How to Make Indoor Pulled Chicken and the Ultimate Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits

[Music] today on america's test kitchen becky shows julia the secrets to making pulled chicken indoors jack challenges bridget to a tasting of basmati rice lisa shares three of her favorite kitchen gadgets and aaron makes bridget the ultimate flaky buttermilk biscuits it's all coming up right here on america's test kitchen [Music] there are thousands of recipes out there for indoor barbecued pulled chicken and most of them involve dousing a boneless skinless breast with a jar of barbecue sauce and throwing it in the oven now these easy recipes are very serviceable especially if you're a busy home cook but you can do a lot better without having to do a lot more work isn't that right becky totally right so for those nights when you need a quick weeknight meal or the grill is covered in snow yes which happens here in boston yes a lot right we wanted to make some really good pulled chicken just by braising chicken with those nice smoky flavors of barbecue we're going to start by creating a super flavorful braising liquid and we're going to braise the chicken in that and then we'll add a real barbecue sauce later okay so you're sort of making the base of a barbecue sauce right just with those nice barbecue flavors so we're going to start with a cup of chicken broth and if you give me some high heat there that would be good sure the next thing we're adding is two tablespoons of molasses and that's a really common ingredient in barbecue sauce some nice bittersweet no you can smell it elism is a mild molasses not a black strap no you don't want to use black strap it's too strong and then a tablespoon of sugar we just want to stir we have it on high heat because we want to dissolve that sugar now i'm adding two teaspoons of liquid smoke and that's going to give us that nice smoky flavor that you get when you're cooking outdoors that's the indoor grill part that's it and then i have a teaspoon of unflavored gelatin and that's going to mimic the collagen that's produced when you cook chicken on the bone the skin the bones and the tendons release all that collagen it turns to gelatin it gives you that nice luxurious mouth feel so that's what we're doing with the gelatin and then a teaspoon of salt and that'll season the chicken that's coming up right to a boil so let's get our chicken going we have two pounds of boneless skinless chicken thighs the chicken thighs have more fat than white meat does and they have more collagen so they're going to give us that nice luxurious texture i'm just going to cut each thigh in half here and you'll see i'm leaving the fat on the chicken all that fat is going to melt into the braising liquid it's going to make the dish taste really rich so let's put the chicken in the pot i'm going to give that a quick stir now if you could turn the heat down to medium-low and put the cover on we're going to let that simmer we'll stir it occasionally it's going to go 25 minutes until the chicken is nice and tender that's it just 25 minutes that's it i'm gonna wash my hands all right so let's take a minute and talk about liquid smoke because although it sounds scary it's actually an all-natural product it's made by funneling the smoke from smoldering wood chips through a condenser which turns the smoke into liquid and it traps the smoke flavor because smoke is a water soluble compound now that liquid is then put through a series of filters to remove any tar and resins so you're left with a very clean smoke flavor but there is a trick to buying liquid smoke because some manufacturers do add other ingredients so when you're shopping turn the bottle around and look at the ingredient list you want to find a bottle that only has two ingredients water and smoke the chicken is just about done all right so we'll work on that barbecue sauce we're starting with one and a half cups of ketchup and we're putting in a quarter cup of molasses two tablespoons of worcestershire sauce salty savory it's gonna add some nice depth tablespoon of hot sauce just for a little bit of kick and half teaspoon each of salt and pepper very easy 10 times better than the bottled stuff right it doesn't take much give that a quick little whisk here so let's measure out a cup of that to add to our chicken and then we'll save the rest for later all right there we go okay so we'll just leave that baby we got our barbecue sauce now let's go over and work on the chicken okay take a peek here so it's been 25 minutes that smells good it smells smoky thanks to the liquid smoke totally smells smoky let's just check the chicken i want to make sure it's nice and tender we can check it by pulling it apart with a fork you can see how it's just falling right apart let's turn off the fire and we'll get the chicken into a bowl so you can see all that fat that was on there rendered away and it's now gone into those braising juices let's strain this freezing liquid we're not going to get rid of it we're going to use it it has tons of flavor and remember all the good stuff we put in there so i'm going to take it over here and strain it so we're gonna let that sit for about five minutes that will give a time for the fat to rise to the surface so we can scrape it off okay all right so let's work on our chicken a little bit so this is pulled chicken that means it needs to have a nice shredded texture and a lot of times in our recipes we take two forks yep to pull the meat apart you've done that many times it works but it takes forever it takes a while it's a little bit tedious yeah but when we were developing this recipe we found that we could just go at it with tongs here like i'm doing now and the meat's just falling apart into perfect shreds you said it i like it just a nice shredded texture some little chunks in there however you like it so that's starting to look pretty good there so let's go back to that braising liquid okay been about five minutes take off some of the fat that's risen to the surface here so you just want to use a shallow spoon and just skim off the top all right so we have our fat we have our braising liquid and our chicken let's get everything back in the pot just warm it through with some of that yummy barbecue sauce okay so i have medium heat if you put that in then i'll add the chicken that's a cup of that sauce that we made and then we have some left over too that will serve with the sandwiches and here's our shredded chicken get that in the pot and then i'm going to measure out a half a cup of that braising liquid because it's so full of flavor put that in and we want three tablespoons of that fat so in that goes and if you find that you don't have enough fat you can add a little bit of melted butter that would be good too that wouldn't hurt nothing wrong with that and then finally i'm going to add one more teaspoon of that liquid smoke the smokiness dissipates a little bit during cooking so we'll just kind of freshen it up we're going to cook this over medium heat for five minutes the chicken's gonna soak up some of that yummy barbecue sauce so it's been about five minutes that looks amazing oh my stomach's growling mine it actually is so you can see most of that barbecue sauce has been absorbed by the chicken it looks nice and lazy oh it smells good yeah really good so you could serve this on white bread mm-hmm or you can use buns oh i like these potato rolls me too you want to get a good amount i mean this is gonna be messy that's just that's just how it is file that on and then i have some more barbecue sauce oh yes i like a tiny bit more oh yeah this is some pickles i think i'm going to do three pickles okay yeah three sounds good yeah load me up i've seen people do this with a fork and a knife oh no no no it's all about getting in there that's good finger looking good oh you can taste the smoke you can taste the barbecue sauce the texture of the thigh meat is so much better than breast meat because it's still juicy it actually has flavor it's not dried out no not at all got a little tang from the hot sauce you can taste the molasses in there it's quite complex we only use a handful of ingredients it really has a lot of richness from the fat that we added back in becky this is awesome thank you my pleasure so if you want to make some of becky's kicking barbecue chicken start with boneless chicken thighs and cook them in a mixture of broth liquid smoke and gelatin until they're very tender while the chicken cooks whisk together a no-cooked barbecue sauce with some ketchup and molasses setting the cooked chicken aside to cool strain and de-fat the braising liquid shred the chicken with tongs then toss it with some of the barbecue sauce braising liquid and rendered fat along with a little more liquid smoke reheat before serving and there you have it from america's test kitchen to your kitchen the ultimate recipe for indoor pulled chicken well done thank you so good right [Music] it's said that there are over 40 000 different types of rice in existence right now that's a lot of rice but today we're going to taste one of my favorites basmati and jack is here he's going to tell us which brand to buy yeah this is my favorite rice so good the two things that make basmati unique are one the fragrance i mean it smells really great in here right now and it's not you and it's not me it's the rice and it's just rice it's just rice and the whole test kitchen just smells amazing the other thing is the texture very long grains it's fluffy it's not supposed to be sticky length of the grains is actually the probably the most important thing okay these all tasted pretty good but the textures are pretty different you know i like my gadgets and my tools so of course we measured the grains of rice when they were cooked we took calipers and we measured the length of each grain when they were cooked and then the width and we found the top brands the ratio of length to width was eight to one so they're eight times longer than the width okay the bottom ones were just four to one so i just gave you like a huge huge hit uh in all of this but basmati is supposed to elongate when it cooks and that is the sign of a true osmotic either from northern india or from pakistan we have some domestic samples in here frankly the american versions could not compete it's partly about the variety it's also about aging a really good basmati is aged for 18 to 24 months it's almost like wine or cheese the grains are they keep them in the husk and they're in temperature controlled areas and they are developing more flavor and the texture is changing actually the exterior is becoming firmer so they don't absorb as much water which helps make them really fluffy if they skip the aging they skimp on flavor and you get a mushier grain because the exterior hasn't hardened okay but it's expensive because it's in the husk it has to be temperature controlled rice grows in hot places and lots of pests and bad things can happen to the rice if it's not protected so some companies just skip that step remove the husk mill the rice package it and send it off and that is not going to create amazing basmati rice it'll be fine white rice but it is not basmati rice so as i've been talking about aging and calipers and popcorn romas what are you tasting two of these are standouts to me two of these i wouldn't call them basmati the two in the middle this one in particular it's very sticky be great something like a stir fry where you want clumps of rice these two on the ends the bookend ones they're lovely they're really fragrant one of them has a corn flavor to them that i really really like a little bit sweet yeah they're both beautiful and i love the distinct grains of both of them they're really really close i'd be so happy with either one of these two okay do you want to start with the good news of the bad news oh let's start with the they're okay news uh let's start with the sticky one so this is one of the domestic options it's from california at the bottom of the rankings we just felt like the domestic basmati rice is they're not aged and they weren't competing and as you might guess its partner here from texas ah same thing the domestic rices there were two in the sample they were at the bottom of the rankings they're just not as good as the imported rices from india yeah they're starchier and stickier yeah they're fine rice they're not basmati rice right all right this one um so that is pride of india it's the most expensive we liked all of the imported basmatis that they were all really great choices i just always like to put something expensive in [Laughter] and this one this is our winner dawat it's also aged 18 to 24 months it's from india it's really not even all that expensive and it is just delicious rice it is beautiful it really has a perfumed corn and toasted almost sesame flavor to it i absolutely love it well i'm glad you're happy taking this with me well there you go if you want to buy some basmati rice it's great for so many things but why not buy the winner it's dawat basmati rice and it retails for 17.98 for 10 pounds [Music] today i've got gadgets you didn't know you needed the first is called a cheese plain it's designed to give you thin uniform slices of semi-hard cheeses like cheddar or manchego we tested nine different ones and why do you need this it actually makes the cheese taste better thin slices release the full flavor and texture of the cheese now our winner got the thickness just right and it was easy to use with a long sharp blade and a thin flexible head it also looks great for company it's called the wusthof gourmet four and three quarter inch cheese plane for 19.95 next i've got flexible cutting mats do you need them yeah you do because they're really perfect for working with messy foods like raw meat or for picking up chopped food to transfer to a bowl they're light they're dishwasher safe we tested eight sets and after tons of chopping and cleaning up our pick was the dexa's heavy duty grip mats you know it's not too big or small it's bendable but tough and it's really perfectly grippy on the counter they're 19.99 for a set of four and finally this compact spatula it looks really dinky but it's great it's just right for getting into like tight spaces like crowded baking pans or small skillets and cookie sheets it's skinny enough to just slip under delicate cookies and wide enough to flip eggs and this soft edge it's great for swiping around pans like when you're making scrambled eggs we tested six and the winner is this one it's the oxo good grip silicone cookie spatula for fourteen dollars so three gadgets that are surprisingly useful although biscuits can range in shape and sizes they're basically made from the same four ingredients you've got flour fat leavener and dairy but the hardest to make of all is the flaky biscuit you have to get those layers of flakiness just right here to show us the right way to the flaky biscuit world is aaron yes i'm going to show you how to make the best flakiest biscuit you've ever had that's a tall order i think i can eat it we're going to start with our flour i have three cups of king arthur all purpose flour and we're using specifically king arthur flour because it has a higher protein content than most other all-purpose flours is close to 13 the higher protein content is going to give us more gluten which is going to create more structure in our biscuits okay to this we're going to add two tablespoons of sugar four teaspoons of baking powder we need our biscuits to have some lift half a teaspoon of baking soda and one and a half teaspoons of table salt so i'm just going to whisk it together combine it right up so now we're going to move on to our fat we are using two sticks of butter it's unsalted butter so there's gonna be 16 tablespoons of butter in our biscuits all day that's fine by me fabulous right and this is frozen butter i put this in the freezer for 30 minutes i'm just going to coat this stick of butter in our flour mixture and that's just going to make it very easy for us to handle as we prep it now i'm going to score one tablespoon's worth i'm going to grate the butter so by grating the butter this is going to give us very uniform pieces of butter that we're going to add that's going to help to create flaky biscuits i'm going to stop braiding at that line which is going to save my fingers and we're going to use that for later okay good as you can see this butter is cold so it's not melting in my hands and also the flour is allowing me to really grate it okay so now i'm just going to take this butter and add it to my flour mixture now i'm going to coat this butter and i'm just making sure that each piece of butter gets coated with flour so that it stays separate but at this point you're not really working it in right i'm not working it in okay i should also mention that we're using all butter here and no shortening shortening is very soft and it does not contain water and we want as much water in our fat as we can because that's going to help to create steam as the biscuits rise now i'm gonna add one and a quarter cup of buttermilk okay buttermilk is great to use because it adds tang so i'm just gonna stir this until it just comes together it's not gonna come together as much as you think it's gonna come together bridgette you're going to want to add more buttermilk to it that's about as far as we're going to get really yep that's not cohesive at all cohesive just starting to come together so we're going to move over here okay i'm just going to flour our board and as i mentioned the butter is going to help us to get flakes um on our biscuits but we needed something else to give them that ultra flaky and what we're going to do is we're going to go through a series of creating a lot of layers okay first i'm going to pat this into a seven inch square our butter was really chilled our buttermilk is really chilled i want to keep this as cold as possible so i want to touch it as little as possible because my hands are going to warm it up the bench scraper is the best tool to use when making biscuits because it just kind of gives you a flat edge to help shape it and it also allows you to not touch it so i'm going to now roll this into a 9 by 12 inch rectangle and i'm going to do that five times bridget and i don't know about you but i lose track of where i'm at because i get into it and i just i'm like was that three or was that four was that five right so i kind of created a little uh foolproof technique for myself it's my scoreboard i'm going to give it a notch each time i roll it out very very i need it you might not need it oh no i do need it so now i'm going to roll this into 9 by 12 inch rectangle the short end is going to be closest to me okay and again i don't want to touch it with my hands that much so we're at nine inches by 12 inches you can actually see our little sheets of butter are getting flatter and they're getting longer flatter and longer and i'm going to fold this like a business letter and i really need the bench scraper for this stage i'm just going to kind of lift this up and flip it over i promise it's going to come together i'm going to pat it together into a log really press down so that those layers stick i'm going to rotate it so that the short end is closest to me so that was your first that was my first set of folds now i'm going to roll it out again so now we're at 9 by 12. flip up all right and flip up one more notch three more times all right okay okay so now this is the fifth and final roll and you can see i'm having to work it a little bit harder it is because the gluten is building up yeah the butter pieces that you can see are even longer and flatter than they were at turn number two yeah starting to fight you back just a little bit i'm gonna win [Laughter] but still it's so antithetical to biscuit dough any kind that i've ever made you take flour and you have butter and usually shortening you get one roll and that's and that's it we are there okay so this is the last fold a lot easier to fold so much easier wow beautiful it's like a book now i know it from here we're going to roll this into an eight and a half inch square it's really important that you roll evenly so that the layers that you are creating as you're building this they stay in line if i really pressed hard a center might pop out and it just wouldn't yield the perfect biscuits okay we have an eight and a half inch square so i'm going to transfer this to this rim baking sheet with parchment paper underneath it i'm going to cover this with plastic wrap and we're going to refrigerate this for 30 minutes we want all that butter to firm back up before we bake them okay bridget this has chilled for 30 minutes very firm nice and firm now i'm going to transfer it to a lightly floured cutting board the next step is i'm going to trim quarter inch off all the edges but first i'm going to flour my knife it's really important that you have a sharp knife in this flower so that it cuts right through because i don't want to squish the dough as i'm pressing i want the knife to just go right through it so no round biscuit cutters at this point we are actually going to be making square biscuits i did not want to have any leftover trim and i didn't want to re-roll the trim it's very modern too actually all the cool kids are making square biscuits so i'm just going to keep my knife nice and floured and now i'm going to cut this into nine squares so i'm just going to go quick sharp cuts that cuts beautifully yeah almost like fudge yeah actually super firm as you can see those are all the layers that we work so hard for how many layers is that a lot a lot [Laughter] so now we're going to transfer them to a rimmed baking sheet that's lined with parchment paper set them up so that they're at least one inch apart from each other okay now those two tablespoons of butter that we had left over from earlier i melted it and i'm just going to brush them all with a little bit more butter now we're going to bake them we're going to put them into a 400 degree oven on the upper middle rack for 20 to 25 minutes and we're gonna rotate it halfway through okay there's some scraps here now i know aaron said that we don't like to press it together roll it out and stamp it into biscuits this is how you can use this leftover dough make a couple little rosettes as a treat so you just take two strips of dough start rolling it up just like that pinch that on there so it sticks these can be brushed with butter you can top them with cinnamon sugar bake them at the same time as your biscuits okay bridget what do you think these are gorgeous yeah you can actually see the striations all those layers in there and i have here a biscuit that would show you what would happen if i actually did not trim off a quarter of an inch they don't rise evenly so by cutting off that quarter inch it releases all the layers to rise freely this was the edge that you that was the edge so we're just going to let these cool for about 15 minutes and then they're going to rest if we dove into them right now all the steam would escape and they would just eat a little drier than they should so we really want them just rest and settle down all right bridgette cool enough been 15 minutes yes cool enough but still warm there you are thank you welcome my favorite part about eating these is when you open them up and there's those different layers that you can actually choose from as you open it look at that sheets of layers would you like some jam we have some orange marmalade and we have some raspberry preserves what i don't see out here is butter i love butter bridget but these really you don't need it i'm going to taste this first side without marmalade that's way past flaky that's way past ultra flaky that's impossibly flaky and tender it's so tender crispy on the outside yeah it's so soft and velvety on the inside that tang the buttermilk buttery not fatty definitely buttery and all that butter stayed in the biscuits as i baked as opposed to coming out because of that extra gluten that we had in structure these are flaky and tender that's impossible if i hadn't seen it with my own eyes i wouldn't have believed you could do this it's a snap it's a snap aaron's a miracle worker now for the flakiest biscuits you've ever seen grape butter into flour and leaveners mix in buttermilk and roll out the dough fold like a business letter five times trim the chilled dough and cut into squares bake until brown cool not too long and eat with jam or preserves so from our test kitchen to your kitchen the tallest most tender buttery flaky buttermilk biscuits all right back to the marmalade 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: 230,225

Keywords: ultimate flaky buttermilk biscuits, cooks illustrated, americas test kitchen, indoor pulled chicken, biscuits, buttermilk, baking, pulled chicken

Id: qq_rY8t0xXg

Length: 23min 28sec (1408 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 29 2020