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00:00Music
00:02Music
00:30Today on America's Test Kitchen,
00:39Lon makes Bridget stuffed spatchcocked turkey,
00:43Adam reviews slicing knives,
00:46and Aaron makes Julia shaved celery salad
00:49with pomegranate honey vinaigrette.
00:51It's all coming up right here on America's Test Kitchen.
01:00They say easy as pie or a piece of cake,
01:06but you know what they don't say?
01:08Easy as turkey.
01:10Because cooking a whole turkey is hard.
01:12You've got the white and the dark meat
01:14that have to cook at the same rates.
01:15It's big, it's unwieldy.
01:17That's a lot.
01:18So we've got Lon here,
01:20and she's going to take care of all of our turkey conundrums.
01:23Bridget, we're not only going to make cooking this turkey easy,
01:26we're going to cook a stuffing alongside it.
01:29Bonus?
01:29Bonus.
01:30We're going to start with the salting mix for our turkey.
01:33Okay.
01:34It's two ingredients, really simple.
01:35I have a quarter cup of kosher salt,
01:38and to that I'm adding four teaspoons of sugar.
01:41Okay.
01:41Just going to whisk this together.
01:45That's it.
01:46Now, this is going to be enough for a 12 to 14 pound turkey,
01:50which is what I have here.
01:52Right.
01:52In order to make that cooking method easier,
01:54to make sure that the dark and white meat finish up at the same time,
01:57we're actually going to spatchcock this bird.
01:59So to do that, we're going to turn it over so that backbone is exposed,
02:03because that's the part we're going to remove.
02:05Right.
02:05I like to use kitchen shears for this.
02:07It's just a lot easier than using a knife.
02:10Right here, where there's a hip bone,
02:12is where it is hardest.
02:15And once you can get through that bit, you're kind of home free.
02:20This is actually super great for gravy.
02:22You just chop it up, throw it in a stock.
02:24It's fantastic.
02:25Now we just flip this over.
02:27So push down to crack that bone.
02:34And that's it.
02:35Crack the breastbone, the keel plate there.
02:37Yeah.
02:37Yeah.
02:38So I want to clean this up a little bit.
02:40There's some extra skin up here that is totally unnecessary.
02:42Next up, we're going to salt the turkey.
02:46And as we always prefer, we want to do it under the skin.
02:49Step one is to loosen the skin.
02:51I'm just going to lift and kind of ease my fingers
02:54between the skin and the breast meat.
02:58And it's really not a problem if you tear the skin.
03:00I've actually figured out a way to patch it.
03:02And you wouldn't even know that it was torn.
03:04You just need a couple of toothpicks.
03:06You can actually find more details on that tip on the website.
03:09Great.
03:11You can just lift that skin up, five teaspoons right in.
03:16Okay.
03:17All right.
03:17Other side.
03:19For the legs, it's going to be two teaspoons a piece.
03:23Cool.
03:25The rest is going to be for the underside.
03:27Okay.
03:29Last thing I want to do is tuck these wings.
03:32This is going to go into the fridge for at least 24 hours.
03:35But if you can let it go for two days, that's even better.
03:38It's time to move on to the stuffing.
03:40Great.
03:41I went ahead and got us a little head start.
03:44I took one and a half pounds of hearty white sandwich bread,
03:47cut it up into half-inch cubes,
03:49and toasted it out in a 250-degree oven.
03:52Next up, we're going to make our binder for the stuffing.
03:56I've got three large eggs.
03:58And this is a half a cup of water.
04:00And it's just going to go right in.
04:02Bread cubes can go right in.
04:09And I'll just toss this until they're nicely moistened.
04:14What I'm looking for is to not have a pool of egg at the bottom.
04:17We're going to come back and toss this a couple more times.
04:19Okay.
04:19In the meantime, I've got four tablespoons of unsalted butter melted over medium heat in this 12-inch nonstick skillet.
04:28To that, I'm adding three onions that are chopped and six finely chopped celery ribs.
04:35So, this is just going to cook until the vegetables are softened.
04:40It's going to take eight to ten minutes.
04:41Okay.
04:45Bridget, it's been ten minutes, and we're going to need some aromatics to flavor this.
04:50I've got two tablespoons of minced fresh thyme,
04:53two tablespoons of minced fresh sage.
04:56Lovely.
04:57All the poultry herbs, right?
04:59Six garlic cloves that I've minced.
05:01And one teaspoon of black pepper.
05:05So, I just want to break up that garlic a little bit.
05:09Make sure everything is kind of opened up.
05:11We'll just add this to our bread.
05:16And one more quick toss.
05:18All right.
05:19That's looking pretty good.
05:20I have our roasting pan right here,
05:23and I've given it a good coating of baking spray to make sure nothing sticks.
05:27What I'm going to do is shape it into a nine-inch by nine-inch square.
05:33That's going to be just about the right size for this turkey of ours.
05:37We can go ahead and move our turkey and plop it right on top.
05:42So, our stuffing is nice and protected.
05:44We also want to protect the breast meat.
05:47It's going to cook pretty quickly,
05:48and in order for this to all finish at the same time,
05:52we want the legs to get a jump start.
05:54Okay.
05:54The way to do that is our trusty foil shield.
05:56You just press it right over the top.
06:01I'm going to wash my hands, and then we'll get this into the oven.
06:03Okay.
06:04This is going to go into a 425-degree oven right on the middle rack,
06:09and it'll cook for 45 minutes.
06:11Okay.
06:11I'll get that for you.
06:17Oh, thank you.
06:19Hey, it's starting to smell good.
06:20It's starting to smell great.
06:22If you could do me a favor, can you drop that oven temperature to 325?
06:27Of course.
06:28All right, Bridget.
06:33Now that we've gotten the dark meat a jump start,
06:36I'm just going to remove this foil,
06:38and I want to give this a quick brush with some melted butter.
06:41It's going to be just one tablespoon of unsalted butter.
06:45I'm going to pop this back into our 325 oven,
06:48and it's going to go until it's done to two and a half hours.
06:51I'm looking for the breast to register 155 degrees
06:54and the legs to register 175.
06:58Oh, wow.
07:00Look at this.
07:02Oh, wow.
07:05All right.
07:06I'm following you.
07:09Wherever you go.
07:12Pretty satisfying, right?
07:13That is gorgeous.
07:15So, it's just going to go right to a carving board.
07:18Oh, my goodness.
07:19This is going to need some help,
07:22but all of these beautiful brown juices and fond,
07:26we want that in the stuffing,
07:27so we're going to give this a nice scrape.
07:30Oh, my goodness.
07:31This, I'm just going to spread into a nice, even layer,
07:34maximize our surface area for browning and a light bit of crisping.
07:38Okay.
07:39But we're not going to actually do that quite yet.
07:41So, this turkey, it's going to need to rest for 30 minutes.
07:44It could actually go a little bit longer if you needed it to.
07:47I am not going to cover it.
07:49I don't want that skin to steam.
07:51Right.
07:51And 15 minutes before serving,
07:54I'll pop this back into the oven just to warm it and brown it slightly.
07:57Gorgeous.
07:58All right.
08:00Oh.
08:03All right.
08:04Oh, yummy.
08:05Oh, that smells like Thanksgiving.
08:12Mmm.
08:12Sure does.
08:15Let's give this a quick fluff, and it can go right into our serving bowl.
08:19I really love how you get a bunch of different textures here and wait until you taste it.
08:25Okay.
08:25Last little bit.
08:27Now that this is ready to go, let's go carve our turkey.
08:30Sounds great.
08:30So, first up is really easy.
08:34We're going to take off the legs.
08:36I'll just kind of lift this up and cut along the skin, because it's really just the skin
08:43that we need to get through.
08:44Really, you're just cutting through the skin that's holding that leg in place, and it just
08:49pops right out.
08:49So, next up, we're going to deal with the wings.
08:52You can see how there's like a little seam right here.
08:55It's kind of where we want to cut.
08:59And then you should be able to kind of just lift, give it a little twist, and that joint
09:07kind of reveals itself.
09:09I'm just kind of following the bone in there.
09:13You sort of feel for it.
09:14There's not much to look for, really.
09:15And then now, all we've got left on here is the breast, which makes it really easy.
09:20There's a keel bone running down the center, and I just want to cut on either side of it.
09:26Can you hear how crispy that skin is?
09:28Definitely.
09:28Awesome.
09:30And then we'll just slide our thumb in here to hold it open, and it's still nice and hot.
09:36Yeah.
09:36And I want to just kind of follow the rib cage until that breast releases.
09:47Other side.
09:50All right.
09:50So, now we've got a leg quarter, which is not great to serve whole.
09:54No.
09:55I just want to divide them.
09:56I like to kind of come down this way, find the bone, and then you can just kind of...
10:02Pop it.
10:03Pop it.
10:03Now, there's one little tricky bit here that doesn't happen on a whole bird.
10:10When we spatchcocked it, we left a bit of the rib cage on this thigh.
10:14I want to find it.
10:16It's kind of triangular right here.
10:18Slip my knife right underneath and remove it.
10:25And then this bone, we don't want that either.
10:27So, I'm just going to cut around either side of the bone and just kind of gently work the tip of your knife along that bone until everything releases.
10:39And then we'll flip this over and give it a slice.
10:44The breast's much easier.
10:46We're just going to slice through these.
10:48The grain is kind of running this way, so I want to do one of these.
10:52I really like to hold my knife at a 45-degree angle when I slice the breast.
10:56You get a beautiful cross-section.
10:58Now, the last couple of pieces.
11:01Tuck them right in there.
11:02Not bad, right?
11:03Pretty great.
11:04How great is it that you can get two of the big Thanksgiving dishes done all at once?
11:10It's true.
11:10I mean, this is like a miniature Thanksgiving.
11:12You've got the turkey, you've got the stuffing, and you brought my favorite beverage in the world, gravy.
11:18I'd heard that about you.
11:21Here we go.
11:23And a little dark meat, too.
11:24Please.
11:27Let's see if I can't scoot this little guy out of here.
11:30I'm never greedy because I can go back for more.
11:37And then a nice helping of stuffing.
11:44Oh, yeah.
11:45Ooh, delicious.
11:46This is gorgeous.
11:48Yum.
11:49And even better, you can get this recipe for the gravy on our website.
11:56All right, I'm going to go into the breast meat here because that really is the challenge.
11:59Making sure that it's seasoned, but not dry.
12:08That's fantastic.
12:10It's so good.
12:12Super moist.
12:14Mmm.
12:16The skin is beautifully rendered as well.
12:19Super crisp.
12:22Succulent, juicy.
12:25Seasoning is perfect.
12:26This is not salty at all.
12:30Now, on to the stuffing.
12:32You can taste those deep, dark turkey drippings.
12:35You toasted the bread.
12:36That was fantastic.
12:38And also, you're getting these little crispy, browned parts from putting this back in the oven.
12:43This is turkey day perfection.
12:46And you made it all look so easy.
12:48I had a good recipe.
12:48So, if you want to take a crack at this fabulous turkey recipe, it starts by removing the turkey
12:55backbone, then applying a salt and sugar mix under the skin.
12:59Place the turkey on the mound of stuffing and roast, first covered with foil, then uncovered
13:04until deep golden brown.
13:06Stir the stuffing and then return it to the oven and bake until crisp and brown.
13:10So, from America's Test Kitchen, a spectacular recipe for stuffed, spatchcocked turkey.
13:19Don't forget the gravy.
13:26When carving smaller pieces of meat, like a chicken breast or a pork chop, you can get
13:30away with using a chef's knife.
13:32But for larger roasts, like a brisket, you really want a slicing knife.
13:36And today, Adam's going to tell us which brand is worth the money.
13:39Oh, a slicing knife makes it much easier to get neat slices of bigger pieces of meat.
13:43We tested this lineup of eight slicing knives.
13:46The length was 10 inches to 12 inches.
13:49The price range was $26 to $240.
13:52The tests included slicing brisket, because it's nice and wide, a big, wide, large turkey
13:58breast, and pork loin.
14:01And the things that separated the best knives from the not-so-good knives, number one, sharpness
14:07is very important, how well it's sharpened and honed at the factory.
14:11Okay.
14:12Number two, this also affects sharpness, is the blade geometry, which is the angle at
14:18which the cutting edge is ground on either side of the blade.
14:22In our lineup, those angles range from about 20 degrees, which is fairly wide, to 15 degrees,
14:28which is narrower.
14:29You have a couple of them here.
14:31I want you to try this knife first, and take a couple of slices of flank steak, and then
14:36try the one next to it second.
14:37And just tell me what you observe.
14:39This is a little awkward, I have to say.
14:42I'm able to make nice slices, but I'm working at it.
14:45You're good with a knife, though.
14:46Now try the other ones.
14:47Okay.
14:51Oh, this is a breeze.
14:52Yeah, this is way easier.
14:54And some of these, on the first slices, I had trouble getting through the bottom, and
14:58on this second knife, nope, it slides right through.
15:00So the first one, the blade geometry is 20 degrees.
15:04It's a wider angle.
15:05The second one you're using, it's 15 degrees, so it's narrower.
15:09And you agree with the testers, who all felt that it was keener, more agile, definitely
15:14easier to slice through with.
15:16Blade dimensions also made a difference with a slicing knife.
15:19Number one, it's got to be long enough.
15:22You can see this one, for instance, 12 inches long.
15:25That's going to span a big roast, a brisket, something like that.
15:29Something like this was just 10 inches long.
15:31You're not going to get all the way across every brisket with this.
15:35The height of the blade, from the cutting edge to the spine, also made a difference.
15:41Testers preferred blades that were about an inch and a half tall, from the cutting edge
15:45to the spine at the top of the blade.
15:47That gave them a chance to really hug the meat and make nice, neat slices.
15:53It also gave them enough clearance for their knuckles off the board so they weren't dragging
15:58their knuckles through meat juices at the bottom.
16:01Another factor of the blade dimensions was the thickness of the blade.
16:06Testers preferred that it be about 1.5 millimeters at the spine.
16:11That gave them a nice balance of rigidity and flexibility.
16:15Some of them were a lot thicker, like this one.
16:18This was 2.8 millimeters at the spine.
16:21That's quite thick.
16:21You can see it's a lot thicker.
16:22And it doesn't have nearly the flex that the other one does.
16:26So this one felt more awkward to use.
16:29Some of them are about 1.5 millimeters at the spine.
16:33And that gave them the right balance between flex and rigidity.
16:37And then if it was more like one millimeter, it was a little too flexy, a little too bendy.
16:42It wiggled too much to really slice in a precise, controlled way.
16:46Another feature of these blades are these shallow indentations along the length of the blade.
16:52Those are called grantons.
16:54And they are there to reduce the surface tension between the blade and whatever it is you're cutting.
16:59That's going to make the action smoother, the slicing.
17:02It's also going to help release slices that you have just cut a little more smoothly.
17:07In the end, this is our winning knife.
17:10It was the winner before.
17:11It's still the winner.
17:12This is the Victorinox Swiss Army Fibrox 12-inch granton edge carving slicing knife.
17:19It's got great blade dimensions.
17:21It's 12 inches long.
17:22It's the right height.
17:23It's the right flexibility and rigidity.
17:26It's got those grantons.
17:27The handle is comfortable.
17:29For $48, you really can't do any better than this one.
17:32Celery usually plays the role of a support vegetable, adding a little flavor to soup or some crunch to a batch of tuna salad.
17:45Rarely does it take center stage, does it, Erin?
17:47It never does.
17:48It's very underappreciated.
17:49It is.
17:50Until today.
17:51So today, we're going to make a salad where it's going to be front and center.
17:54I love it.
17:55All right, we're going to start with a dressing.
17:56We're going to make a pomegranate honey vinaigrette.
17:58Oh, yum.
17:59So we have two tablespoons of pomegranate molasses.
18:01This is a staple in Eastern Mediterranean cuisines, and it's like sweet and tangy, a little bitterness.
18:09And if you can't find it at the store, you can find a recipe for it on our website.
18:11Absolutely.
18:12Now I'm going to add two teaspoons of honey.
18:14This is going to boost its sweetness a little bit.
18:17And this is a tablespoon of red wine vinegar.
18:20And we're going to add a shallot.
18:22A quarter teaspoon of salt.
18:25Yep.
18:26And a pinch of black pepper.
18:28All right, so now we're just going to whisk this together.
18:32All right, and now we're going to finish this with two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.
18:36And I'm just going to slowly drizzle this in.
18:39The pomegranate molasses is going to kind of help stabilize our vinaigrette.
18:44All right, so our dressing's ready.
18:46Moving on to the star.
18:48Let's start with the stock celery.
18:50And so I'm going to use four stocks.
18:52We are going to use these beautiful celery leaves as well.
18:55So I'm just going to tear off.
18:57We want about a half a cup of celery leaves.
19:00These and two are sellable.
19:02Now I'm going to slice our celery into very thin slices on the bias.
19:08It's going to trim off the end.
19:10And you just really want to slice very thinly.
19:14Okay.
19:20On to celery root.
19:22This is grown in the ground.
19:23Before it's sold, it's pulled up.
19:25And then, like, the roots are trimmed off.
19:26And it looks kind of scary, right?
19:29The first time I ever used it, I was like, what is that?
19:32Looks like a little gremlin.
19:33Yeah.
19:33And another name for this is celery yak.
19:35Mm-hmm.
19:36So I'm going to first just cut off where the greens meet the root.
19:40Just going to cut that off the other side.
19:41I don't want to trim off all of that because there's some good white meat underneath it.
19:45So at an angle, I'm just going to kind of spin and trim.
19:49Mm-hmm.
19:52And anything you don't want to eat, trim off.
19:56Now I'm just going to cut this in half.
19:58If you have a really large one, you want to cut into quarters.
20:00And I'm going to use two.
20:06And this one I'm going to cut into quarters.
20:09And now we're going to use a mandolin.
20:11Basically, you have a blade.
20:13Make sure that's flat.
20:14And you just want it to be stable and just start thinly slicing it.
20:19When you get to a stage where your finger's getting close to the blade,
20:22you want to use the guard.
20:23We're using a total of 14 ounces of celery root.
20:26Salad is coming together.
20:28That is so pretty.
20:29Isn't that gorgeous?
20:30Now we are going to add pomegranate.
20:33First, I'm going to put on some gloves because it can stain your hands.
20:36Mm-hmm.
20:37Okay.
20:37So now I'm going to cut off the blossom end.
20:40And I'm going to score it.
20:43Just going to take my knife about six times around.
20:48And now just break it apart.
20:51Mm-hmm.
20:51And break it apart underwater.
20:54And the seeds basically sink.
20:57Mm-hmm.
20:57And the membranes basically float.
20:59Nice.
21:00So it's easy peasy.
21:01Yeah.
21:02And we're going to drain it.
21:03Okay.
21:08All right, Julia.
21:09We are ready.
21:10Okay.
21:10Ready to toss.
21:12All right.
21:12So we have our pomegranate honey vinaigrette.
21:14Look how that held.
21:15See?
21:15Yep.
21:16It's beautiful.
21:17Gorgeous.
21:17It's coating this out of the bowl.
21:19I'm giving it one last stir.
21:20And we're going to add our celery root and our celery and our celery leaves.
21:25And because I thinly sliced the celery root, and there's a lot of pieces that kind of get stuck together,
21:31I like to be one with my salad.
21:33And I'm just going to toss it and use my fingers to kind of break it up so that all of the pieces get coated with the dressing.
21:40Okay.
21:40So we're going to add one more major element to this.
21:42We're going to add frisee.
21:44Frisee is a nice bitter wintergreen.
21:46It's a bittergreen, so it's going to add a nice complexity of flavor.
21:49Now I'm going to add a half a cup of pecorino, shredded.
21:52It's going to add a little saltiness.
21:53And I'm going to add two tablespoons of our pomegranate seeds that we prepped earlier.
21:59All right.
21:59Now I'm just going to toss it.
22:00Okay.
22:01Okay.
22:01All right.
22:03So as with everything, you want to taste before you serve.
22:07I'm going to give it a little bit more salt.
22:09Okay.
22:09Because there's a lot of hardiness in here.
22:11And last but not least, we're going to just put a nice garnish on it.
22:14We're going to add a half a cup of walnuts.
22:16Just going to sprinkle that over it.
22:18It's going to add nice nutty flavor and also a nice crunchy texture.
22:22And I'm just going to sprinkle it with two more tablespoons of pomegranate seeds.
22:27Erin, that's gorgeous.
22:28I'm very proud of the salad.
22:31All right.
22:32All right.
22:33Enjoy.
22:33Oh, I can't wait to try this.
22:36All right.
22:36I'm going to try to get a little of everything on my fork here.
22:38Mm-hmm.
22:46Crunchy.
22:47That is so delicious.
22:50Unexpected flavors.
22:51I got a little bite of the pomegranate seed that burst in my mouth, followed by the pecorino.
22:56Yep.
22:57Crunch of the walnut.
22:58Yeah.
22:58Celery root raw is one of my absolute favorite vegetables to eat raw.
23:02It just has this little slightly parsley, anise-y flavor to it.
23:06It just takes on whatever you serve it with.
23:08Mm-hmm.
23:09And the different textures.
23:10Yeah.
23:10Right?
23:11Celery root.
23:12Thin is the key.
23:13Erin, this is a delicious celebratory celery salad.
23:19Nicely said.
23:19Well said.
23:20I love it.
23:21If you want to make this lovely celery salad, start by making a sweet tart vinaigrette using
23:27pomegranate molasses.
23:29Prep two types of celery.
23:30Pick the leaves, slice the stalks on a bias, and shave celery root.
23:35Then toss with pomegranate seeds, pecorino, and walnuts.
23:38From America's Test Kitchen, a delicious recipe for shaved celery salad with pomegranate honey
23:44vinaigrette.
23:45You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with select episodes and
23:50our product reviews at our website, americastestkitchen.com slash tv.
23:54See, this is incredible.
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