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Cook's Country from America's Test Kitchen S18E03 - Italian-American Feast
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00:00Cook's Country is about more than just getting dinner on the table.
00:09We're also fascinated by the people and stories behind the dishes.
00:14We go inside kitchens in every corner of the country to learn how real people cook.
00:20And we look back through time to see how history influences the way we eat today.
00:25We bring that inspiration back to our test kitchen so we can share it with you.
00:31This is Cook's Country.
00:37Today on Cook's Country, Brian pays a visit to a Portuguese bakery in Fall River, Massachusetts,
00:44and shares his version of pastiche de nada.
00:47And Jack challenges Julia to a tasting of canned diced tomatoes.
00:52That's all right here on Cook's Country.
01:25Now the city has become a haven for Portuguese food lovers.
01:29The Portuguese people came here to work hard and provide for their families.
01:32So here you had, you know, a community of blue-collar Portuguese folks who were very faithful to their community,
01:39faithful to their faith, and stuck together.
01:42We created a little subculture locally.
01:45Yeah, I think even as you walk around the city a bit, you can hear people, you overhear Portuguese being spoken.
01:51Michael's parents, like many Portuguese at the time, moved to Fall River to work in its booming textile industry.
01:58In addition to his factory job, Michael's father, Fernando Benavidez, opened Portugalia.
02:03His goal was to bring a bit of the homeland back to his Portuguese community here in Massachusetts.
02:08Since he founded the company 35 years ago, the marketplace has taken on a life of its own.
02:14We had families coming from Connecticut, families coming from Western Mass, from Northern Mass, from New Hampshire.
02:20You know, they'd come down because where they were living, they didn't have any Portuguese shops or commerce.
02:26This place is also serving as a cultural hub for the community.
02:32Michael and his sister Jennifer inherited the store from their father.
02:37They continue to import and sell Portuguese specialty foods, including hundreds of varieties of tinned fish
02:43and over 1,300 different Portuguese wines and spirits.
02:49And while Portugalia is a standout in Fall River, it's definitely not the only option for good Portuguese food in town.
02:57You have Veropa, Queenia's Bakery, their pops are really good, their pop six, and of course, Barcelos, up the street.
03:05And Barcelos Bakery is exactly where I was heading to next.
03:09Husband and wife team Antonio and Sarah Rodriguez bought Barcelos 20 years ago.
03:14And since that day, they've dedicated their lives to making the bakery resemble a traditional Portuguese cafe.
03:21When somebody walks in, they're like, oh, I feel like I'm in Portugal.
03:24I feel like I'm in St. Michael.
03:26I'm like, yes!
03:27Like, that's the best compliment, because that's what we aim for.
03:30From the decorations all the way down to the acoustics, they haven't overlooked a single detail in designing the cafe.
03:40And it's that same meticulous approach that they bring to their baking.
03:44Over the years, what's been one of the biggest sellers here at the bakery?
03:47It's been the pesteja nata.
03:49Yeah, it's always been that.
03:51Pesteja nata are a classic Portuguese egg tart.
03:55With a sweet custard filling surrounded by a crisp pastry shell, it's the perfect pairing with a shot of espresso.
04:02And Tony makes some of the best in town, and maybe the most in town.
04:07After making almost 300 a day for 30 years, you could say Tony's got his one-man show down to a science.
04:13Are you the only person in the bakery who does this?
04:18Well, my daughter and my wife help me.
04:21But I do the dough, it's me.
04:23Fill it up, it's me.
04:25Do the cream and stuff.
04:27They don't know the recipe.
04:29They have idea, but they never did it.
04:33I guess when I die, I bring it with me.
04:35After preparing the dough, Tony shows me how to press them into the traditional cups.
04:46So you go around, push with your finger next to the walls.
04:56That's good.
04:57Then, Tony brings out the custard.
05:05All right, so what's the method for filling these?
05:08Use my finger.
05:10So no fancy equipment, just...
05:12Today, they have machines for everything.
05:13We try to keep the things the old-fashioned as possible.
05:18Finally, the Pesteja nata are baked in a very hot oven.
05:27Dang, don't touch it.
05:29Yeah.
05:29You burn your fingers.
05:31But it's that hot oven that gives them that perfectly golden, crispy bottom.
05:36That's the perfect color.
05:37I like it.
05:40Nice and crispy, too.
05:41Mm-hmm.
05:49On my coffee break, I finally lean into a few Pesteja nata.
05:53The pastry's light and flaky.
05:57Really, really crispy, and the custard itself, nice and soft and runny, not overly set.
06:05It's just the perfect amount of sweetness, and the cinnamon on top really cuts the whole
06:09thing, and it's really incredible.
06:15Just like Michael received the torch from his father, Tony and Sarah will likely hand
06:18the bakery over to their daughter one day.
06:21And who knows?
06:22Maybe she'll pass it on to her kids.
06:27What I do know is that the Portuguese community in Fall River pours their heart and soul into
06:35their food.
06:37For the uninitiated, it's an opportunity to experience a new cuisine.
06:42But for many in Fall River, it's a way to taste a bit of home.
06:45Well, Brian, it was so cool to see that little bit of Portugal here in Massachusetts.
07:02Yeah, I have to say, Tony and Sarah are just wonderful people.
07:05Barcello's Bakery makes some amazing stuff, and I am absolutely in love with these Pesteja
07:10Nata. I've had them in Portugal.
07:12There's something that was introduced to me by my Portuguese in-laws years ago, and I
07:15absolutely love them, and I'm happy to share this recipe with you.
07:18So let's get started.
07:19Here we have one and a quarter cups of all-purpose flour, and to that, I'm going to whisk in a
07:24half teaspoon of table salt.
07:26You want to mix this salt in so it gets evenly distributed in the flour, and then to that,
07:31we're going to add a half cup of water.
07:34We're going to mix this on medium-low speed.
07:36What we're trying to do here is just really make a dough that just comes together and doesn't
07:41activate a lot of the gluten.
07:42It takes about two to three minutes.
07:43And if it starts to stick to the sides, we'll give it a scrape halfway through.
07:46Okay.
07:49All right.
07:49So the dough has just come together.
07:52Just pop this out, and we're going to turn the dough out onto a well-floured counter.
07:59This recipe uses a lot of bench flour.
08:00And we're going to put a little bit more flour on top of this dough.
08:03So we're going to pat the dough into a rough four-inch square, and then we're going to
08:06cover it with some plastic wrap.
08:08And we're going to let it sit for about 15 minutes, just so the dough has time to relax.
08:12All right.
08:13Our dough has been relaxing for 15 minutes.
08:15It was very tired.
08:16Now...
08:16Very funny.
08:18You're very funny.
08:19We're going to roll it out into a 15 by 13-inch rectangle.
08:24So this is the type of recipe where you need a lot of bench flour.
08:27So we want to make sure there's plenty underneath the dough.
08:28So I'm going to flour liberally underneath, and a good bit on top.
08:34And we're going 15 inches tall and 13 inches wide.
08:40All right.
08:41Let's say it's approximately 15 by 13 at this point.
08:44All right.
08:44So what we're going to do is we're going to brush off all the excess flour from the dough,
08:47because we're going to layer some butter in here.
08:50So this is about five tablespoons of softened room-temperature butter.
08:53We've cut into half-inch pieces.
08:54We're going to layer it across the center third of this dough.
08:57And what we're going to do is we're going to smear it into an approximate 5 by 12-inch rectangle right here in the center.
09:04So this is sort of like a cheater puff pastry.
09:07You know, a typical puff pastry, you roll cold butter into the dough, you chill the dough, you put more butter in, roll it, chill it.
09:13We're going to put all this butter in right up front before we do our first chill.
09:16And it's really important to have this room-temperature butter.
09:20I see.
09:20See how easily it spreads?
09:21Mm-hmm.
09:22And now we're going to do a letter fold.
09:24We're going to fold the top down over the butter.
09:30And then we're going to brush this excess flour off.
09:34And the reason why we brush the excess flour is so this part of the dough sticks to that part of the dough.
09:38So now we're going to rotate this dough 90 degrees, give it that spin.
09:43I'm going to put some more flour underneath here, a little more flour underneath here.
09:48And we're going to roll this out twice more, again, repeating the application of the butter.
09:53Okay.
09:53Each time.
09:56See, by doing this, we'll get these micro layers of dough that are sandwiching the butter.
10:00And it'll end up in a really crisp, light, and flaky crust.
10:04We're going to roll this dough out into a 15 by 13 inch rectangle twice more.
10:08And each time we're going to apply some more butter to the fold and roll it out.
10:13All right, Tony.
10:13So that is our third and final application of the butter in between the dough here.
10:18And so we're going to roll it out once more to 15 by 13.
10:22Okay.
10:23So I'm just going to square this off a little bit here.
10:28So now we're going to brush the excess flour off the dough.
10:31And if you're cooking with somebody, you want to brush the flour towards them.
10:36So we're going to roll this nice and tight all the way up.
10:41And as you're going through, you want to just sort of even out the roll.
10:44And if you find that you have an excess amount of flour on here, just give it a brush.
10:49Again, because the idea here is that the dough sticks to itself as you roll it.
10:52So if there's a lot of flour on the bottom, that's going to inhibit the stickiness.
10:58And then we're just going to wet the top edge of the dough here.
11:03You can use your finger if you don't have the brush.
11:05Okay.
11:09And just give it a squeeze.
11:11And we're going to pinch this seam.
11:15It sticks together.
11:17And then we can spend just a moment kind of reshaping this dough and make sure the log is even.
11:24And it's okay if the ends aren't perfect because we're going to trim that before we start filling the cups.
11:30So now we can take this dough and we're going to refrigerate it.
11:33We'll put it on our parchment lined sheet pan here.
11:35We'll cover it with plastic wrap.
11:37And we're going to throw this in the refrigerator and it will chill for at least an hour.
11:40But it could really go up to 12 hours.
11:42And the reason why is because now is the time we want to set that butter and make sure it's firm within the dough.
11:47Because when it bakes up, the butter is going to melt and create steam and create those flaky layers.
11:52Okay, Tony, our dough has been chilling in the fridge for a couple of hours.
11:56And you can see it's firmed up quite a bit.
11:58And that's exactly what we want.
11:59So we know that butter is fully chilled.
12:02And so at this point we want to trim it down to 12 inches.
12:06So this is the point where we can get rid of our imperfect ends.
12:10And we can just go ahead and lop that off.
12:15And we'll lop this piece off.
12:17And now we're going to cut this into 12 one-inch chunks.
12:23So every inch or so, we'll just make a little mark.
12:32Beautiful.
12:34Okay, so we've got our 12 pieces of dough.
12:36Now traditionally these pastiche donata are made in these little pastel cups.
12:42But we're going to use something that's a little bit more common in most kitchens.
12:46And that is a muffin tin.
12:47So we're going to put one piece of dough inside of each of these cups.
12:51And we've gone ahead and sprayed this with a little bit of vegetable oil spray.
12:54Now for the fun part of the recipe, we're going to press this dough into these cups.
13:01So you have a little water bowl there.
13:03Okay.
13:03And it's best to use a couple of wet thumbs like the Fonz.
13:07And we're going to go in and just start pressing in the center.
13:10And then kind of work the dough into the corners of the cup and up the sides.
13:16So you want to give it a shot?
13:20I'm excited.
13:20Okay, thumbs.
13:21Yeah, thumbs like the Fonz.
13:23Thumbs in.
13:23Okay, and then just go thumbs first.
13:26And then you can switch.
13:30That's really cool.
13:32All right, Tony.
13:32We're going to keep pressing these in until they're all done.
13:35Then we're going to cover it with plastic wrap.
13:37I'm going to throw it in the fridge for at least an hour or up to 12 hours.
13:41Again, so we re-solidify that butter.
13:43Sounds good.
13:44All right, so now it's time to start with our custard.
13:47Our custard has three pieces.
13:49The first is our hot component where we have a cup of milk,
13:52half a cup of water,
13:54and one and a quarter cups of sugar.
13:58So we're going to turn this on to medium-high heat
14:00and bring it up to a quick simmer.
14:02And we're really just trying to dissolve that sugar.
14:04So we'll give it a quick whisk
14:05and we'll let it go for a couple of minutes
14:08to fully dissolve the sugar.
14:09And over here we have our flour mixture.
14:12So this is three tablespoons of flour.
14:13And to that we're going to add
14:14three quarters of a teaspoon of table salt.
14:16We'll give that a quick whisk to combine.
14:18And then we're going to add a quarter cup of whole milk.
14:23And this flour, the purpose of it in our custard
14:25is to really help thicken it
14:26and keep the egg mixture from breaking while it's in the oven.
14:29So just whisk this together.
14:30And you can see it takes on
14:32sort of a pancake batter-like consistency here.
14:35And finally we have six egg yolks.
14:38We're just going to beat these up.
14:40So we'll just whisk this together.
14:43Okay, you can see our milk mixture is coming to a simmer.
14:46And really the main goal here
14:47is just to dissolve the sugar.
14:49So it really only takes a couple minutes at this stage.
14:52And I like to keep it moving
14:53so it doesn't scorch on the bottom.
14:54And now we're going to slowly drizzle
14:57this milk mixture into our flour and milk mixture.
15:02So we'll start off going slowly.
15:07Now we're going to add this hot milk, flour, water mixture
15:11to our beaten egg yolks.
15:13So this I will drizzle in a little bit slowly
15:15because we want to temper the eggs
15:16and make sure we don't scramble them.
15:18Just a little bit at a time.
15:19You're just keeping the eggs moving, right?
15:23So that that hot liquid doesn't settle in one place.
15:26Exactly.
15:27That makes sense.
15:28And there we go.
15:30All that's incorporated together.
15:31And now just in case we did curdling the eggs,
15:33you're getting little pieces of flour stuck in there,
15:35we're going to strain this whole mixture.
15:39And that is our custard.
15:41So we're going to let this cool down to room temperature.
15:44All right, Tony, we have our chilled pastry cups.
15:46We have our room temperature custard.
15:47I'm just going to give it a quick whisk
15:49to reincorporate anything that might have stuck to the bottom.
15:52And then we're going to go ahead and fill our cups.
15:56Now as you're filling them, the first pass,
15:59you don't want to go too high.
16:00You know, we have extra.
16:02We'll come back around.
16:03You just want to make sure that you don't spill
16:04over the edge of the cup.
16:08Looks perfect.
16:09So one of the main challenges we face with this recipe
16:12is that these are traditionally baked in a 650 plus oven.
16:15All right, and they're baked really quickly.
16:17Obviously, our oven here is not going to go to 650.
16:20And the added challenge is we're baking these
16:23in a nonstick muffin tin,
16:24which has a maximum rating of 450 degrees.
16:27So what we ended up doing was setting our oven to 450 degrees,
16:30throwing the oven rack up to the upper middle position,
16:33about six inches from the top of the oven,
16:35and throwing a pizza sauna in there
16:37to preheat for a good hour.
16:39This is going to give it a nice blast of heat from the bottom
16:41and really get those cups nice and crispy.
16:43So we're going to let those bake for 27 to 30 minutes
16:46until the pastry cups get nice and brown around the edge,
16:49and hopefully we get some nice browning on the custard tops.
16:52There are an overwhelming number of options
17:01when it comes to buying canned tomatoes.
17:03Some are quite expensive.
17:05Some are imported.
17:06And today, Jack's going to let us know the difference
17:08between all these options.
17:09Yeah, so these are all already diced tomatoes,
17:12so super convenient.
17:14Some Italian brands, some American brands.
17:16You can start tasting.
17:17You're going to notice three things.
17:19Size of the pieces.
17:20It can be a petite dice, which is small,
17:24and some of the chunks are larger.
17:25Flavors.
17:26What else besides tomatoes are you tasting?
17:28And then texture.
17:29Are they soft or are they firm?
17:31So let's start by talking about salt, first of all.
17:33So as you might imagine,
17:35the brands with salt taste more seasoning,
17:38but they also are less bitter
17:39because there's a little bit of bitterness in tomatoes,
17:42and the salt kind of tamps down the bitterness.
17:45And so the brands without salt tended to taste
17:48a little bit more bitter.
17:50Interesting.
17:51Texture is all about whether or not
17:53they add a calcium chloride.
17:55It's a firming agent.
17:56And if you don't put that in there,
17:58you're going to have very soft tomatoes.
17:59Okay.
18:00Found that one.
18:02The last thing is citric acid.
18:05So a lot of manufacturers add that
18:07for brightness and acidity.
18:08It kind of amps up the natural acidity of the tomatoes.
18:11Again, companies that leave out the citric acid,
18:14they're going to be less bright.
18:15They're not going to have the tartness
18:17and the acidity that you would get
18:18if you add the citric acid.
18:20So it's very easy.
18:21Read the label.
18:22Some of them just say tomatoes.
18:24Well, it's going to taste like tomatoes.
18:26Many of the others will have tomatoes, salt,
18:28citric acid, and calcium chloride on the label.
18:31So.
18:32They're really different, first off.
18:34Very different.
18:35And if you were just using a standard recipe,
18:38you'd wind up with very different sauces here.
18:40This one, I mean, it tastes like a sauce almost already.
18:43You put it in a recipe and it's good.
18:45The chunks, they hold up, but they're not super crunchy.
18:49Like, there's not too much of that citric acid.
18:52And they're not too big on this one.
18:53Right.
18:53Which I think is nice.
18:54Yeah, these ones, they're very big.
18:57And they're a little plain tasting.
18:59Okay.
19:00This was very different from the others.
19:02You were talking about salt.
19:04I don't think it has any salt in it.
19:06It almost has no texture.
19:07It feels like a puree.
19:09But surprisingly, not bad.
19:10It's just, you'd have to know what you were doing with it.
19:13You couldn't just plug this into a recipe that called for diced tomatoes.
19:16You'd be sorely disappointed.
19:17Okay.
19:18This one was okay.
19:19Almost tasted like sauce.
19:20It's sitting in puree.
19:21Had a lot going on.
19:22This would work well.
19:23But this was by far my favorite.
19:25I think it's because the liquid it's sitting in.
19:27This feels like a puree.
19:29Whereas this feels like a liquid.
19:30And when I'm looking for a diced tomato, I'm looking for that liquid.
19:33Yeah, and the liquid often is a sign the juice is fresher, right, than that thick puree.
19:37Yep.
19:38This is fascinating because we found there's a big philosophical difference between American companies and Italian companies.
19:44And you picked this out.
19:46The Italian companies are largely doing just tomatoes.
19:49Interesting.
19:50And their philosophy is, okay, people are going to figure it out.
19:53Yeah.
19:54American companies are going to deliver a tomato that's already got salt and acid in it so that, you know, it's ready to go.
20:01Our tasters liked the American brands because that's what we're used to.
20:05We had American tasters.
20:06My guess is we did the tasting in Italy.
20:08We would have gotten very different results with the same brands because Italian cooks are used to different tomatoes.
20:13Ones that are just canned tomatoes with none of the other added ingredients.
20:17Oh, very interesting.
20:18So let's start here.
20:19This is one of the two Italian brands.
20:21You weren't wild about it.
20:22Our tasters weren't wild about it because it's just tomatoes.
20:25Yeah.
20:25And you missed the other things that we're accustomed to as Americans.
20:29The canned tomatoes, aren't they supposed to have citric acid and salt in them?
20:32Right.
20:32And it isn't a bad tomato.
20:34It's just different.
20:35Let's go here.
20:37Okay.
20:37To the one you like the best.
20:38The tasting panel agreed with you.
20:40This is the San Marican, not Marzano because those are Italian.
20:46Oh.
20:47It's a little confusing.
20:48They're actually made with tomatoes from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
20:51Really?
20:51Not from Naples.
20:53That's not.
20:53This was the winner because the pieces were nice and small.
20:58They were firm.
20:59They were bright.
20:59They were nice salt.
21:01Just a lovely tomato.
21:03This was, I think, your second favorite.
21:04And this was the runner-up.
21:06This is from Cento.
21:07It's one of the petite diced.
21:08So it has the smallest pieces.
21:11If you want really teeny pieces, those words will indicate that it is a smaller diced tomato.
21:17You know, it was a very good choice.
21:19Just wasn't quite as good as the winner.
21:22And there at the end, this was kind of at the bottom of the rankings when it came to the American brands because the pieces were just so big.
21:29Yeah.
21:29If you were making them in a soup, the pieces are almost so big they're not going to fit on a spoon.
21:33That's true.
21:34All right.
21:34Thank you, Jack.
21:35This is really interesting.
21:36Oh, thanks, Julia.
21:37So there you have it.
21:38If you're shopping for canned diced tomato, reach for the San Marican diced tomatoes.
21:49All right, Tony.
21:50It's been about 28 minutes.
21:52And you can see that these are nice and bubbly and brown.
21:57Oh, boy.
21:58Beautiful.
22:00All right.
22:00You can see how these have got some nice browning here on the edge of the cups.
22:04Nice little golden brown on top of the custard as well.
22:07Just like they do at Barcelos.
22:09I'm so excited for this.
22:10So we're going to let this cool for about five minutes in the cups.
22:13So they're just a little bit cooler to handle.
22:15Then we're going to take them out of there, transfer them to a wire rack.
22:17We'll let them cool for a little bit longer.
22:19They're magical.
22:20That's beautiful.
22:22Spectacular.
22:24Okay.
22:24So we're going to let these cool for about 30 minutes.
22:27Antonio pastes and then are fully cooled.
22:29We're going to sprinkle them with a little bit of ground cinnamon, which is very traditional.
22:33And a little bit of powdered sugar.
22:40All right.
22:41Can I serve you?
22:42I'm ready.
22:43I feel the exact same way.
22:46All right.
22:46I'm so excited for you to try these.
22:47I love these so much.
22:48I'm really excited about this.
22:50I just have to look at the bottom, though.
22:51Check my bottom.
22:52Check the bottom.
22:52It's looking good.
22:53Okay.
22:54Three, two, one.
22:55All right.
22:55Okay.
22:55Bye.
22:56Bye.
22:56Bye.
22:56Bye.
22:56You've made some great things, and your excursions are providing us with so many amazing recipes.
23:09But this one, it's so beautiful.
23:12The contrast between the sweet custard and the crackly crust is just amazing.
23:17I've eaten six of these in one sitting.
23:19No way.
23:20Oh, yeah.
23:21I'm a big boy.
23:23All right, Tony.
23:24All right, Brian.
23:25Cheers.
23:25Cheers.
23:26Pinky out.
23:26Thank you, Brian.
23:30You're very welcome.
23:30This was delicious.
23:31I'm glad.
23:32And if you would like to enjoy the sweet taste of Portugal by way of Massachusetts, make
23:37a quick laminated dough using softened butter.
23:41Use a room-temperature custard and bake on a preheated pizza stone.
23:46From Cook's Country, an amazingly delicious pastéis de nada.
23:52I'm going to have to go in for a second.
23:53I'm going to get another bite.
23:55I'm going in for a whole other one.
23:57I'm going in for a whole other one.
Recommended
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