How to Make Hearty Beef and Vegetable Stew and Cod Baked in Foil with Leeks and Carrots

today on America's Test Kitchen Julia cooks Bridget a hearty beef and vegetable stew Adam shares his top pick for glass baking dishes Dan reveals the science behind sound and flavor and Bridget shows Julia a delicious recipe for COD baked in Floyd it's all coming up right here on America's Test Kitchen Bridget I'm gonna make you one of my favorite stews of all time and I love stew in any form I love Burgundy I love carbon odd HL of the Portuguese alcot rrah mmm this is my number one it's a studio style it so starting with the beef you'll notice this is a lot less beef than we usually use sureness - this is just two pounds of chalk in the course that comes from the shoulder which is perfect for making stew we're just gonna cut it up into big stew size pieces that measure about an inch and a half I'm just gonna cut this right in half I'm gonna cut down into nice big chunks and as I go you can get it any of those big lumps of fat and get them out especially the real hard fat you have to go that's it you don't have to get rid of it all a little bit goes a long way in the pot but you don't want it to be too greasy mm-hmm you can actually go in there you can pull it away mmm that way you get all the meat without wasting any it's a combination of pulling and cutting really gets you the most yield nice big stew sized pieces if you start with already tiny pieces you're gonna end up well with burger meat it does really shrink as it cooks here we have our stew meat now I'm just gonna Pat it dry because we are gonna Brown it and moist meat doesn't Brown as well as drive me so Dee simple Pat with some paper towels I have just a teaspoon of vegetable oil in that Dutch oven right he drilled a medium-high heat medium but looking for it to just be smoking that way we can start browning the beef sounds good now I'm just gonna season it with some salt and pepper all right so that meat is all nicely seasoned and of course we're gonna Brown this in two batches that way there's a lot of room in the pot for all the pieces to get nice and browned and to develop some good fondant okay so I see wisps of smoke starting to happen so again I'm just gonna add half the meat oh the sizzle of meat and a hot pot there we go that's about half and we're gonna brown these and it can take anywhere from five to ten minutes to make sure they're nicely browned on all sides alright we'll do this first batch take it out and then do the second sounds good mmm look at that second batch beautifully browned beef and a beautifully browned hand I might add as well but yeah we're just fond on the bottom key when you're making a stew like this or is trying to eat off for just a minute now it's time to talk vegetables and I warned you this is half vegetables to half beef stew my favorite kind I think it might be a quarter beef stew I'm looking at your garden that you just harvested there all these are going into the stew we're gonna start by adding the portobello mushroom and adds good flavor it has mommy with richens that beef sauce now very often we remove these gills for some stews because it can make things taste a bit muddy and overwhelming if you use a lot of mushrooms sure but today we're just using one big old cap so we're gonna leave them in because add a good color and flavor FanFest we're just gonna cut this up into half-inch pieces of course I washed this mushroom earlier so it's free of grits good aroma from the mushroom mm-hmm into the pot we go and there's a secret about mushrooms they contain a ton of water and so what we want to do is start this over medium heat and this is just using the fat left in the pot from browning to be okay we're gonna put the lid on and let those mushrooms sweat let those liquids come out of the mushrooms and that's gonna help deglaze that font so it doesn't burn so good that's gonna take about 5-10 minutes the meantime let's talk more vegetables starting with one of my favorites good old kale I love kale for me this is classic so to prep the kale we're gonna take off the woody stem you just do that with your fingers hmm I'm just gonna cut the leaves crosswise into half-inch slices and they'll continue to break down so you get some smaller bits and some longer pieces and that's perfect for our stew so this was a whole half pound of kale and it's half a pound when you buy it obviously weighs less move do you prep it and get rid of those heavy stems because it is often very gritty cut it first and then you wash it because then you have more surface area for the water really to get in there and get that dirt out so I'm gonna go wash this in a salad spinner if you wouldn't mind helping me finish prepping these vegetables we're gonna have some parsnips we're just gonna cut in half lengthwise and then cut it crosswise into 1-inch pieces our vegetables are ready to go let's take a look at these mushrooms in the pot mmm look a good beautiful color mm-hmm it's time to cook with the lid off let the mushrooms Brown we'll take five to ten minutes okay all right you can see all of that liquid has evaporated and also notice it's a fresh pot of fun mmm mmm and every time you scrape up and remake fun you build more flavor so that's a key here it's true all right so in goes just a little more oil this is a tablespoon of vegetable oil now we have the onions and this isn't one onion it's two onions so in go the onions cook this he'll for five to seven minutes here until they start to soften and turn lightly golden on the edges Oh onions smell good incredible time to add some more flavor three cloves of minced garlic I'm gonna add a lot of time this is a tablespoon of fresh thyme we're gonna cook this for about 30 seconds to bloom the garlic oh that smells good we're gonna add a little bit of flour now this is three tablespoons of all-purpose flour and this will mix with any of the fat in the pot to make a roof so it'll give this thickener also gonna add a tablespoon of tomato paste I'm just gonna scrape this all around to make sure there's no dried bits of flour anymore it's really gonna suck up any of the fat in there and then that flours gonna toast a little bit and that adds flavor again next goes in not just a little red wine a lot of red wine so this is a cup and a half I'm gonna add it slowly and I'm gonna whisk this now we're gonna be dissolving all that flour so when you cook with red wine I prefer to use a blend it has a more even flavor once it reduces down this is two cups of beef broth and now I'm gonna add two cups of chicken broth now I know it sounds fussy to use two kinds of broth it really adds a more balanced flavor I'm just whisking this in making sure there's no lumps of flour left just two bay leaves make the world go around you really do miss them when they're not in the pot it's true now I'm gonna add our browned beef and any of the juices that have accumulated in the bottom of the bowl and then we're just gonna bring the to a simmer put the lid on and we're gonna cook it in the oven 300 degree oven which is a preferred method for braising because it really prevents any scorching from happening on the bottom of the pot because the heats all over inside it it's gonna take about an hour and a half before we start adding the vegetables okay thank you very much good smells coming from the oven it's been in there for an hour and a half hahahahahaha so the meat is not tender yeah but you can see the texture of that sauce is starting to thicken and deepen a bit alright so in goes some of the vegetables obviously we didn't put them in at the beginning because then they would turn mushy which is the fault with a lot of beef stew recipe as I say but we're only gonna add the hearty vegetables at this stage so add the for our snips for carrots last but not least 12 ounces of red potatoes again we cut them up into 1-inch pieces we're gonna stir these in and now they get to braise in the beefy liquid and that'll take about an hour all right so back into the oven it goes alright so let me get the door thank you now this stew is almost done it only has 10 minutes left to go all right it's time to add our kale one thing you want to do is make sure to really stir it in there so it's submerged its wilting right now mm-hmm doesn't take much right so back in for the last 10 minutes Oh to me this is what stew should look like all these vegetables with a bits of meat poking through I'm gonna go on the bay leaf watch here nah - all right so now we're gonna add our last vegetable peas this is half a cup of frozen peas no need to thaw them in fact they're gonna help this do cool down so we can eat it faster it's gonna stir these in so they can begin to thaw I'm also gonna sprinkle with a little parsley quarter cup of parsley I'm gonna sprinkle it over the top we'll stir it in just before serving all right put the lid on let those peas thaw let the parsley bloom and we'll be back we can eat it alright I've made you wait long enough five minutes it was ours I'm just gonna portion you up a nice big bowl just take what you need no heat out of the Dutch side all right I love the bits of really bright green in there too stunning mm-hmm falling apart perfectly cooked meat perfectly cooked vegetables and a gravy with real flavor there's a beautiful red wine flavor in there but it's so balanced the portobellos really added tons of flavor and there as did the tomato paste I love that you added garlic I love you this might be the hardiest best stew I've ever had Thank You Julia now to make this satisfying savory stew it starts by browning chuck roast in two batches then mushrooms and onions add wine both chicken and beef broth and simmer in the oven stir in potatoes carrots and parsnips stew an hour more then add kale and finish with peas and parsley so from our Test Kitchen to your kitchen a hearty stick-to-your-ribs beef stew Julia style it's hearty beef and vegetable stew you've got it [Music] glass baking dishes have been going in and out of American ovens since about 1915 luckily Adams here to tell us about one such dish the rectangular baking dish she's going to tell us which one to buy and how we should use it you know Bridgette if you are a casserole theme like I am these are one of your kitchen best friends I am casserole fluence oh man these are three core 13 by nine glass baking dishes they are the go-to baking dish for casseroles lasagnas cobblers crumbles check and they also work really well for sheet cakes like a yellow sheet cake where you want the crust to be a little bit lighter because the glass doesn't absorb heat as readily as the metal does right so we have our lineup of five different glass rectangular baking dishes the price range was seven dollars and twenty-nine cents up to eighteen dollars and 77 cents and the tests were lasagna and that yellow sheet cake that I was telling you about and you know what we don't get to see this all that often but this is the feel-good segment you cannot go wrong love any of these pan that's greatness both the lasagna and the cake out of all these pans was terrific there was also a little bit of abuse testing the testers cut lasagnas and cakes right in the pans they all survived got a mark no problem so it got down to ease of use and three guesses what ease of use got down to first guest handle the handle right exactly biggest handles were the winner you want to have a nice sure grip as you're pulling say a hot lasagna out of the oven and the biggest handles were the biggest help in that department and I want you to experience it for yourself we have a nice hot lasagna for you there alright and that's our winning pan these are pretty bulky kitchen towels so I'm gonna pick it up yeah if these handles were any smaller the towels could be going into the food I think about things like cobbler that are bubbling you don't want to have your thumb dipping into a cobbler and it's exactly right this is the Pyrex easy grab three quart oblong baking dish nice big beefy handles small price seven dollars and twenty-nine cents that's it that's it wow you came back quite a few of those so you can make lots and lots of casseroles mm-hmm well if you like to bake a few casseroles or maybe you can eat them all then go out and buy the winners the Pyrex easy-grab 3 quart oblong baking dish and it retails for seven dollars and twenty-nine cents [Music] today I brought it in our tasting expert Jack Bishop to help me with a really special experiment we're gonna taste some chocolate and you are the chocolate tasting expert but first I want to know what kind of music you like to listen to all right this already felt like a setup and now you're asking me about my music taste I'm just curious salsa uh-huh so I have two millennial daughters so actually have listened to a lot of rap okay you know you probably weren't didn't see that coming though I didn't know this I listened to a lot of like vocalists alternative music oh god sound that sounds great well so those are all really good music styles we're not gonna listen to any of those today but we are actually gonna listen to some music while we taste this chocolate what have you do is I'm gonna have you try sample a we'll play a track and then sample B and we'll play a track really paying attention to the sweetness the bitterness how it melts all that good stuff okay all right let's go with sample one here and we'll play the first track it's chocolate it's good chocolate it's good it's a bittersweet chocolate which I like some espresso now it's some roasted notes it melted fairly nicely it would be something I would eat more of all right well you might you might get a chance to go back to it but first we're gonna jump over to sample B here we're gonna play a different track okay [Music] so what you think a sample be I thought it melted very nicely so it was actually very similar a and B they were high-quality chocolates and since there was no grittiness this one seemed more like a what I would call a hipster chocolate it was actually too bitter for me for me the sweet spot is somewhere around like 60% cacao yep when it comes to eating chocolates and those like 70% cacao sort of lower sugar chocolates I don't know they're a little too much they're a little too much so Jack what if I told you that they're actually the exact same chocolate would you believe me I believe you're trying to trick me so I am trying to trick you a little bit but it actually has nothing to do with the chocolate they are the exact same bar they're both are winning gear delis 60 percent cacao bar the only difference was the music that we listen to okay tell me about that music because neither road what tracks were very good so here's the interesting thing and we all know that it's about 80% of flavor is made up of scent that's something that I learned from you but you know that the sound around you can contribute to the flavor of something as well the sound around you influences how you perceive the food that you eat higher pitch music like that first sample can make food taste sweeter while lower pitch music like the second sample can actually make it taste more sour or bitter so the big takeaway here is like pay attention to what you're playing at your dinner party all right so I should be like having up-tempo happy music when I'm eating chocolate when you're eating dessert maybe you want to be a little bit sweeter exactly so we've actually posted the music on America's Test Kitchen calm and you can do this experiment right at home thanks so much jack thank you Dan all right Joey I've got a treat for you this is something that I make all the time I actually make it for my family but it's also nice enough to make when company comes over hmm it's Cod baked in foil I love Cod I do too everybody loves Cod beautiful light flaky fish that's why we like it and this is something that comes together quickly it actually creates its own sauce right in the package simple to put together let's get over to the fish mmm beautiful Cod these are about six ounces each nice center cut fillets and they're about one to one and a half inches thick that's what you want to look for you don't want to get skinnier fillets because they're going to overcook before our vegetables are done makes sense now you can also use halibut or something like a red snapper that would be perfect here but Cod is abundant so we're going with that we do have some prep to get together before we put together our little packets all right little veg prep I'm gonna do some but you're over here so your work is this what your dinner parties are like so we're gonna cook vegetables along with the fish now we like really delicate flavored vegetables so they don't overpower the cod and this is two options leeks and carrot mmm I'm gonna do the leek you're gonna do the carrot all right so we're using two leeks in total just the whites and the light green part here and get rid of these and in order for this to work I'm going to cut these in to matchsticks so I just cut it in half lengthwise just start to take a few layers apart I love doing that and I actually cut these in half again just so that they fit nicely into the packet and then I'll start cutting across now you start to see some dirt there yep that's okay because we are going to clean them I'm gonna do the same here all right so that's good and if you wouldn't mind cutting this also into matchsticks we have a second carrot right oh you have a sample of what I need to do I do cut these just like that first one you got it now I don't know mine they're a little bit more rustic yeah what's just a matchstick of a giant person all right so we're gonna combine these two together season these with some salt and pepper we're gonna season all of our ingredients before they go into the foil and then that way we know that once it comes well-seasoned we're done with that for just a second now step two butter butter yes butter makes everything better and in this case it's the base for a compound butter that's going to create a beautiful sauce in our little packets as they bake so this is four tablespoons of unsalted butter nice and soft a quarter teaspoon of grated lemon zest these are all light flavors going with the fish a teaspoon of minced garlic we have a teaspoon of finely minced fresh thyme 1/4 teaspoon of table salt and 1/8 of a teaspoon black pepper hmm so I'll just mush this together to make a nice compound butter oh it tastes good on a lot of things I'll leave that up there just for a moment so let's move on down to our fish all we need to do at this point is Pat them dry with paper towels they really have a lot of moisture inside so we just don't want any excess moisture same reason that we dried off those leaks no more salt and pepper we've got our fish ready our vegetables ready compound butter ready its origami time we are going to make four packets these are 12 inch squares of aluminum foil first thing I want to do is divide the vegetables amongst these four and I love to build all four at a time it's much easier to make sure it's all even that's looking good there we go got a little measuring cup there this is just dry vermouth we're going to add this on top of the vegetables it's going to create a little bit of steam in there plus it's got a beautiful herbal flavor to it so it's gonna help make a great sauce you could also use white wine with this I've done it where I've used fennel instead of leeks here no its dad so that sounds nice this is a great opportunity to try a little different thing so I'm gonna add a tablespoon to each just right on top of the vegetables the vegetables is like a fat they just catch that liquid and prevent it from running all over fillets go right on top of the vegetables a little leek and carrot Hammack there and now I'm gonna dollop the butter right on top of the fish I'll start off with the spoonful on each doing my best to kind of divvy it first before I spread them out now I'll just use the back of my spoon to kind of spread it up doesn't matter if it's not totally covered all gonna be good again good enough we're gonna put another piece of foil on top if we try to just bring these edges up and make this a single packet but too many places for air to escape we want a steamy air tiny package here all right another piece of 12-inch foil now being coach start at the bottom I do about a half inch fold all right all right you're gonna do that a couple more times we're looking to make a seven inch packet and then just continue with the other side now how far in advance can you make these packets actually make them a couple hours in advance I keep them in the fridge exactly like this and then when people come over just stick them in the oven and you don't even have to increase the cooking time not one bit all right how's that look that looks pretty darn good there's a rimmed baking sheet down there thank you mmm all right so we're gonna put these on and it's okay if they overlap a bit it's really just the ends like that great so we're gonna put these in a really hot oven 450 degrees we need that blast of super high heat to get that steaming process started they're only going to stay in there for 15 minutes now I've got the rack set to the medium-low position and that's actually really important for these we want that heat source to be close to the bottom of these packets so it really concentrates the juices and makes an even better sauce all right so there's no visual fury 15 minutes 11:15 this really is easy pulper all right it's been 15 minutes you start to smell a little bit of that garlic and lemon so they're done blind faith we know that through our testing 15 minutes is perfect the vegetables are going to be cooked through in the cod is not overcooked amazing make-ahead one dish it only takes 15 minutes and now just gonna go ahead and pop open the top now I want to open this away from me so as the steam comes out I'm not getting burned mmm just want to get in a very thin spatula like this to get underneath the fish and there's many of those vegetables as I can there we go whoo all right now all these juices not going to waste all over the top oh hello how is that we can move those up there okay I have one final little addition it's a little gremolata Oh more of those same flavors that we put inside but starting of course with two tablespoons of fresh parsley another teaspoon of grated lemon zest another teaspoon of minced garlic just mix this together right at the last second so that parsley stays beautiful and green let me make this pretty since those are so beautiful all right so there we go now at table you can pass this around people can add as much as they like just lols Franklin oh that does look really pretty it's just gonna hit the heat and a little bit of that freshness right at the end mmm liven things up there's lemon if you'd like it oh the fish it really is perfectly cooked I mean look at that just flakes apart 15 minutes yep but not overdone it's still nice and juice Oh mmm it's so light and fresh and you saw how easy it was the vermouth and the fish juices in that butter it's delicious on the vegetables this is amazing you can come over at any time so if you want to make Bridget's famous fish dinner start by Julianne some leeks and carrots and make a compound butter with lemon and thyme layer the vegetables vermouth fish and butter inside a tightly crimped foil packet than bake in a 450 degree oven for just 15 minutes sprinkle with a quick parsley and lemon gremolata and your cookin from America's Test Kitchen to your kitchen a great new recipe for Cod baked in foil with Leafs and carrots thanks for watching America's Test Kitchen what you think we'll 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: 126,244

Keywords: beef stew, cod, seafood, healthy cooking, america's test kitchen, cooks illustrated, how to make beef stew, beef stew recipe, easy beef stew

Id: WJgq6WRMtto

Length: 23min 27sec (1407 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 03 2020