the string and that way it's going to hold itself in place and you don't need another person's finger to hold it in place while you make a double knot works for christmas presents and it works for pork yes well let's talk a little bit about pork shoulder a whole pork shoulder weighs in around 18 pounds and that runs from the top of the front shoulder all the way down to the trotter now the pork butt or boston butt is the top part of the shoulder the cut is comprised of several muscles and it can be poorly butchered when the bone is removed so it's best to purchase a pork butt that's not in any netting or under plastic wrap and that way you can see that the entire cut is intact the final thing our pork needs before it goes into the fridge is a nice coating on the fat that's going to help it crisp and brown and so for that we're going to use a tablespoon of kosher salt a teaspoon of ground black pepper and one of our favorite ingredients a quarter of a teaspoon of baking soda now baking soda raises the ph on the surface here and when it's more alkaline it's going to brown better so we're going to mix this up and season away okay so i have a nice sprinkling on here i'm going to use my fingers to rub it in try and get it in those crevices that we've created with the crosshatch i'm going to transfer these to our wire rack set in a rim baking sheet and these are going to go into the fridge uncovered i'm going to leave them there for at least six hours up to 24 hours they're gonna dry on the surface a little bit it's gonna help them brown in the oven great so 24 hours has passed and we've allowed a lot of that salt and seasoning to get inside the meat so now it's time to roast it when we played around with this recipe and did a lot of testing we wanted to figure out how to get it really really juicy we know that low and slow from barbecue is really good right we get super tender meat so we wanted to do that here the problem is if you go really low about a 250 degree oven takes about six hours a little too long for poor my book yes so the part of the reason it takes so long is when you get to about 150 160 degrees we get evaporative cooling and it cools the meat so much that it can just kind of stall at that temperature for a long period of time so in barbecue world they solve that by wrapping the meat in foil it prevents that evaporative cooling and allows you to get right through that temperature so what we're going to actually do is transfer this to a roasting pan we're going to cover it with foil so this way we can go into a 325 degree oven which is relatively hot but it's going to trap moisture in here so it's not going to go over 212 degrees and that moisture in there is going to allow it to go past that stall and cook pretty quickly so it's been two and a half hours we're going to take it out and temp it okay you wouldn't mind turning the oven up to 500 degrees so let's take the temp here now we're looking for at this point 180 degrees and you got it and i got it nice that looks great so we get really fast cooking in this nice moist environment but as you can see we don't get a lot of browning nope so we're going to solve that problem i'm going to do is transfer these off to this plate here so this is really flavorful liquid we're not going to use it in this recipe but it's like instant soup it's good to keep so next we're going to line it with foil here so just this little layer of oil right here will help any of the fat that renders out from smoking in that really hot oven okay so before we put them back in i'm actually going to take off the twine it's for good reason so once we get this nice and crispy you can easily pull that fat off we want that to stay on there okay so now they go right back in and fat cap side up right that oh yeah we got to get that fat nice and crispy so we want that up so once our oven is at 500 degrees we're going to put the pork back in and we're going to cook it for 20-30 minutes until it hits 190. it's gonna be beautifully crisp on the outside i cannot wait that was good right you delivered on your promise that's for sure oh just look at that it's still sizzling we're still getting crispier fat so i'm going to transfer these to our carving board over here and those are going to need to rest for 20 minutes before we slice into them so this is nice and tender but we still want to cut across the grain just as we would with any roast it's going to make it even more tender so i'm going to cut some nice thick kind of half inch slices man this knife just goes through like butter this is so tender look how juicy that is oh that's just beautiful incredible yeah this isn't the type of roast that you can really cut into very thin deli slices give you a couple pieces here thank you is that rosemary and the fennel and the garlic i'm excited about this having a moment it's what it's all about so it's not quite as tender as say something like a pork shoulder that you would make for pulled pork you want that almost to be overcooked but it still melts in your mouth oh yeah every single bite has the garlic the fennel salt and pepper oh i would put this on a roll and just eat this what condiments needed we didn't we don't just sauce with it no it's got that much flavor so for our easy porchetta score the fat on a pork shoulder rub with a flavorful fennel paste and then cut and tie into two pieces cook the roast in a moderate oven then finish at 500 degrees to crisp the top so from our test kitchen to your kitchen an easy tasty amazing home version of porchetta [Music] all right so i'm coming over appetizer entree side dessert what do you serve it uh let's do raw oysters i mean what else for the appetizer you just know what's in my heart dips crudite i love beautiful cheeses such a fun excuse to like go cheese shopping i love the words cheese shopping together okay main course i love seafood it's a german dish called rolladen my favorite main course for the holiday is actually turkey turkey roasted pork shoulder slow roasted pork shoulder prime rib in yorkshire pudding yeah my pork roast like you can't go wrong no you can't it cheats it gives you all the fat that yeah yeah favorite side dish a simple green salad with a nice vinaigrette with a lot of shallots a lot of shallots you know what i have to have roasted brussels sprouts i'm a huge brussels sprouts fan definitely brussels sprouts let's do brussels sprouts i like them crisp tender i want you to know you're having a green vegetable but i want it to have some nice some nice yumminess on there what's the drink oh my goodness uh negronis oh favorite cocktail yes that's mine too anything with champagne in it can i come over for this really really good dessert generally like a rolled cake so i'm a pie person if i never have cake again i'm fine well the millionaire shortbread is probably the most insanely delicious thing ever millionaire shortbread is the gift that keeps on giving it might be the perfect thing to make during the holidays everyone loves it i'm coming okay that sounds great [Music] today we're making a well-loved british cookie called millionaire shortbread it's a sturdy shortbread topped with caramel and chocolate it's kind of like the original twix bar we don't have to choose the right or left i know we get to eat it all whole pan is a triple level threat in terms of cookies you've got that shortbread bottom it's got kind of this toffee caramel filling and then chocolate right on top so it's millionaires because it's rich lots of rich ingredients also you know it's a little bit more expensive to make than the original shortbread so that has something to do with the name so this is two and a half cups of all-purpose flour i'm going to add a half a cup of granulated sugar and three-quarter teaspoon of salt now you'll see salt going into just about every part of this recipe because millionaire shortbread can also be a little too sweet so i'll whisk this together all right so that looks good so now we're going to add melted butter so this is 16 tablespoons of unsalted butter we're just going to pour this over our dry ingredients and then work it in you're going to see it's going to turn really really thick but since we're using melted butter not creaming butter or cutting in cold butter this is going to be a lot more sturdy we want to make sure that we get any of those flower pockets on the bottom of the bowl worked in to it's kind of a dough at this point so you can see how thick that is yeah so let's bring it over to our pan now this is a 9 by 13 inch pan gone ahead and lined it with a foil sling very important anytime you're making any kind of bar cookie which this is that's two pieces of foil and we've shaped it so that one goes right across and the other one goes right in it's going to make it easy to just retrieve it out of the pan and slice it so i'll crumble this over just to distribute it a little bit more evenly at the start you can smell that butter oh it's a good day so now i'm going to use my hand and just press this out into an even layer so that our next layer which is the caramel will also be nice and even this is looking pretty good and it's going to continue to even out as it bakes in the oven all right so now before we put it in the oven we take a fork and we're just going to make little marks about an inch apart from each other if you didn't do this the shortbread would sort of bubble up in places and you'd have these big ugly lumps not a nice even shortbread all right so this is going to go into a 350 degree oven it'll stay in there until the top gets nice and light brown it's going to take about 25 up to 30 minutes we'll also notice that the top will feel nice and firm oh it smells so good look at that beautiful shortbread beautifully even and golden so i'm just going to take my hands gingerly it's hot but i just want to make sure that that surface is nice and firm now we do want to compact this a little bit because later on when we go to slice it we don't want it to crumble all over the place we know we're going to get some crumbling we don't want too much so we're going to use just a burger flipper as i like to call it a long metal spatula and press down in there now the spatula can get a little bit hot so you might want to grab the top of it with the towel by the time you get to the second side it gets really hot and this is great because it's also going to compact right into those corners all right so we're going to let this sit here you want to let it cool down for at least 20 minutes before you top it but you can actually let it cool completely as well gives us time to talk a little bit about the caramel ooh the good part yes and this is almost i like to call it a caramel toffee mixture because it is much deeper in flavor than a traditional caramel and actually we found that the recipes all start with sweetened condensed milk this is one 14 ounce can so sweetened condensed milk because caramel can be very chewy and sticky and this makes it a little softer so easier to eat exactly i'll give that to you and we have seven ounces or one cup of firmly packed brown sugar you can use light you can use dark we also have a half a cup of corn syrup and that's really going to help the caramel stay nice and chewy stick of unsalted butter eight tablespoons just cut into small pieces and a half a teaspoon of salt now we did find when we were cooking this that sometimes the butter would start to split and you'd end up with kind of a greasy layer on top of the caramel but it all had to do with how much they cooked the sweet condensed milk so what we found is the more that they cook it the more the whey proteins in the milk were broken down and they're needed in there to keep the butter together so we're adding a half a cup of heavy cream which has just the right amount of whey proteins and our butter will not split so heavy cream makes a foolproof caramel layer exactly so we're going to put this over medium heat i'll stir it every once in a while it's not like a traditional caramel that you don't want to stir we want to cook this until it reaches between 236 to 239 degrees that's going to give us exactly the right texture of caramel that's going to take anywhere between 16 maybe up to 20 minutes all right we have achieved the right temperature anywhere between 236 and 239 it smells amazing oh it smells like toffee and a little coffee and it's going to taste good it's going to taste great all right we want to get this out of the pan i'm going to pour it right onto our crust that looks so pretty having you pour it right on like that we're just going to smooth this over into the corners you can use an offset spatula if you like and i just want to finish smoothing it out so good all right we do want to let this completely cool that's going to take at least one and a half hours and then we can move on to the chocolate top the caramel is set it's beautiful it's completely cool and it's nice and firm it is gorgeous isn't it yeah it's got a nice mirror finish but we're going to cover it all up with chocolate and it's all good so we're starting off with six ounces of bittersweet chocolate we've chopped this very fine that's very important for our tempering method because we want this to melt evenly so we're going to microwave this at 50 power and i'll stir it every 15 seconds until it's just melted we don't want to overheat the chocolate at this point i'm going to pull it out when the bottom of the bowl is just slightly warmer than my hand all right so this is looking good it's just a few pieces of chocolate that are still unmelted in there but as i stir this i know that they're going to melt right in so this total melting process up to this point is only take one to two minutes depending on the microwave so this looks good and now we're going to add more chocolate this is two ounces of bittersweet chocolate very finely grated yeah so we're going to pour this in here i'm going to stir this in now these tiny little particles of chocolate are going to melt in very easily and since we haven't really disturbed their structure the beta crystals are still intact in here and that's going to set off a chain reaction as the rest of the chocolate cools down and it's going to help to temper our chocolate so if this looks like it's not actually melting all the way you can always take it back to the microwave only for about five seconds at a time until it is just melted all right so that is beautiful and glossy and fully melted so this is going to go right on the caramel and it's just a thin veneer of chocolate this is not really a chocolate dessert it's a caramel dessert it is really fun to watch you make this every layer just looks better and better so good all right so now i'm going to take an offset spatula i love these tiny little ones helps get into all those little crevices and we're going to quickly spread this over the top getting right to the edges into the corners so this is going to go into the fridge just until the chocolate is set that's going to take about 10 minutes it's time for the payoff julia yay 10 minutes in the fridge the chocolate is just set so now we're going to get it out of the pan and thanks to the foil sling that should be very easy i love this sling trick and it works well for all sorts of bar cookies and brownies there we go peel this back and now i'm going to lift it up if you wouldn't mind taking that foil away you bet it's even prettier out of the pan it serves one if only that works we're going to cut these into smaller pieces because a little bit goes a long way and it's very easy to do but you do want to use a serrated knife i like to score through the chocolate first so i'm going to cut it width wise or crosswise right in half there we go so now each of these gets cut again in half just a little bit of the sawing gentle and we'll go ahead and cut this one in half as well so now each one of these gets cut into 10 pieces this is where you really want to go slow here here we go two for you two for me because you're going to say oh i only want one bridget and then you're gonna say where's my other one these are just beautiful i mean those layers are so nice and even and like you said not a thick layer of chocolate just that thin veneer on top it's beautiful yeah it's just enough of that bittersweet chocolate you're going to see it's perfect combination shut the door this is really good it's not only the flavors it's the texture it's the firmness of the shortbread and that caramel layer has the perfect texture these are simply amazing brigitte well done thank you so if you want to be a millionaire you have to get your hands a little dirty and use them to press in a quick shortbread crust into a baking pan a combination of sweetened condensed milk and heavy cream makes a foolproof caramel layer then the whole shebang is topped off with a beautiful layer of tempered chocolate from our test kitchen to your kitchen a top drawer recipe for millionaires shortbread you feel richer already pay you in short break [Music] i get a ton of emails and calls when it comes to the holidays i think i need to take out like a different phone plan around the holidays because it's just like a text message i get the calls like oh no what do i do uh the meat isn't defrosted i feel like the butterball hotline or something sometimes you know best is when you're in the supermarket and this happens to you and you're shopping around the holidays people just because they might not stop you otherwise it's very easy to ask a question like how should i cook this roast before i know there's like a few people gathering around like i'm giving i'm giving a speech on potatoes in the produce section i'm sending people links all the time i mean i i totally enjoy it i like that aspect of it i get a lot of people asking me for dessert ideas i guess my reputation for eating a lot of desserts precedes me the gato breton is one of those cakes it's luxury when you taste it you're like oh my gosh this is like the best little delicate french cake i've ever had both of those desserts millionaires shortbread and the gateau brethon like just make you feel like a rock star when you make it make a gato patong it's worth it we're a holiday database [Music] leave it to the french to take a simple butter cake and turn it into something spectacular that's what they've done on the coast of brittany with gato bueton it's unlike any butter cake you've seen and we're in great hands today because elle is going to show us how to make this glorious gato breton traditionally this cake is made with a jam or fruit filling in between two firm layers of cake it's so good i love this cake it's so good so the first thing that we will focus on is the filling okay so we're going to start with 2 3 cup of water also a half a cup of chopped california apricots now you can make this with turkish apricots if you like but we prefer the flavor of the california apricot a little bit brighter a little brighter we're just going to puree this until it's smooth it takes about two minutes okay all right that looks great it's nice and smooth and has a little bit of texture we're just going to add this to a 10 inch nonstick skillet turn this on to medium heat and we're going to stir it frequently and let it go for about 10 to 12 minutes this looks great it's nice and dark in color and you can pull your spatula through and see that distinct trail very very thick and that is key to this recipe as you're going to see in a minute all right so i'm just going to add this to our bowl oh that smells so so good so now we're going to add one tablespoon of lemon juice to this that's all set i'm gonna put this in the fridge for 15 minutes to cool sounds great great okay bridget so here's the most exciting part about this recipe for me is making the cake yes so here we have 16 tablespoons of butter and we're going to cream this for one minute on medium high okay and so we're giving this butter a head start because we want to create a dense crumbly crust not one that has a lot of air incorporated okay so we're also looking for this butter to become pale and very whippy okay so our butter is now creamed for one minute and we're going to add to this three quarter cups sugar plus two tablespoons and let it cream for another three minutes all right that's been three minutes so we're going to add our eggs one at a time so we have five egg yolks here and we're gonna just let these go for 30 seconds okay now the egg yolks are essential here we did not add any egg whites egg whites would do two things we want this batter to be really nice and thick and that would add extra water to the batter the egg whites will also provide more lift and since we want a denser more crumbly cake they're not a good idea so yolks only all right that looks great it's quite creamed i'm just going to scrape the bowl just to make sure we got all the sugar in there all the butter incorporated before we move on i'm gonna add two tablespoons of rum and one teaspoon of vanilla so i'm gonna just let this mix for one minute i'm gonna turn this down to low so we can start to add our dry ingredients two cups of flour and i'm gonna add a half teaspoon of salt a little bit of salt goes a long way keeps cakes from tasting too sweet and also just balances out all the flavors all right it's been 30 seconds and already we have a nice thick batter that we're looking for to make this cake so i'm going to take this paddle off and get all of our batter in here so that we can give it a final stir we actually did a really good job mixing there's not a lot down in there but it's always better to check i like that you included me as in we and you did all the work well it's a french butter cake it's always weak very good i'm gonna add half of this cake batter to this nine inch cake pan that we've already greased so i like to spin the cake pan as i'm spreading out the batter kind of make sure i get it all evenly distributed and it's important that this top layer is even because that's where our jam is gonna go okay right i think we're all set now i'm gonna put this in the freezer for about 10 minutes and that's just a little baker's trick that we like to use because if we don't get this batter a little bit more firm when we put the jam on top it's just going to sink okay so this has been in the freezer for 10 minutes and as you can see it's firmed up quite a bit which is so important when we're putting on our jam filling this is about half a cup of our jam mixture i'm going to use my spreading method of rotating the pan and i'm going to leave a three-quarter inch space from the edge of the pan all right i think we're all set all right and i'm going to put this back in the freezer so that the jam filling can set also sounds good okay bridget so this has been in the freezer for 10 minutes and our jam has set okay so i think it's safe for us to apply the top layer of our cake sounds good all right so this is just the remaining batter from what we used earlier for the bottom of this cake all right that looks good as the french say sable say bone and i'm going to use my spinning method for spreading this batter evenly just be gentle with this batter spread so that it doesn't cause your jam to push you i mean it's set but you can't be too aggressive now you can really see how thick this cake batter is as l is spreading it in there it does take a little bit of pushing to get it all towards the side of the pan but it really has to be this thick in order for the cake to have that right dense texture now it's time for the piece to resist stones to beautify this gets over its own so we're going to start with one egg yolk mixed with one teaspoon of water and we're going to use our pastry brush and just brush this egg wash on top of our french butter cake now we think about things like a croissant a lot of different pastries being brushed with egg wash but not necessarily a cake especially cake batter before it's baked but you'll see this cake is going to bake up with the most beautiful shiny top all right that looks great so traditional fridge butter cakes are usually adorned with this beautiful pattern on top so we're going to use the tines of our fork start at that three quarter mark from the edge we're going to make three lines and we're going to make sure that at least one and a half inches apart great so i'm going to turn this to a 45 degree angle and we're going to do the same thing we just did the first time and you want to create diamonds we always want diamonds though they're girl's best friend voila beautiful diamonds it's time to put this in the oven at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes oh my goodness stunning and what did i say about that shiny top that is beautiful that egg wash absolutely gorgeous very traditional to a bell so we can't eat this cake just yet it's too hot that inside is like lava kel tragic exactly so we're going to let it cool here on this cooling rack for 30 minutes after that we're going to use a knife to scale it away from the pan we're going to turn it out on the cooling rack and let it cool for one hour okay bridgette this cake looks amazing look what we did i feel like i've been waiting a thousand years for this cake i know how good it is but it never gets old let's find out right now i would say you can share this with your friends but we probably won't there you go look at that beautiful layer of jam sandwiched perfectly in between those cake layers i mean that's a nice surprise for anyone it's the perfect balance of sweet it's got that little bit of tart apricot in it this top layer it's almost like a pie crust with that little egg wash on top a little bit of flakiness to it so delicious and buttery oh perfect el this is a most amazing cake thank you so much for sharing it with us it was my pleasure thanks so much our beautiful cake starts with a homemade skillet apricot jam use egg yolks to create a thick batter and then assemble the cake freeze a thin layer of cake batter jam filling and more cake batter glaze and score the cake and then bake until golden brown so from our test kitchen to your kitchen the elegant and incomparable gateau briton you can find this recipe along with all the recipes tastings and testings from the season on our website americastestkitchen.com for me i feel like you don't dictate the menu it's like your family dictates what you're gonna have like there's oh there's just certain stuff that's sacred that you're not gonna touch no matter the holiday it was lasagna when my grandmother was cooking every single holiday whenever i make mashed potatoes for the holiday people are always like wow these are amazing it's probably like the two sticks of butter in there but i like to do something kind of a little strange with my mashed potatoes [Laughter] i brown some celery roots some turnip like a really rustic but with like lots of other root veg in there yeah and i think we talked about this we make a lot of things alike actually i think it's that grandmother school of cooking it was just a life skill it was like brushing your teeth here's how you cook dinner one of my favorite holiday memories is probably just sitting in our living room with the fire roaring with my family and just smelling the fire and helping my mother out in the kitchen food isn't the end-all be-all i know i'm saying this i'm not really saying this but i'm saying this if you're not having a good time what is the point it's about bringing people around the table and the food does that but if the food's not perfect that's okay from our test kitchen family to your family happy holidays [Music] thanks for watching america's test kitchen what'd you think well leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or you can just say hello you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our channel see you later i'll see you later

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 2,384,528

Rating: 4.8206506 out of 5

Keywords: america's test kitchen, test kitchen, atk, americas test kitchen, holiday recipes, holiday, christmas recipes, hanukkah, christmas, recipes, cooking, baking, cooking show, thanksgiving, turkey, thanksgiving recipes, recipe, how to, food, bridget lancaster, julia collin davison, jack bishop, lisa mcmanus, dan souza, favorite holiday recipes, special episode, season 17, 2017 season, beef tenderloin, porchetta, millionaire's shortbread, gateau breton, holiday roast, holiday desserts

Id: EN0zCm4c_oA

Length: 54min 6sec (3246 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 28 2018