How to Cook up an Italian Feast With Prosciutto Bread and Drop Meatballs

today on cook's country brian and julia make a fool proof version of a brooklyn classic prosciutto bread jack challenges bridget to a tasting of provolone and ashley makes bridget the ultimate dropped meatballs that's all right here on cook's country lard bread from southern italy is a rustic loaf with rendered pork fat and small pieces of cracklings worked into this simple dough sounds so good now it was not only a clever way to use up kitchen scraps but the extra fat added flavor and made the crust super crisp immigrants brought the bread with them in the early 1900s and tinkered with the recipe swapping cured meats for cracklings using olive oil instead of lard and adding a little cheese just gets better and better well it's also known as prosciutto bread today and it's still made all over brooklyn home to several family-owned businesses that have been making this bread for generations and today we're bringing the bread to you let's head into the kitchen with brian [Music] unless you live in brooklyn you're probably going to need a little bit more of a description of what prosciutto bread or lard bread is and since brian here grew up eating this stuff he's gonna tell us that's right i remember very specifically when i was 12 years old walking down the street with my brother and my uncle my uncle was ripping off hunks of bread filled with meat of some kind and i remember thinking it was the most delicious thing i ever had when i remember it like it was yesterday the next day i asked him what was that bread that we were eating it's like i don't remember what you're talking about so it went on like that for the next 30 years nobody knew this bread that i was talking about i didn't have a name for it eventually i met a woman from brooklyn she said you know what you have to try when you come to new york is prosciutto bread and i said does that have chunks of meaning and she said yes it does we're going to start off with the star of the show and that's prosciutto that's some thick prosciutto yes you want to go to the deli counter and ask them to cut some big slabs these are quarter inch slabs of prosciutto you never find this otherwise pre-cut in the deli case that's right so we're going to cut this into half inch pieces so prosciutto goes into a bowl and now the prosciutto's got a few side kicks one of them is capicola and the other one is pepperoni a lot of different bakeries in brooklyn do with different types of meat salamis things like that these are just the three that we settled on but they could be mixed and matched however you see fit well it's probably a good way in a bakery or a deli to use up the ends of the meat you got to cut them into chunks and throw them in a bread and that's kind of how it was originally developed throwing up the odds and ends so this is sweet capicola you could use hot if you wanted to if you like the bread a little bit spicier finally we have three ounces of pepperoni so we add three ounces of prosciutto three ounces of capicola and three ounces of pepperoni now some versions also contain cheese this is five ounces of quarter inch thick sliced provolone and again we'll just cut it in the same half inch size pieces that we did with the meats so let's make the dough we have three cups of bread flour in the mixer already to that we're going to add one and a half teaspoons of instant yeast and one teaspoon of table salt i'm just going to whisk that together to combine it and to that we're going to add six ounces of a mild lager and it's room temperature because we want to allow the yeast to start working as soon as possible we have six tablespoons of room temperature water add that there and then we have three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil usually you have to let the bread ferment to get that nice yeasty flavor and this speeds it up so we're going to turn the mixer on low slowly add this beer mixture we'll let this mix for about two minutes until the dough just starts to come together okay so now that the flour is fully hydrated and we have a basic dough in there we're gonna turn it up to medium speed and let it go for about eight minutes to really knead the dough and develop the gluten okay it's been eight minutes take a look at the dough that is a solid looking dough right there nice and chewy a lot of gluten developed so now we're gonna add all of our meats and cheese as well as a good kick of black pepper that's one of the characteristics of this bread is a heavy hand with black pepper so this is one and a half teaspoons of the black pepper we're gonna let this mix for about two minutes on low speed until it just starts to come together however at that point not all the meat and cheese will be worked into the bread we'll have to do a little bit of counter work gotcha that dough has some brooklyn attitude that's for sure both the dough and the meat they don't want to combine so easily no all right so we're going to knead it for a little bit to incorporate the meat and the cheese a little bit better so we're going to hit it on a lightly floured counter so that's a lot of meat and cheese you're trying to put into that dough yep it's okay all right so just knead it until you can get all the meat and cheese to stick to it so i'm just kind of folding it over and pressing with my hand a quarter turn every time and push anything else into it i don't think i've ever seen a bread so stuffed with things i love it all right so that's most of it incorporated we're just going to shape it into a ball here we're going to transfer it to a lightly greased bowl okay and then we're going to cover it with a little bit of plastic wrap and we're going to let this dough rise at room temperature until it's doubled in size and that takes about one and a half hours [Music] okay julia you can see that the dough is doubled in size it's only taken us about an hour and a half to get there so we're gonna divide this dough in half because it makes two loaves of bread in order to get it perfect i'm going to weigh the dough and split it in half we're looking at about 21 ounces per loaf all right so you're gonna shape one loaf all right if you don't mind i don't mind okay so we want to shape these into baguette style 12-inch logs in order to do that we want to press them out to knock out any of the air and we were looking for an 8 by 5 inch rectangle all right i'm going to borrow your ruler let's see eight by five all right i'm there too so the shaping goes like this we're going to take the top edge of the dough and fold it down to the midline okay just press it in there now i see a lot of these meats and cheeses are wanting to pop out just poke them back in that means it's working that's perfect now we're going to take the bottom edge of our rectangle and fold it up to the midline it's not a massive fold but this little technique here helps reduce any odd rising in the dough so get a nice even loaf out of the oven exactly it kind of prevents the air pockets from forming okay so now we've pinched that in there to seal it and we want to flip the dough over okay and we're just going to give it a light roll so we get a 12 inch log and it's basically already there and then on the ends you want to just taper off the ends a little bit okay perfect all right okay so we're going to transfer them to a rim baking sheet i'm going to dust the sheet with a little bit of cornmeal a cornmeal will help keep the dough from sticking to the sheet it'll also help give a nice crunchy bottom to our loaves okay so i'm going to throw mine on there first we're going to let these rise until they're slightly puffy which takes about 45 minutes at room temperature you notice we gave ample room in between the loaves about three inches so when they expand they don't touch each other okay no touching so we're going to cover this greased plastic wrap and let it sit for about 45 minutes all right okay julia it's been about 45 minutes you can see that the dough is nice and puffy poke it it just springs back very slowly and before we go into the oven we're going to give it a vertical slash down the length of it starting about one and a half inches from each end and going about a half inch deep and this helps it expand a little bit as it's in the oven okay so now we're ready to throw this into a 450 degree oven right under the middle rack and we're gonna let it cook until it hits about 205 degrees that takes about 25 minutes not too long you can smell it huh oh that smells good all right so internally these should be somewhere between 205 and 210 degrees so which is the general temperature you want to bake all your breads to to make sure they're baked all the way through so we're going to let these cool on the wire rack for about three hours and come back and tear into them all right [Music] it's been a painful three hours but we could finally tear into this and in the style of brooklyn we're gonna rip you off a hunk here thank you it is like a sandwich inside boy i could really smell that pepper yeah that's been 30 years in the making the long-lost bread of my childhood i love the little bit of beer on there you don't taste beer but it just adds a fermented bread flavor it's really hard to get with such a quick rise as we had with this bread and each of the meats they all taste different so you like a little pepperoni pocket and over here i have a little prosciutto pocket i like this i wanted to get to the soft oh the inside that pillowy inside fluffy but chewy this bread is great if you're low carb too cause it's half meat it's true ryan this is incredible thank you so if you want to make this incredible brooklyn style bread start by cutting prosciutto pepperoni capicola and provolone into half inch pieces using bread flour water beer and olive oil make a simple dough in a stand mixer then knead in the meats and cheeses and let it rise for one and a half hours shape the dough into two long loaves and let it rise again before slashing the top and baking in a hot oven for 25 minutes from cook's country brian's famous prosciutto bread with provolo this is killer bread thanks i'm loving this me too [Music] the original cheese that turned a steak and onion sandwich into philly's beloved cheesesteak it's provolone and today we're asking jack which american slice provolone won our tasting i have some amazing cheeses for you to taste but first i want to do a little history lesson okay so we're going to go we're in the north end in boston or maybe we're in florence in an italian market same thing right yeah and there's beautiful cheeses tied with ropes bell-shaped hanging from the ceiling along with the prosciutto that is provolone that's real prevalent yeah we're not actually tasting that too oh great thanks but i thought i should at least show you it so this is what we're tasting okay slice this deli style made in america provolone that can go in a sandwich can go inside a stromboli if you are in italy or maybe if you're in the north end here in boston or little italy anywhere in the u.s you will see this is a dolce so this is aged up to four months this is a picante aged up to three years so it's not actually sweet no it is not sweet it is sweet compared to the sort of very funky sharp sharp this is really a table cheese this is the dolce is similar to what you're going to be tasting today but it's aged a bit longer these are basically aged two weeks to two months as opposed to the dolce that might be up to four months so you can start tasting all provolone is a cow's milk cheese it is made in the same process as mozzarella the curds are they're needed one thing that was very different is enzymes are added and so when they make the dolce they use a enzyme that is from um cavs milk when they make the picante it is from goat which gives it a much funkier flavor tangy the american cheeses they're usually using vegetable-based enzymes so that the cheese is still vegetarian gotcha yeah so we did two more tests the next test we did we made these beautiful stromboli where was i that day yeah you were not here and we actually felt like it was too difficult to taste because with the salami and the bread and everything else this is a mild cheese it doesn't have a lot of personality and so we then did simple quesadillas okay all right so the thing you're looking for is the salt level varies a little bit here i wouldn't say they're really any bad cheeses they have some slightly different personalities some of them have a little bit of smoke flavor that you might or might not detect we didn't really have a feeling whether that was a positive or negative it just some people thought that has a little smokiness to it and that actually is something that they're adding um you're really looking for butteriness nuttiness milkiness yeah all of these would be absolutely suitable this one to me is definitely the mildest and is that a good thing not necessarily i like my cheese to taste like something followed by that and this is i love that but i have a feeling that's just from a world away from these that's my favorite this is my next favorite these two are are the mildest this actually has some flavor it's a little bit saltier okay all right so i'm gonna keep eating them are you are we making a final decision yes yes favorite number two all right well let's start with your favorite all right so you chose the italian dolce cheese you know i love the texture of it it's granular it's been it's drier it's really flavorful do you think sometimes i am nicer to the audience than i am to you actually they didn't get this juice [Laughter] it's good to be the host well i wanted to make the point that first of all you can use this cheese as a melting cheese inside of strombolia i mean you wouldn't want to do that with the picante because it's a really very different cheese sure but this is actually a cheese that you could put on a board with some apples or apricots and a nice bottle of wine i'm not sure the rest of these cheeses would really merit going onto a cheeseboard it'd be the deli plate instead of the cheeseboard all right i'm going to go for my second place so you chose sargento we liked all of the deli cheese is fine it's so smoky this is one that has some smoky flavor i don't like that this was the least favorite of this the studio audience it reminded me of smoke gouda which i absolutely love so i probably shouldn't have picked it well the expert panel recommended all of them okay i mean we felt like they were differences but no none of them were significantly better or worse than the rest even though they're all these different options there aren't that many options when jack's not here he's working at the union as a diplomat all right i'm gonna go for this one so that was the expert panel organic valley that was their top choice the second choice for um the studio audience you're right here yep they liked the galbani that was the favorite here just eat down a win within the studio audience interesting we're all so different aren't we we are different well there you go there are no losers but if you want to pick up the winning brand of our tasting it's organic valley provolone cheese slices run 689 for six ounces [Applause] [Music] for years we've told you that great tasting meatballs always start with browning it might be on the stovetop or in the oven but a recent trip to south philly had us rethinking everything we knew about meatballs and speaking of meatballs ashley's here she's going to tell us what we found what did we find well we found that you can make drop meatballs and get just as good of a result as if you made them the traditional way the browning way so no browning no browning now we're going to use just ground beef for this meatball we're going to start by making what's called a panot now as you know panads are used for things like meatballs or for meatloaf and it's when you want to make sure something stays tender during cooking and retain its shape so usually we use fresh breadcrumbs or panko bread crumbs but today we're going to be using saltines and the main reason for that is because we found that there was less moisture in the saltines and it made the meatballs less gummy okay so we don't want gummy we don't want soggy but we also don't want fragile exactly so this is going to help with that yes this is 22 square saltines so i'm going to crush the saltines with this rolling pin i am going to get them nice and fine i don't want to get them too coarse because i don't know about you but i don't want to eat a meatball with a big chunk of saltine in the center of it all right this will yield about a cup and i'm just gonna transfer these finely crushed saltines to this bowl and then for the milk portion this is one cup of whole milk i'm just gonna add this in here and then i'm gonna let them sit for about five minutes until the saltines have had a chance to soften all right so using this fork i'm just going to mash it all in until a nice smooth paste forms that looks good enough all right and now the meat so this is two pounds of 85 ground beef and then we have two ounces of grated parmesan cheese one teaspoon of dried oregano one teaspoon of garlic powder 1 teaspoon of salt and a half a teaspoon of pepper using my hands get in there you don't want to work it too much because if you do naturally the ground beef it will get tough so just until everything is nice and thoroughly combined we're going to need 24 scant quarter cup meatballs i like to do my first meatball being precise and using the actual measuring cup because that way i can gauge what the rest of the meatballs need to look like in regards to socks so now just using my hands again not handling it too much we're going to do 24 total so normally we add egg to meatballs when we need it to provide structure we're going to be dropping them into the sauce we didn't need that structure because the hot sauce is going to set it yes so we're going to finish up these meatballs put them in the refrigerator and they can be held for up to 24 hours in advance which is a great make ahead option but if you are going to store them in the fridge just be sure to put some plastic wrap on top [Music] all right so the meatballs are in the fridge now it's time to focus on the tomato sauce this is 10 cloves of garlic and today i'm just going to be smashing the whole peeled cloves of garlic just like so you turn your knife to the side and boom you're just cracking it exactly yep i'm going to do this to all 10. that's a lot of garlic but the reason that this works in this recipe is because ashley did not mince the garlic instead she's leaving the cloves whole every time you cut through garlic or really any member of the allium family like onions you're releasing flavor compounds so the less you cut it the less you slice and dice and mince it the less of that strong flavor you're going to get so this is going to give a buttery rich developed but balanced garlic flavor so now i have a quarter cup of extra virgin olive oil i have the 10 smashed peeled garlic cloves and i'm just going to set this over low heat we want the two things to come up to temperature at the same time that way the garlic won't burn or scorch which is the worst way to ruin your sauce and you can't cover it up that's exactly right so i'm going to cook this for 10 minutes and i'm going to go in there with some tongs every so often and just make sure the garlic is getting nice and golden brown on both sides sounds good let's get a look at the garlic smells so good i know so here is half a teaspoon of red pepper flakes i'm going to keep it on low heat and just add that in there and just cook them for about 30 seconds until you start to smell that crushed red pepper smell and it really turns a nice beautiful burnt orange as well all right now let's get going with the tomatoes here we have two 28 ounce cans of crushed tomatoes one teaspoon of salt okay now i'm going to add in the meatballs that have been in the refrigerator the brownless meatballs the brownless meatballs i'm not dropping them i am placing them i'm gonna bring these up to a simmer then i'm gonna cover the pot bring it on over to the oven which has been preheating at 400 degrees and i'm gonna cook them covered for 40 minutes until the meatballs are tender [Music] smells heavenly oh wow now that's what i'm talking about it's vesuvius it is vesuvius yeah it smells so good look at that that's a whole meatball that is it's not a broken up piece of a meatball just simmering in the sauce yeah in the oven is it in the oven yeah so we have the ambient heat of the oven and it cooked together at the same rate so i am going to leave those uncovered to cool while we make some pasta okay now here i have four quarts of water that i brought up to a boil i'm going to add a tablespoon of salt mix it up a little bit there and then we have a pound of pasta i'm just going to go in there with some tongs loosen everybody up a little bit so now we're going to cook this for about eight minutes until the pasta is al dente sounds good all right so i am going to just moisten the pasta with some of the tomato sauce just a couple spoonfuls and a lot of people put olive oil on the pasta which always cracks me up because then that means that the sauce isn't going to stick to your pasta but i do like to moisten it with the sauce and that will help to ensure that it doesn't stick together yeah it doesn't take a lot of sauce to do that all right i'm going to add three tablespoons of chopped basil to our sauce here good idea to add it at the last minute so you retain that basil freshness all right and then i'm just going to gently stir the basil in being sure not to disrupt those balls that we worked so hard to keep intact all right it's dinner time and i have to say i love your proportions here thank you it's pasta with sauce and meatballs exactly right that garlic is peeking out in there and it's actually broken down really nicely two meatballs sound okay yes yes whatever gets the plate to me faster would you like any cheese sure all right this recipe is great for so many reasons but one of them is because it makes enough for two pounds of pasta so i only made one pound of pasta today so that means i get to hang on to the rest of the sauce freeze it save it for later i love it when you build in leftovers i know great idea all right i'm gonna have the pasta in a minute but for now oh these are super tender mm-hmm my mouth is watering these are unbelievable yeah great flavor inside lots of beefy flavor inside but i really thought that these were going to just kind of solidify but they are incredibly tender this is so bright and fresh it still tastes very developed because the meatballs were cooked in the sauce so the sauce took on some of that beefy flavor as well perfection thank you thank you so for super tender meatballs crush saltine crackers and then mash them with milk to make a panod mix in ground beef parmesan spices and seasonings divide and roll into 24 meatballs and chill cook smashed garlic cloves in olive oil add crushed tomatoes and then nestle in those meatballs cook them in the oven until tender stir in basil and serve with spaghetti so from cook's country the easiest drop meatballs so tender thanks for watching cook's country from america's test kitchen so what'd you think leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or just say hi now 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 alligator

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 150,966

Keywords: italian food, meatballs, how to make meatballs, bread, prosciutto bread, baking, cooks country, cooks illustrated, americas test kitchen

Id: fBNntibCsYw

Length: 23min 48sec (1428 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 28 2020