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Americas Test Kitchen - Season 26 - Episode 13: Weeknight Chicken and Mashed Potatoes
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00:26To be continued...
00:37Today on America's Test Kitchen, Alex makes Bridget cold-start pan-seared chicken breast
00:43with cherry and rosemary pan sauce, Adam reviews paper towels, and Sam makes Julia the fastest,
00:51easiest mashed potatoes. It's all coming up right here on America's Test Kitchen.
01:03Pan-seared chicken breasts are not just a recipe, they're an opportunity. An opportunity for home
01:09cooks to learn how to cook chicken so that the meat is nice and juicy, and you get to work
01:14on
01:14a beautiful pan sauce as well. Well, who better to teach us all of this than our Season 2 America's
01:21Test Kitchen Next Generation winner, Alex. Welcome to the Test Kitchen. Thank you, Bridget. I'm so
01:26excited to be here. In cooking, it's pretty customary to start searing chicken breasts in an
01:31extremely hot pan. Yes. So we're basically gonna throw all that out the window and start with a
01:36cold pan, and this is gonna give us a really nice sear and a perfectly cooked inside. Alex is breaking
01:41all the rules from the moment he walked in here. I love it, but I know we're in great hands.
01:46Here we
01:46have four boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and you want to make sure that your chicken breasts
01:51weigh 10 ounces or less. If they're more than 10 ounces, they're not gonna all fit in our pan at
01:55the same time. I find going to the butcher's counter and getting them individually is a great
02:01practice. Also, they can weigh them for you there if you don't have a scale. So we want to make
02:05these
02:06a little bit more even. We have this thicker end and this thinner end, and we want a nice even
02:10surface
02:10across the board. We have plastic wrap on the counter underneath the chicken breasts and some more
02:16plastic wrap over the chicken breasts. Okay. We could go ahead and just take the meat hammer straight
02:21to these, but then we'd just be making a huge mess. So this is a great way to contain everything.
02:25So we
02:26just want to even these out so they're about a half an inch all across the board. Okay. So as
02:31I pound it
02:32out, I like to do more of a swiping motion rather than go straight down. Kind of helps spread out
02:36the
02:36chicken a little bit more evenly. All right. I'm gonna remove this so we can go ahead and get a
02:45measurement on these. Okay. So we're looking for about a half an inch here. Okay. Looks about a half an
02:52inch to me. Nailed it. Moisture is the enemy of getting a really, really nice sear. Yes. We can't get
02:58that nice browning if there's a lot of moisture present. I'm gonna take some paper towel and pad off any
03:04excess moisture on both sides. Perfect. Our chicken has almost no fat in there. Right. So we need a little
03:13bit of fat for
03:14that heat transfer. Here I have two tablespoons of vegetable oil. Any high smoke point neutral cooking oil will do
03:21here. Okay, great. I'm gonna brush these evenly both sides so we have it all coated. This layer of fat
03:28will allow for
03:29really, really nice heat transfer to the chicken and will give us a perfect sear. All right. I have two
03:35teaspoons of kosher
03:36salt and we're gonna season these evenly on all sides. So each one's gonna get around a half a teaspoon.
03:42Okay. I'm always
03:43seasoning from a height here so we get an even distribution of the salt. We're gonna go ahead
03:49and place these in our pan. So we have a nonstick pan, 12 inches, that should fit our chicken breasts
03:55great. Okay. A lot of people like searing in stainless steel. That works great from a preheated
04:01state. So since we're starting from cold, this is gonna help us out a lot more and avoid any sticking.
04:07Nonstick works great here. If you're a fan of carbon steel, that works really well too. That has a nice
04:11natural nonstick layer. Right. We like nonstick or carbon steel for this. I've washed my hands so now we
04:18can get cooking. We need to make sure we're starting out on high heat so we can drive off the
04:23moisture
04:24and really start that searing process. Okay, great. And as quick as possible. Exactly. If we start on low
04:29to medium, we're just gonna build up steam and we're not gonna get that browning. So we're gonna go
04:33on high for two minutes. Okay. So the cold pan though, cold pan theory, where we're going with
04:39that? When you start in a hot pan, especially with such a lean protein, that dry layer always appears
04:45just under the surface of your sear. Because you get that sear, but in the process, that really,
04:50really intense heat, it's gonna give you that tough, dry layer. Okay. So by starting in the cold pan,
04:55we are building up our sear, slowly, gently approaching our internal temperature.
05:01Spend two minutes. I'm gonna go ahead and flip these.
05:09Spend another two minutes. I'm gonna go ahead and flip again.
05:13A little more browning on that. A little bit more exciting there.
05:16Now that each side has had two minutes on high heat, we're gonna go ahead and drop to medium.
05:21Now we're just gonna keep flipping every two minutes for six to eight minutes until we reach
05:26155 degrees. Okay. There's a lot of concern with cooking on high heat with nonstick. Right.
05:32For this, it's really only a few minutes of that high heat, and we're starting from cold,
05:36so it's never really getting that hot to cause too much concern. Okay, good point.
05:41Spend another two minutes. Let's go ahead and check our other side.
05:45Oh, all right. Wow. Getting some color.
05:48There's a huge benefit to flipping them so often. Flipping it allows it to cool down on each side
05:54just under the surface of the sear before the next flip, so that's gonna avoid that really dry,
05:59tough layer just under the surface of your sear. And allow it to heat through more gently.
06:04Exactly. Okay. So you get a nice, perfectly cooked interior.
06:07Yeah, because thin-cut chicken breasts, you want them to spend as much time in the pan so they can
06:12get
06:12some good color, but you don't want to overcook them. Right. And it's a very fine line.
06:17These are looking great. I think we're just about there. I'm gonna go ahead and take the temperature.
06:23Perfect. 156. One degree over.
06:25I mean, I guess 156 is fine for the next generation.
06:30My generation is happy with 156.
06:33We're gonna let these rest for 10 minutes, and we're gonna tent them with some tinfoil here.
06:40Anytime you cook any meat, you really want to let it rest at least half the time it took to
06:46cook.
06:46That's gonna allow the juices inside to redistribute themselves.
06:50If we were to cut into this now, all those juices would bleed everywhere, and we'd end up with dry
06:54chicken, which is what we were trying to avoid in the first place. Right.
06:57We're gonna go ahead and make our pan sauce while we wait for our chicken to rest.
07:00Gorgeous. All right.
07:01We're gonna start out by prepping some shallot and some rosemary here.
07:07Peeled off all of our skin, and now we want to go ahead and mince this up nice and fine.
07:12We're gonna be looking for two tablespoons, which is about one small shallot.
07:15Okay.
07:17We're also gonna add some minced rosemary to this as well.
07:20You can also use an equal amount of thyme.
07:23Okay.
07:23They both work really, really well here and pair great with this fruity flavor.
07:26All right.
07:28We only used just enough fat just to coat the chicken, so we need to add a little bit of
07:33extra fat to our pan to start sweating our aromatics.
07:37Okay.
07:37Here I have two teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil.
07:40I'm gonna get this back on the heat.
07:43I'm going to add two tablespoons of our shallot here.
07:50And one half teaspoon of our rosemary.
07:54We're going to cook these over medium heat for around two minutes.
08:00It's been about two minutes.
08:02They're very fragrant, and we have some light caramelization around the edges of our shallot
08:07here.
08:07We're going to go ahead and deglaze so we can scrape up all of this fond, which is all that
08:12buildup from searing off the bottom of our pan.
08:14I have one cup of dry red wine.
08:18It's really important when you do this to really scrape up off the bottom and incorporate all
08:23of that fond into our sauce.
08:25Also going to add two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and two teaspoons of sugar.
08:32All right.
08:33So that fruity, sweet, tangy flavor, they all work really well together.
08:37We're going to cook this for five minutes on a medium heat to reduce it down by half its
08:43volume.
08:43This is going to concentrate the flavor and cook off the alcohol as well.
08:47Sounds great.
08:48It's been around five minutes.
08:49We've reduced down.
08:51It's getting really, really nice and a little bit syrupy, which is great for our end sauce
08:55consistency.
08:56I'm going to go ahead and add some frozen sweet cherries, thawed and halved.
09:01We have five ounces here, which is around a half a cup.
09:04I'm also going to add the juices from our chicken and try not to spill any of our actual
09:09chicken in there.
09:10It's flavor right there.
09:11We're going to continue cooking this on medium heat for around two minutes, breaking them
09:16down just a little bit.
09:18As good as this may taste, it means nothing if we don't have a good sauce consistency.
09:22Right.
09:23We're going to add a cornstarch slurry so we can get a really nice consistency.
09:28Here I have two teaspoons of water.
09:31I'm going to add this to a half teaspoon of cornstarch and whisk these together.
09:36You always want to make sure you add the water to your cornstarch.
09:39If you just put the cornstarch right in there, it's going to clump up.
09:42I'm going to add this to our sauce here.
09:45Now we want to cook this on high for one minute.
09:49The cornstarch needs to boil to activate those starches.
09:53Do you do cooking by sound?
09:55I do, yes.
09:56Yeah.
09:56You know when the bubbles get tighter, you're getting less and less liquid as those sugars
10:01are concentrating and there's more fat than there is water in there.
10:04And it goes from like a boiling sound to it's almost a frying sound.
10:07Right.
10:08Sizzle.
10:08You're frying liquid like a sizzle, yeah.
10:10Our sauce looks like it has a really great consistency here.
10:14Mmm.
10:15We just have one final step.
10:17What would a pan sauce be without finishing it with butter?
10:20It would be illegal.
10:21I would be arrested and I don't want to go to jail.
10:24So here I have two tablespoons of unsalted butter that's chilled and cut into four pieces.
10:31And I've turned the heat off.
10:33Really important that you incorporate this in off heat and that the butter is cold.
10:37We want to gently melt this butter.
10:39If we heat it excessively, that butter is going to separate.
10:43It has fat and water and that fat's going to end up on top giving us a greasy feel as
10:47that water just dissolves right into the sauce.
10:50It looks amazing.
10:51We just need to make sure it tastes great.
10:53Okay.
10:53I'm going to go ahead and check for seasoning here.
10:58We're really close.
11:00Needs a pinch of salt and a touch of pepper.
11:02Okay.
11:03All right.
11:03Are you ready to eat?
11:04I sure am.
11:05Yes.
11:05Me too.
11:06We'll go ahead and go one chicken breast per person here.
11:11It smells amazing.
11:13Mmm.
11:13I'm going to follow you wherever that sauce goes.
11:16Beautiful.
11:16And whenever I'm saucing anything that's been seared, I find it important to give your sear
11:21a little bit of space to peek through.
11:23You don't want to cover the entire thing.
11:25Yeah.
11:26You want to show your work.
11:27Exactly.
11:28All right.
11:29All right.
11:29All right.
11:30This looks absolutely beautiful.
11:33First test really is getting a piece of chicken without the sauce.
11:39By the way, I've got the most challenging part of the chicken, the tiny little end.
11:44Really well seasoned.
11:46Great flavor.
11:47That's gorgeous.
11:48I mean, it almost tastes like you salted the chicken and let it sit for a while.
11:52But I love this beautifully juicy inside still.
11:55I love this recipe.
11:57It all came together in under 20 minutes or so.
12:00And it can be easily done on any weeknight.
12:03Well, you really are a teacher because you took us through the basics of pan sauce making.
12:08You had the fond already established in the pan.
12:11You heated the aromatics along with the herbs first, deglazed the pan, reduced the liquid
12:16in there to concentrate flavor, and then finished it.
12:19A little cornstarch, a little butter.
12:20Absolutely.
12:21And that's what I love about it.
12:22It's such a great format.
12:24Learning something new.
12:25Never tasted so good.
12:27So thank you, Alex.
12:28You're welcome.
12:28And if you want to try this fantastic recipe at home, it starts by pounding boneless chicken
12:34breasts so that they're of even thickness.
12:36Then cook them in a cold skillet and flip every two minutes to brown and cook evenly.
12:41Finally, follow up with a beautiful pan sauce.
12:44So from America's Test Kitchen, cold start pan-seared chicken breasts, a la Alex.
12:51Mmm.
12:52Fantastic.
12:53All right.
12:54What do you got next?
13:02Most supermarkets dedicate at least half an aisle to paper towels.
13:06And today, Adam's here to tell us what the difference between all our options are.
13:10There are so many, and they're so confusing and overwhelming.
13:13We are going to try and slog our way through and come up with the differences.
13:16To do that, we assembled this lineup of 10 different paper towels.
13:20Wow.
13:20We had popular name brands.
13:22We had options that are budget-friendly, eco-friendly, and some of the private label ones.
13:29Some of them were full sheet style.
13:31Some of them were select-a-size style.
13:33They ranged in costs from about $5 a roll to $1.19 a roll.
13:38And that worked out to $0.07 per sheet to $0.01 per sheet.
13:42Okay, that's a difference.
13:43That's a difference.
13:44That's a real difference.
13:45Now, for the testing, we did a bunch of different stuff.
13:47We analyzed their strength.
13:50We evaluated their absorption capability.
13:54We used them to wipe different surfaces, including wood and stainless steel and granite and glass.
14:01We dried freshly washed dishes, including delicate glassware with them.
14:07We used them just in daily life for whatever came up for more than a week.
14:11And then testers also unrolled them, counted the number of sheets, which ranged from 75 to 180 per roll.
14:18And that spoke to the cost per sheet.
14:21The thicknesses varied a little bit.
14:23We measured some of them, the thinner ones, for instance, at 0.3 millimeters.
14:29Okay.
14:31The thicker ones, like this, were 0.5 millimeters.
14:35Oh, yeah.
14:36And it wasn't a huge surprise.
14:37The thinner sheets were a little less absorbent.
14:40They picked up about a quarter cup or less of water, as opposed to the thicker sheets, which picked up
14:45a third of a cup or more.
14:47And then this one was the champ.
14:50This picked up more than half a cup of water in just seconds.
14:54Oh, wow.
14:55Now, in terms of the strength and how that relates to the thickness and the thinness,
14:59I want you to tear off a sheet of this guy there, pour out some of this soy sauce, and
15:04do a little wiping up for me, please, Julia.
15:07Are you good at making a mess?
15:08I am very good at making a mess.
15:11Uh-oh.
15:13Uh-oh.
15:13Uh-oh.
15:13I'm just making a bigger mess.
15:15Uh-oh.
15:17I'm going to need a few more for my hands.
15:19I'm going to tear off some extra paper towels.
15:21So you can see that not only do your hands get messy, but you need to use extra sheets because
15:26it's not that absorbent.
15:28Yeah.
15:28And related to that, testers really found that the packaging terms like double or triple didn't really connote any extra
15:35value or cost savings.
15:36What did make a difference is that feature of selecticized sheets.
15:41Love that feature.
15:42Where you can tear off half a sheet of paper towel, you're using less paper, and you can use that
15:47to clean up the rest of that mess.
15:48Oh, thank you.
15:49That was bothering me.
15:50Oh, wow.
15:51This is a dream.
15:52It's a lot thicker.
15:53It's a lot sturdier, isn't it?
15:55Yes.
15:56I have towel to spare.
15:57Excellent.
15:58In the end, we had co-winners.
16:00One of them was this.
16:01This is the Bounty Selecticize.
16:03They both actually had that selecticize feature.
16:06This one is $3 a roll for 135 sheets.
16:09This is the Viva Signature Cloth Towel.
16:12Also has selecticize.
16:14This is $4.15 a roll for 141 sheets.
16:18They were strong.
16:19They were thirsty.
16:20They have the selecticize.
16:22And these are definitely the paper towels to go for.
16:24Okay.
16:24There you have it.
16:25If you find yourself in that aisle wondering which paper towel to buy, there are two you could look for.
16:30The first is the Bounty Selecticize paper towel.
16:33That's about $3 a roll.
16:35And the other is the Viva Signature Cloth Towels at about $4.15 a roll.
16:46When making mashed potatoes, I never use a recipe because it's just so simple.
16:50You cut up some potatoes, you boil them, and mash them with butter and cream until they taste just right.
16:55But today, Sam is going to try to convince me that I should follow a recipe because not only is
16:59it quicker,
16:59my version, takes anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour, but she claims they'll taste better, which is a high
17:05bar.
17:06I'm willing to take on that challenge, Julia, because this recipe is really reliant on using a perfect formula.
17:12And it's going to flip everything that you've ever learned about mashed potatoes on its head.
17:16Yeah.
17:16Already I see water boiling, so we're already on different pages.
17:19These mashed potatoes are going to be on our plates in 30 minutes, and they're also very adaptable, depending on
17:25your mashed potato preferences.
17:27Interesting.
17:27Okay, you have my attention.
17:29Let's start with our potatoes, of course.
17:31We are using two pounds of potatoes total, and we're using Yukon Golds.
17:36Okay.
17:36They're creamy, they're buttery, they're delicious.
17:38The first thing we want to do, of course, per any mashed potato recipe, is peel our potatoes.
17:44We have all of our peeled potatoes.
17:46Again, we're using two pounds.
17:48And rather than cutting them into chunks, we're going to slice them into quarter-inch slices.
17:53Okay.
17:54Now, you can certainly use a chef's knife for this, and certainly take your time, but I'm going to trust
17:59my mighty fine mandolin.
18:01You just want to be super safe about it.
18:02You want to have your finger guard.
18:04I also have my very stylish cut-resistant glove on.
18:08This is great to use if you're using mandolins often, or cutting.
18:12Or doing a Michael Jackson impersonation.
18:14Exactly.
18:15Now we're going to take our potatoes, and I'm going to use the handguard here, and just one, two, three.
18:21Keep running it through until you get that last little end.
18:25So oftentimes when you're cutting potatoes into chunks, it's kind of hard to cook them evenly, because you have thin
18:30ends, thicker ends.
18:31It's kind of dicey when you're cooking them.
18:33By having these potatoes sliced perfectly thin from edge to edge, they're going to cook perfectly evenly every single time.
18:39Okay.
18:39And now we can get to cooking our potatoes.
18:42And you'll see that we are using a medium saucepan that has one quart of water that's already come to
18:49a boil.
18:49That is not a lot of water.
18:50It certainly is not.
18:52But because we sliced our potatoes so thin, they're very compact and can fit in a tinier saucepan, which means
18:58less water, which means less time waiting for it to come to a boil.
19:01That is true.
19:02A big pot of water takes 20 to 25 minutes to come to a boil on my stove over high.
19:07Eat.
19:07Too long for me.
19:09I want mashed potatoes right now.
19:11Now the thing here is that you want to make sure that your potatoes are fully submerged in your water.
19:15So if you want to add a little bit more, that's okay.
19:19And now we want to bring this up to a boil again on high heat.
19:23And once our potatoes come back up to a boil, we're going to reduce the heat to medium, put the
19:27cover on top, and let them simmer until a paring knife inserts right into a potato without any resistance, which
19:33should take about 12 minutes.
19:35Okay.
19:3512 minutes.
19:36Mm-hmm.
19:37You say so.
19:39Julia, it's been 12 minutes.
19:40Okay.
19:41And I promised you cook potatoes.
19:42So let's check them out.
19:46So again, I'm just going to take a paring knife and press it right into the center.
19:50Just 12 minutes.
19:52That was fast.
19:52Isn't that so exciting?
19:55It is kind of exciting.
19:57All right.
19:57So we're going to take our potatoes, and now we're going to, of course, drain them.
20:00I have a colander in my sink.
20:04Little potato facial for you.
20:06Mm-hmm.
20:06Nice and starchy.
20:08So let's give this a little shake and dump our potatoes right back into our saucepan.
20:14All right.
20:14So we have our cooked potatoes, and now we need to mash our potatoes.
20:18Mm-hmm.
20:18Now this is sort of a choose-your-own-adventure situation.
20:21So we have a couple of options here.
20:23If you wanted a super smooth mashed potato, you could use either this food mill or a ricer.
20:29Mm-hmm.
20:29Or if you wanted it to be a little bit more rustic, you could opt for the potato masher, which
20:33is what I'm going to use for us because I promised speed.
21:04Okay.
21:06So we're going to cut into smaller pieces just to help it melt more evenly into the potatoes.
21:10That's unsalted butter because we're going to manage the salt ourselves with one teaspoon
21:14of table salt.
21:15Okay.
21:16And there was no salt in the cooking water.
21:18That's right.
21:19Okay.
21:19This is where all the seasoning happens.
21:21Mm-hmm.
21:22Now in some of our other mashed potato recipes, we add the butter in first because that helps
21:26prevent the starches from gelatinizing and giving you gummy potatoes.
21:29That's what I do.
21:30But since we use the mandolin, we slice the potatoes super thin, they were even from edge
21:35to edge and cooked evenly, we can avoid that altogether.
21:38Crazy.
21:39All right.
21:39So it all goes in.
21:40All goes in.
21:41Two pounds of potatoes, four tablespoons of butter, eight tablespoons of half and half, and
21:46one teaspoon of salt.
21:47Okay.
21:48Watch the magic happen.
21:50All right.
21:51These are looking pretty good to me.
21:52Mm-hmm.
21:53Now, if you wanted, you could add up to two more tablespoons of your half and half or
21:57your milk.
21:57Gotcha.
21:58To adjust the consistency.
21:59That's right.
22:00But I think these look pretty good.
22:01But before we eat, I do want to taste this for seasoning.
22:04So...
22:06Honestly, the salt is perfect.
22:08I will give us a little sprinkling of pepper, give that a stir.
22:13And just like that, we're ready to eat.
22:15That was quick and I'm ready to eat.
22:16Incredible, right?
22:17Hey.
22:18That's my kind of portion, Sam.
22:21All right.
22:22Notice a little extra butter.
22:23I figured, why not?
22:24Mm-hmm.
22:25You know, a little celebratory, super fast potatoes deserve a little spoon of butter on top.
22:29Now let's dig in.
22:30All right.
22:30I have to see if it would hold a little pond of gravy.
22:34That's the test.
22:35Yeah.
22:35Those look like sturdy pond walls to hold in the gravy.
22:38I'm going to be a harsh critic, just so you know.
22:40I haven't taken a bite yet.
22:40I'm here for it.
22:41I can take it.
22:41I'm not going to pussyfoot around what I really think.
22:51It's pretty good.
22:54Actually, that's really good.
22:56The potatoes are perfectly cooked.
22:57And it's the balance of the potato with the half and half in the butter.
23:02Yep.
23:02Because I just do it to taste and I overdo it.
23:05Mm-hmm.
23:05And you don't taste the potato.
23:06But in this, you taste the potato, but it still is creamy.
23:10Absolutely.
23:10There's just four ingredients and a little bit of consideration of measurements and cutting
23:16the potatoes right.
23:17Mm-hmm.
23:18Sam, these are really good.
23:19So glad you like them.
23:20Thank you for showing me a new method for mashed potatoes.
23:23Anytime.
23:24If you want a recipe for fast and fabulous mashed potatoes, peel and slice two pounds of potatoes
23:30quarter-inch thick, cook the potatoes in a medium pot of boiling water, then mash and
23:35add eight tablespoons of half and half and four tablespoons of butter.
23:38From America's Test Kitchen, a great recipe for the fastest, easiest mashed potatoes.
23:43You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with our product reviews
23:47and select episodes at our website, americastestkitchen.com slash TV.
23:53This really is a game changer.
23:55I will never do mashed potatoes differently.
23:57Mm-hmm.
23:57Mm.
23:58Mm-hmm.
23:58Mm-hmm.
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