These savory mushroom turnovers might just be the best pastry snacks, since they sound delicious at any time of day, from breakfast through to midnight snack—with midmornings, afternoons, and cocktail hours in between. These flaky, crispy pastries boast a rich and herby roasted mushroom and cream cheese filling that pairs just as well with a coffee or tea as it does a glass of wine. While making turnovers is pretty easy, you have to pay attention to a few details to make them exceptional. You can start by making [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/puff-pastry puff pastry dough] from scratch; in the words of a famous shoeless contessa, store-bought will work fine, but homemade puff pastry will yield flakier, more buttery layers. But the real key to good turnovers is taking into account the moisture content of the filling. If it’s too wet, it’ll sog out the puff pastry, preventing it from baking up into distinct, flaky layers. Roasting the mushrooms gets rid of a ton of excess moisture and produces browned, caramelized notes that intensify their savory qualities and make them all the more delicious. Blitzed up with cream cheese, tender herbs like parsley or chives, and a splash of sherry vinegar for brightness, the filling is rich and balanced, the earthiness of the mushrooms offset slightly by a little lemon zest and black pepper. They’re a perfect snack to have around at all times, but they also work wonderfully as passed appetizers for the holidays (you can make them more bite-sized if you’re worried about guests getting flaky puff pastry crumbs all over your furniture). And this method can be used with other fillings, too, like sweet [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/classic-frangipane frangipane]. For those with dietary restrictions, you can also whip up a plant-based puff pastry and whip up a dairy-free filling!
Layers of plush and buttery yeasted bread and slightly bitter dark chocolate, sweetened with syrup, twisted up and baked in a Bundt pan ... that’s right, it’s our take on chocolate babka! Babka comes in many forms—sweet, savory, and everything in between. The main pitfall of chocolate babka in particular is it can bake up a little dry. We solve for that by intentionally underbaking the bread. Starches gel at [f 185], so cooking the dough to just under that temp ([f 175]) amplifies the gooeyness of the bread, which, when combined with the rich dark chocolate, makes a super-gooey, chocolatey treat, perfect for breakfast or a midday or midnight snack, any day of the week. Sure, it’s basically a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-chocolate-cake chocolate cake], but with none of the stigma attached to eating chocolate cake for breakfast! To preserve the distinct layers of bread and chocolate filling, you have to be a little careful when twisting the dough—too tight and you run the risk of smooshing all those layers together. Once you’ve got the coil of dough and filling twisted tight—but not too tight—we found that setting it in a Bundt pan increased the caramelly browned notes, thanks to the increased surface area. We also reduced the proof and bake times significantly when compared with versions proofed and baked in loaf pans.
Think of the best [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/if-croissants-and-cinnamon-rolls-had-a-baby cinnamon roll] you’ve ever had. Got it? Now imagine the best [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/coffee-cake-with-a-european-twist coffee cake] ever. Great. Now dial up the cinnamon flavor, make it more buttery, add in pecans and a heavy dose of caramel, and picture it coiled into a Bundt pan. There you have it: the best cinnamon babka. There are all kinds of babka—sweet, savory, and in any flavor combination you can imagine. This babka leans into the sweeter side of the babka universe and takes advantage of the fact that enriched, sweet doughs can be underproofed and underbaked and still produce exceptional results. Since starches gel at [f 185], cooking the dough to just under that temp ([f 175]) amplifies the gooeyness of the bread, making it all the more delicious to eat. The key to success is twisting the dough tightly but not too tightly. Using the classic twist for the shaping gives you tons of layers without running the risk of smushing them together (be gentle!). Using a Bundt pan increases the surface area of the exterior, yielding more caramelly, browned notes in the final pastry, with a speedier bake time than babka that’s baked in a loaf pan. It’s also helpful to plan on making the babka over two days. Make the dough and the fillings on the first day, then assemble, proof, and bake it off on the second day.
There are countless ways to break down poultry, depending on the culinary tradition you’re working in and/or the way you plan to use the various parts. For example, breaking down a bird [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/how-to-butcher-turkey-yakitori-style yakitori-style] requires a different approach than breaking down a chicken for [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/chili-fried-chicken Chili Fried Chicken]. This method for breaking down a chicken yields 10 bone-in pieces—two drumsticks, two thighs, two wings, and four breast pieces—plus a back that can be used to make [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pressure-cooked-blond-chicken-stock stock]. It’s commonly referred to as a “country-cut,” and it’s the best method to use for making classic Southern-style [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-ultimate-guide-to-fried-chicken fried chicken] or a stew. The process is designed to produce serving pieces of relatively consistent size, which makes it easier to nail cook times, and it also preserves the integrity of the skin, particularly on the bone-in breast pieces. Let’s get into it.
Pâté en croûte is the pinnacle of charcuterie. Endlessly variable and brutally difficult to prepare well, it’s a test of a cook’s ingenuity, skill, and creativity. Few preparations involve as many intertwined elements and processes, every one of which can go drastically wrong, and every wrong move often means ruining the entire preparation. The pâté en croûte maker is part butcher, part pastry chef, part technician, and part engineer. But to be a master, they need to be a bit of an artist, too. That’s because a pâté en croûte is meant to be visually stunning. Carve off a slice and it should look like a rosy-hued mosaic made of meat instead of tile. Any blemishes or unintended inconsistencies in the interior are immediately apparent, each one evidence of deficiencies in technique. The pastry may look gummy and underbaked, or brittle and too brown; the farce, if overcooked or badly ground, will look mottled and smeared; uncentered inlays point to laziness or haplessness, or both. And if it looks beautiful? Great. But how does it taste? Not everyone can do it well, and not everyone can make it even more delicious than it looks. And the only people who can do it have had to practice it. A lot! There are very few resources for the aspiring pâté en croûte artisan, even in this day and age, where the internet appears to know all. Much of the technique has been hidden behind the pass of brigade kitchens in France. So, we turned to Kevin Smith of Seattle’s Butcher & Cleaver to demo his method for us. This is a deluxe version that Kevin sells at his shop and at his restaurant, The Peasant. Every element is dialed in, including his innovative <em>seamless</em> pastry crust, an impressive bit of pastry architecture that both minimizes leakage and looks incredible. It is, of course, a lot of work. Yes, this recipe is <em>very</em> long. You do not, however, have to make it exactly as written. You do not need the optional (and delicious) inlays of boudin noir and foie gras; you do not need to make pastry braids or apply activated charcoal tuile paste to the exterior; and you do not need to make cute chimneys to prettify the vents in the pastry. But the method described here offers all the wit and wisdom Kevin has accumulated over years of mastering this difficult dish, and it is entirely doable in a home kitchen, provided you have a pâté mold. Don’t believe us? [link https://www.instagram.com/the_english_butcher/p/Cj6D5jnvDOJ/?img_index=10 Kevin took home third place] in the World Pâté-Croûte Championship - Americas competition in 2022—and he did it all in an Airbnb kitchen! Let’s get into it.
Italian beef? Yes, chef! Ever since <em>The Bear</em> came out, everyone’s been running around calling each other chef, and everyone and their <em>cousin</em> have been asking us to put out an Italian beef sandwich recipe. Remember when Carmy had to use all his fine-dining cheffy skills to transform the wrong cut of beef into even-more-excellent Italian beef than the shop usually served? Yeah, we did that. Carmy just used a straight braise, but when you can dial in the exact braising temperature using sous vide or [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/how-induction-works precision induction], you can guarantee great, stress-free results without having to kick anyone off the line in a fit of blind chef rage. Both methods will get you perfectly cooked beef—firm enough to slice thin, tender enough that strips of beef won’t slide out of the sandwich, with a little herbal lift from a spice mix of ground fennel seed, coriander, black pepper, red pepper flakes, paprika, oregano, and thyme. Italian beef is sort of an odd duck of a sandwich meat, since it’s served hot, like [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sous-vide-pastrami pastrami], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/oven-barbecue-brisket brisket], or shaved ribeye in cheesesteaks, but it’s usually made from bottom or top round—tough, lean cuts that are best served in cold, thin slices in sandwiches because they don’t have a ton of intramuscular fat. The reason why Italian beef is warmed in the beef braising liquid (jus for most of us, “gravy” for you Chicagoans) is because it helps season the meat <em>and</em> makes the naturally lean meat seem “juicier.” For home cooks, the main obstacle to a good Italian beef sandwich is a deli slicer—it’s tough to get super-thin slices of round using a knife. Over the years, we’ve shown countless times that you can transform traditional braising cuts into sliceable roasts that eat like steaks cooked to a perfect medium-rare just by harnessing the power of a long, low-temperature cook, so we applied that method to a series of cuts—round, but also brisket and short ribs—and we found that short ribs gave us the most delicious <em>and</em> most consistent results. Cooked for 24 hours and chilled, you can easily carve off super-thin slices that are perfect for piling into a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/italian-sandwich-rolls soft Italian roll]. The beef is so tender and beefy that it doesn’t need much else. It could be served in a “dry” sandwich with some [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/hot-giardiniera hot giardiniera] and you’d be perfectly happy. But because we use [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/beef-bouillon-cubes Ultimate Beef Bouillon Cubes] in the braising liquid, you’re going to want to at least serve it “wet”—dousing the sandwich generously with the glutamate-packed gravy.
If you’re going to make a proper [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/precision-italian-beef Italian beef sandwich], you need the right roll. A roll that’s soft and squishy with a tight, even crumb that can stand up easily to a generous splash of gravy or a full dip. A roll with a tender crust that doesn’t shatter into a million little shards like a hoagie roll or a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/banh-mi-bread bánh mì]. This is it. Using a relatively short proof time helps with that soft crumb, but it also means the bread isn’t as tasty as bread made with an extended proof time. To boost the fermentation and flavor, we give you the option of adding diastatic malt powder. For an even, tight crumb that can absorb the gravy dunk without disintegrating into mush, we use a relatively extended mixing process and then vigorously degas the dough during shaping.
When you order an Italian beef sandwich, you can get it hot, sweet, or both. Getting it hot means you want it with [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/hot-giardiniera hot giardiniera], the pickled mixed vegetables condiment used in so many iconic Chicago foods, including [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/tavern-style-pizza tavern-style pizza]. Sweet means you want some sweet peppers—roasted until meltingly soft then skinned and seeded—to take the edge of the salty, juicy beef. For our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/precision-italian-beef Italian beef sandwich], we wanted to give you the option of going hot, sweet, or both, but we also wanted to kick up the flavor and texture for the sweet option. (You could, of course, bump up the sugar and omit the hot peppers in the hot giardiniera, if you like.) Instead of just using roasted bell peppers, we came up with a roasted pepper condiment that borrows a little of the pickled flavor profile of giardiniera. By roasting the peppers and the onion briefly, then allowing the latent heat to steam the vegetables, their texture is closer to the tender crispness of a nice pickle. We like the way the crisp, lightly sweet vegetables play with the beef, along with the hot giardiniera and the soft and plush bread in an Italian beef sandwich, but it’s also a great all-purpose condiment, as good on pizza slices as it is draped on a cracker with some tinned fish or tucked in a cold cut sandwich.
Dirty rice is an iconic Creole dish of seasoned rice mixed with chopped up, cooked down offal, often chicken livers and giblets. The “dirty” in the name refers to the speckled brown coloring the rice takes on once the livers and giblets have been mixed in. Deeply savory, with a pronounced minerality from the liver and other offal, it’s one of the all-time great side dishes. Fried rice is an iconic Chinese dish of rice tossed in a wok with finely cut vegetables and proteins. The best fried rice consists of cooked rice, coated in fat so that each individual grain is distinct, tossed in ripping-hot wok over the flames of a high-output gas burner, which periodically ignite aerosolized fat to produce the inimitable smoky flavor known as wok hei. What this recipe asks is: What happens if you made dirty rice, but with Chinese fried rice technique? It’s one of the most popular sides that we serve alongside our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/chili-fried-chicken Chili Fried Chicken] at [link https://www.peckinghouse.com/ Pecking House]. We borrow “the scrape” technique from Cajun cuisine, in which a purée of chicken liver is smeared onto a cast iron griddle and cooked until deeply browned on the bottom, and then it’s scraped off the griddle and chopped up into fine bits with a spatula. We also use the Cajun “trinity”—celery, green bell pepper, and onion—to hit that distinct flavor profile. But we cook everything in a ripping-hot wok, and we use the standard techniques for making great fried rice: cooking, cooling, drying, and fluffing the rice beforehand, so the grains of rice remain distinct; cutting the vegetables into the finest of dices, so they cook to “tender-crisp” in seconds; and, of course, using a high-output burner so the flames lick the fried rice as it’s tossed just over the lip of the wok, for wok hei. Each grain of rice is coated in oil (and a little butter, for richness), and each bite has a little minerality from tiny speckles of charred chicken liver, a little sweetness from the onion, and a little grassiness from the celery and bell pepper. Seasoned with salt and a little MSG, it’s a side that works incredibly well with strongly seasoned mains (like our Chili Fried Chicken) but can also stand on its own as a light meal.
Break out your [link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WDW8XKEGgU cornballer], folks, because it’s time to fry some cornballs! Hush puppies are basically fried cornbread nuggets. Packed with cubes of smoky tasso ham, cheddar, and sliced scallions, these nuggets are crispy, light, salty, tangy, and slightly sweet from the corn—the perfect side dish. Our batter uses a mix of cornmeal and all-purpose flour, enriched with buttermilk and eggs and leavened with baking powder. Mixing the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in stages helps prevent overmixing, which would develop the gluten in the flour a little too much, and it keeps the crumb light and almost cake-like. To boost the sweetness, we serve the hush puppies with “apple honey.” No, it’s not honey made in an apiary on an apple orchard—it’s a syrup made from freshly pressed, unpasteurized apple cider that has the same viscosity as honey at room temperature. Pasteurized cider—or cider that has been treated with enzymes to remove pectin [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pectin-free-juice to improve the product’s clarity]—won’t work in this application. Since the texture is produced by [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/science-of-pectin pectin’s gelling qualities], the cider needs to start with an ample concentration of pectin. With the added sugar and the natural acidity of cider, gently reducing the liquid will transform it into a golden, flowing syrup that tastes distinctly of apples. Call it “vegan honey”! Serve the crispy, golden hush puppies up with a pot of apple honey and a honey wand alongside, so you can drizzle as little or as much as you like, and you might just forget about anything else on the table.
We’ve been hard at work producing a series of recipes for the ultimate versions of standard muffin flavors: [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-blueberry-muffins blueberry], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/lemon-poppy-seed-muffins lemon-poppy seed], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-corn-muffins corn], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/double-chocolate-muffins double-chocolate], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-banana-nut-muffin banana-nut]. Each one treats muffins like the little cakes they are, and we spared no effort in making those cakes as delicious as they can be. However, we realize that most people just want to throw muffins together as quickly as possible. Maybe for special occasions, like hosting a bonkers brunch, you’d be happy to whip up a meringue and fold it into muffin batter or pull out your blender just to grind cornmeal so fine it performs more like cake flour. But if you want to wake up on a lazy Saturday and put together a sweet breakfast treat in the time it takes to drink a couple cups of coffee? You probably don’t want to get out the stand mixer—you want to use this recipe. If you make this recipe without any mix-ins, you’ll have four perfect jumbo muffins: sweet, with a cake-like crumb, but with none of a cake’s more involved technique. We’ve streamlined the method for tempering the liquid phase of the batter by incorporating hot melted butter, which means you can stir it into the dry ingredients and produce a nice emulsion. (You also have the option of browning the butter first, for the added flavor boost brown butter brings to any sweet pastry). But what this recipe really offers is a base batter that can accommodate all kinds of different flavor variations. We put it to the test and developed 11 flavor combinations to illustrate how you can modify the recipe. You can use these variations as written, of course, but you can also use them as a guide to come up with muffins of your own.
Who wants [link https://youtu.be/gBLX3bcZzXk?si=FVftEO2AkNPat8Lp&t=110 chocolate cake for breakfast]? Maybe the better question is: Who <em>doesn’t</em> want chocolate cake for breakfast? With a super-tender crumb, cocoa powder and dark chocolate chunks in the batter, and a chocolate glaze on top, these rich muffins blur the line between muffins and cakes more than any other muffin recipe. Add in a layer of streusel in the middle and on top, with the option of spiking the streusel with cocoa powder for an extra hit of chocolate, and every bite of these crazy chocolatey cakes will be crunchy, gooey, and pillowy soft, all at the same time. The key to the recipe’s success is properly emulsifying the batter. By tempering the eggs and buttermilk with hot browned butter, we bring the liquid portion of the batter up to a nice warm temperature, which helps create a stable emulsion. That browned butter also helps to give an extra dimension of flavor, rounding out the sweetness of the sugar and the richness of the chocolate.
Banana-nut muffins are S-tier muffins. They're one of the tried-and-true flavor combos that most anyone would welcome at breakfast, so good that even when the muffin itself is kind of dry or bland, you’re still pretty happy. If they've got got nuts and bananas, they're fine. But we wanted an “ultimate” banana-nut muffin! And while we basically took the same tack as with our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-blueberry-muffins Ultimate Blueberry Muffin]—dial up the banana flavor, dial up the nuts—we also wanted to improve the muffin itself. Matthew turned to his grandmother’s banana bread recipe and its secret ingredient: orange juice. The acidity from the juice (and an extra bump from some malic acid) offers a nice counterpoint to all the sweet stuff, and it also happens to boost and complement the flavor of the banana. We tried all kind of methods for intensifying the banana flavor by cooking the fruit—pressure cooking with baking soda for more Maillard browning; roasting them in their skins, like we do with our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/roasted-banana-pudding Vegan Banana Pudding]—but using large chunks of fresh banana yielded muffins with some really nice big pieces of fruit. So instead of cooking the fruit, we just worked in some freeze-dried banana powder into the batter and some banana extract into the icing. And while there’s nothing wrong with the walnuts usually used in banana-nut muffins, we figured if we’re going to do an ultimate version, we might as well kick it up a notch with pecans. The key step for success here is emulsifying the batter properly, and it helps a lot if you’ve got your ingredients at the right temperature. The recipe calls for warming the eggs but be careful about using orange juice straight from the fridge or chunks of frozen bananas. For the best results, you’ll want to warm the juice and bananas to about room temperature.
Christmas pudding is a classic holiday dessert with medieval roots that serves as a great introduction to the wild world of British cuisine. It’s a pudding but not a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/custard-parametric-analysis custard]. It’s a dessert, packed with beef fat. It’s (sort of) a cake that’s steamed, not baked. If you’re going full medieval, you make it a year in advance, wrap it in a pillowcase, and hang it over the fireplace until <i>next</i> Christmas. And then you douse it in booze and set the whole thing on fire. Christmas pudding defies logic and definition, but one thing is for sure: When done right, it’s downright delicious. In terms of texture and flavor, Christmas pudding gives off [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pure-24-carrot-cake-with-fresh-carotene-cream-cheese-frosting carrot cake] vibes with a baba au rhum boozy kick. It’s at once dense and moist, rich and delicate, sweet and spiced. Finished with a flourish of flaming brandy and a generous pour of lightly sweetened cream, this is a holiday dessert worth celebrating, without being a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/classic-panettone-in-one-day panettone-level] project. Take it from the pudding pro himself, Kevin Smith: “This is the easiest dish in the world to make.” Hold on a sec, you may be saying, puddings and cakes are never <i>easy</i>. What’s the catch? Well, the thing about Christmas pudding is that the process of making it is nothing like making a delicate batter or temperature-sensitive custard. You don’t need a stand mixer or a double boiler. In fact, in terms of composition and procedure, this pudding more closely resembles meatballs, just with a mix of brandy-soaked dried fruit standing in for ground meat. Like a meatball farce, the pudding is bound together with eggs and a breadcrumb panade. Just like a good meatball, the pudding base is enriched with extra animal fat, in this case beef suet, the hard fat that surrounds the cow’s kidneys. Grated fresh quince is folded into the mix, which keeps the pudding moist and light, just as grated daikon does in [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/xiu-mai-vietnamese-meatballs Vietnamese xíu mại]; they’re even both steamed! But unlike with meatballs or cake batter, the mixing method for Christmas pudding is completely foolproof because there’s no worry of overmixing. There’s no myosin to develop, and there’s so little flour in the base that gluten development isn’t a concern. Just stir everything together, pack it in a mold, steam it, then set it on fire. No wonder this is our favorite butcher’s favorite dessert! And now it’ll be your favorite, too.
Porchetta—a whole boned out pig, seasoned, and roasted until the skin is crisp and the meat is meltingly tender and juicy—is almost impossible to get right at home. We say almost impossible because it can be done, it’s just a project. We enlisted the help of master butcher Kevin Smith to show how it’s done with our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-roast-porchetta Ultimate Roast Porchetta], replete with tips and detailed butchery demos so you can confidently execute it yourself. But we also wanted to develop a porchetta recipe that’s more approachable and forgiving. Unlike our roast porchetta, this sous vide version doesn’t require a special order cut of pork from a craft butcher, there’s no five-day minimum waiting period to air-dry pork skin, and you don’t need an advanced degree in butchery or knot-tying. This is delicious, easy, hands-off porchetta that you can start tonight with a piece of pork belly from the grocery store and have it on the table for an epic dinner tomorrow, without ever breaking a sweat. It gets you most of the payoff of great porchetta—succulent, juicy, well-seasoned pork—with a fraction of the effort.
Real-deal porchetta is a beautiful thing: A whole, boned-out pig, seasoned with fennel and garlic, roasted until the skin is crispy and glassy and the meat is meltingly tender and juicy. Chop it all up for a delicious mix of lean and fatty meat with shards of crunchy skin, stuff it into a sandwich, and you’ve got one of the most iconic Italian street foods. Making it is obviously a chore—like whole hog barbecue, it’s almost exclusively done by professionals who sell to large crowds. And a lot of places choose to go with a more manageable preparation, using pork belly and loin to approximate the blend of meat, fat, and skin of a whole pig. But even the smaller preparation is extremely hard to do well, and it’s often done poorly. This recipe gets all the details right, but it’s a project. It requires a special order cut of high-quality pork, time to properly dry out the skin, some butchery technique, a sharp knife, and a two-stage cooking process. <b>The skin:</b> Nothing can ruin a beautifully roasted pork belly and loin like hard, impossibly chewy skin. There are two keys to getting pig skin super crispy in an oven: getting it dry and cooking it hot. The less moisture in the skin, the quicker it dries out and crisps in the oven, and using an intense blast of heat right at the start of the cooking process rapidly converts any remaining moisture into steam, puffing the skin up so as it dries it forms a glassy, crunchy crust. <b>The meat:</b> Porchetta should have assertively seasoned meat, and it should be luscious and juicy, both of which are challenging because it consists of a lean, whole muscle that’s technically “overcooked” and dry above [f 140] encased in a very fatty, tough cut that’s only palatable when thoroughly cooked through to a higher internal temperature of [f 170]. Our process is engineered to nail every one of these goals: -Using a specific cut of pork—skin-on belly with the loin attached—guarantees that the loin will nest neatly in the belly, with enough skin to completely the entire roast. <br> -Air-drying the pork in the fridge dries out the skin and intensifies the flavor of the meat.<br> -Trimming the belly guarantees that you have enough skin to fully encase the roast.<br> -Butterflying the loin maximizes surface area for seasoning.<br> -Scoring the skin encourages fat rendering during roasting.<br> -A high-heat start puffs and crisps the skin, and a low-temperature roast gently brings the meat up to temperature. While it isn’t a whole pig, we get that it’s still a big endeavor, but there’s no arguing with the results. This is the ultimate roast porchetta.
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that caramelizing onions takes way longer than any recipe would have you believe. Until now. The issue most cooks have with following instructions for caramelizing onions is that the process is deceptively simple. Three ingredients—onions, butter, salt—cooked in a standard-issue pan ... how complicated could it be? But as soon as you get the pan on the hob, complications set in. How high is “medium-high” heat? Does it matter if you use a 2-quart pan instead of a 3-quart pan or a Dutch oven? When you read that the onions should be “thinly sliced,” how thin are you going to cut them? 1/2-inch slices? (Please, no.) 1/4-inch? All of these variables affect the rate at which the onions release water, break down, and the sugars they contain slowly start to caramelize. But even if you use a recipe that eliminates these variables (and you follow it exactly), one variable will still remain: the amount of heat you apply. And that’s because most cooks are working with imprecise sources of heat: gas or electric burners of various sizes. However, if you set the cook temperature precisely and regulate it so that it stays as close to constant as possible, the amount of time it takes to transform the onions from raw to any cooked stage you like will stay pretty much constant, as well. (There will be slight variation depending on how closely you follow the recipe’s procedure and, say, the exact water content of your onions.) With a Control °Freak induction burner, you can do that. We took the process a step further to generate this caramelized onion visual doneness guide. The procedure for each level of doneness is essentially the same: Cook sliced onions gently, covered, and stir occasionally until they’re cooked to your liking. The only variance between types of onions is the frequency with which you have to stir them, but even for the darkest caramelized onions, the process is almost entirely hands-off. Aside from providing visual references for the different degrees of caramelization you can achieve by cooking onions in butter, it also illustrates how the steady application of heat at a set temperature can produce wildly different textures and flavors by adjusting the cook time.
Chicken Kyiv is a classic, if dated, dish consisting of pounded chicken cutlets wrapped around cold compound butter packed with garlic and herbs, breaded, and deep fried—essentially a chicken cutlet that sauces itself once you cut it open. It’s a little bit of old-timey culinary sleight of hand, a way to elevate a breaded cutlet into a performance on a plate. This is our take on it. Sure, it doesn’t look like a deep-fried butter bomb, but it is! We turned the fussy butter gusher preparation into a straightforwardly delicious cutlet. To preserve all the buttery flavor of the original, we fry the cutlet in clarified butter (this is the best way to fry cutlets, even if it’s a little pricier than using oil). We also confit garlic in clarified butter and blitz it into a purée, which we use as a garnish on the cutlet. A double dredge in panko yields a super-crispy crust, and a generous amount of parsley chiffonade over the top helps cut through the butter. It’s crispier, super buttery, and plenty herby: It’s chicken Kyiv reimagined (and way better).
Clarified butter is a staple of kitchens all over the world, prized for its rich flavor and relatively high smoke point. Unlike whole butter, clarified butter is cooked until the fat, milk solids, and water separate and the water is boiled away, leaving you with milk solids and fat. Once strained of milk solids, clarified butter can be heated to much higher temperatures than whole butter can: The water content in whole butter puts an upper limit on the temperature it can achieve ([f 212]) until it’s cooked off, and raising the temperature beyond that point can make the milk solids burn and turn bitter. While making clarified butter is as simple as heating butter until its water evaporates, using precision temperature control makes the process consistent and entirely hands off. It also allows you to control the degree to which the milk solids brown. Increase the cook temperature on clarified butter for a few minutes, and the milk solids will become lightly browned, lending the liquid fat toasty notes—this is, essentially, ghee, the clarified butter commonly used in cooking in the Indian Subcontinent. Increase the temperature a bit more for a few minutes, and you’ll have darkly browned butter, which is darker in color and has an even more pronounced toasty flavor and aroma.
For a long time, you only had two options for cooktops: gas or electric. You probably have your preference, and you’ve probably engaged in endless debates with the partisans of the other side. “Gas is more powerful!” “Electric is more reliable!” “Nobody says, ‘We’re cooking with electric, now, baby!’” Etcetera, etcetera—you know the drill. However, there’s a third option: induction. As appliance manufacturers have embraced this technology, home cooks and professional chefs can now choose from a range of induction cooktops. But how is using an induction burner different from using a gas one? How is an induction cooktop, which uses electricity, any different from the electric burners we see in Airbnb cabins and college dormitories? What does “induction” mean, anyway?
Making french fries at home ... no thanks. It’s <em>such</em> a hassle. Making them well is a huge ordeal, and it requires a ton of cleanup. Chances are there’s a joint nearby that sells ’em cheap, crispy, and delicious. When it comes to frites, outsourcing is the way to go. Yep, we feel this way, too. Even though we have all these different french fry recipes— [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/thin-cut-french-fries thin], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/thick-cut-french-fries thick], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-crispy-french-fries super crispy]. This is why we figured out [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/air-fried-frozen-french-fries the best way to air fry them from frozen]. Convenience, sometimes, is king. But sometimes you <em>need</em> a small batch of fresh-cut fries, and you need them as close to right now as possible. Maybe you’re making [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sous-vide-steak steak], a speedy batch of mussels, or some [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/butter-burger burgers]. “Fries would really tie this meal together,” you think, “but I am not blanching and double-frying potato sticks.” We challenged ourselves to come up with a good french fry that was as unfussy to prepare as possible. And we did it: Start the potatoes in cold oil and take advantage of the precise temperature control of [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/how-induction-works induction cooking]. You end up using less than half the amount of oil you would with regular fries; it’s a single fry, so you don’t have to deal with multiple cooking steps; you don’t have to adjust the temperature during cooking; and did we mention that they’re really good? Frying at home just got a whole lot more appealing.
Scrambled eggs ... everyone’s got an opinion. Maybe you like them fluffy. Maybe you like them fancy and French—so runny and custardy they puddle on the plate. Maybe you swear by the method of that shouty British chef, who mixes up his oeufs with a little crème fraîche. We don’t judge. Scrambled eggs can be prepared a million different ways. And while there are all sorts of adjuncts you can mix into your eggs to get different textures and flavors, this simple preparation with countless permutations showcases the range of transformations you can accomplish by varying the application of heat over time. Cooked low and slow and the egg proteins coagulate gently, yielding a substance somewhere between a liquid and a solid—a custard. Hot and fast, and the egg proteins coagulate violently, producing large curds with substantial snap. Distribute the heat in different ways—mixing near constantly or casually—and you get even more textural variation. Conventional recipes rely on a conventional bag of tricks to manage temperature on your stovetop beyond just turning the knobs on your stove—like adding the eggs before the butter foams, or after, stirring eggs on-heat, then off-heat. We’re all for learning classic techniques, but they’re not foolproof, and they don’t guarantee consistently perfect results. But with the unmatched precision temperature control of the Control °Freak, <em>you</em> have total control over cooking results, so you can get perfect scrambled eggs, just the way you (or your kids) want them, every time. We've developed recipes for scrambled eggs that span the texture spectrum from ultra-creamy to super-crispy, with dialed-in times and temperatures for the Control °Freak, along with detailed videos and instructions to walk you through the process for each one. (You don’t <em>have</em> to have a fancy induction burner to make all these eggs, but it’ll make your breakfast routine a whole lot easier.) Pick the scrambled egg texture you want from the chart below and get cracking!
Every culture has its fried chicken. Crispy, salty, meaty, and juicy—it’s easy to see why it’s universally loved. This version is a marriage between Nashville hot chicken and Taiwanese popcorn chicken. I’d worked in fine dining for a while, most recently as a sous chef at Eleven Madison Park, but when the pandemic hit, I decided to start a fried chicken popup. People loved it, and now I sling chicken all day every day at Pecking House in New York City. From the Southern culinary tradition, I cribbed the buttermilk marinade (for tender, juicy, well-seasoned meat), the double fry (to create an incredibly craggy crust), and the chile oil dip. From Taiwanese popcorn chicken and other kinds of Asian fried chicken, I borrowed the technique of using a mix of starches in the coating to produce a more pronounced crunch. I also took advantage of the distinctive and aromatic spices of the Chinese pantry: numbing Sichuan peppercorns, fiery Tianjin chiles, and the warmth of Chinese five-spice powder. (And, of course, a little MSG.) Making exceptional fried chicken isn’t hard, but it does require attention to detail. Let me break those details down for you: <b>The chicken:</b> There’s a lot of different ways to break down a chicken, each suited to different applications. Our method aims for consistently sized pieces while preserving the integrity of the skin as much as possible. Where it differs from other chicken butchery methods is primarily in the way the breasts are prepared. We keep the rib cage on, so it serves as an anchor for the skin, and we split the whole breast through the keel, which helps to insulate the meat while it fries. Instead of cutting the split breasts exactly in half crosswise, we split them on a bias on the “40-yard-line,” which gives you more consistently sized pieces that’ll cook through in the same amount of time. <b>The dredge:</b> The No. 1 thing you want for the coating is for it to <em>stick</em>. In other ChefSteps fried chicken recipes, that’s accomplished by letting the chicken sit in its dredge, which helps to hydrate the flour. We wanted something a little more efficient for handling large volume, so we achieve a similar effect by just adding a small amount of flour to the buttermilk marinade. The flour hydrates, thickening the marinade to an almost yogurt-like consistency, and that paste ends up forming a lattice the dry dredge can hold onto during the frying process. So, we can just pull the chicken out of the marinade, dredge, and get straight to frying. <b>Crispy <em>and</em> juicy chicken:</b> If you start off with cooked chicken, like [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/foolproof-sous-vide-fried-chicken sous vide fried chicken], all you need to do while frying is crisp and brown the crust. When you cook from raw, you have to cook the chicken through without burning the crust, and you have to get the crust crispy without drying the chicken. Our solution is to fry at a relatively low temp ([f 325]) and use a double fry. This is super simple to do in a commercial fryer—there’s lots of oil, so adding cold chicken doesn’t drop the temp too much and it recovers quickly. In a home kitchen, you’ll be using a smaller volume of oil, so you need to start off with oil at a higher temperature—[f 350]—which will then drop down to [f 325] once you add the chicken. You also want to keep the chicken pieces moving more than you would in commercial fryer to ensure even cooking. (Be gentle; you work hard for that crust.) <b>Chile oil:</b> The key to the chile oil, other than the spice mix used to season it, is <em>viscosity</em>. To get it to cling to the fried crust with just the right amount, you don’t want it too liquid. We found a mix of duck fat and neutral oil keeps it both flowing and slightly viscous (with the duck fat providing extra depth of flavor and richness), and that viscosity is enhanced by the maltodextrin in the vinegar powder we add to the oil for a little acidity. At room temp, the chile oil coats the chicken just right.
Making puff pastry is a challenge, even for experienced bakers. In professional kitchens, puff dough is often made with pastry sheeters, but you can make beautiful dough at home that’s way better than any of the stuff from the freezer aisle with just a stand mixer, a little patience, and some elbow grease. The texture of baked hand-made puff pastry is incomparable: It’s crisp and super flaky but also tender and melts away almost as soon as you take a bite. It’s so tasty you won’t care that you’ve got a mess of flaky crumbs all over your plate, your floor, your clothes, and your face. Like [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-secret-to-mastering-croissants-at-home croissant dough], puff pastry (or pâte feuilletée if you want to get all French about it), is a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/all-about-laminated-doughs laminated dough] made by folding layers and layers of a block of dough (the détrempe) around layers and layers of a block of butter (the beurrage). When baked, the water in the butter converts to steam, creating space between each layer of dough, causing it to “puff,” while the fat helps to crisp the layers as the steam dissipates, yielding (good) puff pastry’s characteristic flaky, crispy texture. Making puff dough from scratch requires patience and precision. Our method uses two types of folds to create the distinct layers—a letter fold and a book fold—and we perform each of those folds twice. The puff dough is chilled and rested between each round of folds to ensure that the butter doesn’t get too warn and melt into the dough, which would cause it to bake up into a greasy, sad pie dough. It also ensures the gluten in the dough is well-rested, making it extensible and easy to roll out. Once you’ve made puff pastry from scratch, you’ll never want to go back to the frozen store-bought stuff. Use it for all kinds savory and sweet items, like Napoleons, pithiviers, mille-feuilles, tarte tatins, or our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/cheese-claws cheese claws]!
The healthiest way to start your day is with a hearty breakfast rich with fiber—fruit, whole grains, a bean dish or two if you’re super serious about it. But the best way to start your day? A buttery, crispy, flaky, cheesy, and sweet puff pastry treat. Hello, cheese claws! They’re like the steamy, hot love child of a cheese Danish or bear claw and a turnover. These delicious numbers take all of about 15 minutes to put together, and they’re a great way to show off your [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/puff-pastry homemade puff pastry]. (You can use store-bought puff, too, though!) On a more practical level, this recipe illustrates the best practices to ensure that all the distinct layers of dough are preserved even as you shape and mold and cut puff pastry: keeping the dough and the filled and shaped pastries cold; resting the dough as necessary to relax the gluten; working quickly; egg washing the dough before baking to give it a burnished, golden glow; and cutting the dough straight down, instead of slicing or pulling when making cuts, to separate the individual pastries without smushing the layers into pasty mush.
“Should I brine my turkey?” “Is ‘brining’ just a fancy word for ‘salting’?” “What does a brine even do?” “I’ve got to brine my bird for 5 days??” For many home cooks, the questions of when and whether to use a brine (and why!) mostly come up during the holidays, when you’re getting a big old turkey ready for Thanksgiving. There are several different brining methods that you can employ, each with pros and cons. To help you decide whether or not you want to brine your bird, we’ve created a decision tree/flowchart. If you find you do want to use a brine, we’ve created a chart to use as a quick reference guide for brine ratios and timing for standard poultry parts and weights, as well as a poultry brining calculator spreadsheet that you can use to input the precise weight of your bird (or bird parts) to get the exact measurements for the brine of your choice, along with suggested brining times.
Who doesn’t love chicken nuggets? Not us. We could slam a 20-piece, easy, and not think twice about it. But what if those nuggets actually tasted like ... something? We’re not just talking about the seasoning—the white pepper, the MSG, the garlic and onion powders—that makes the sort-of-crispy, sort-of-springy nug of processed poultry so delicious. What if the nuggets tasted like an actual bird? What if it tasted like ... turkey? Introducing your new favorite [link https://www.chefsteps.com/thanksgiving Thanksgiving snack]: the turkey nugget. Reminiscent of the Happy Meal favorite in that they are, yes, nuggets, and, yes, they’re [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/extra-crispy-fried-turkey fried], and, yes, they’re made from poultry, these turkey nuggets are way, way better. They’re super crispy on the outside, with a glassy, lacy crust. They’re bouncy, juicy, and tender on the inside. And they’re packed with flavor—all the meatiness of dark turkey meat, spiked with a little chicken bouillon powder for an MSG-y, chicken-y boost. There are four keys to getting the perfect nugget texture: Seasoning turkey with salt and giving the salt time to dissolve myosin, so it forms a gel that’ll increase the water-holding capacity of the meat, yielding a juicier nugget; incorporating potato starch into both the ground turkey and the flour mix, which is used as dredge and batter, for not-too-bouncy meat and a not-too-tough glassy crust; adding baking soda to the flour mix to aerate the coating and get that characteristic laciness; and using a double-fry method to set and crisp the coating, thanks to the magic of starch retrogradation.
Meat floss (rousong in Mandarin, or yuk sung in Cantonese) is a pantry staple with a cotton candy–like texture that’s equal parts savory and sweet, and it’s used as a topping for buns and pastries, rice, congee, and even soy milk and soft tofu. It’s traditionally made with pork, but it can be made with any kind of meat. So why not make a festive floss to level up your holiday feasts this year? Turkey floss is here, and it’s the magic fairy dust that’ll improve everything on your [link https://www.chefsteps.com/thanksgiving Thanksgiving] plate. We love holiday seasoning [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/thanksgiving-spice-blend blends] and [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/holiday-herb-oil oils], but up until now, we’ve never distilled that woody herb and warm spice profile into a protein-packed condiment. Well, we done did it this time. Give [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/green-bean-casserole green bean casserole], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/dinner-rolls dinner rolls], and [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/buttermilk-biscuits biscuits] an umami boost with a sprinkling of floss. Season your [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/a-better-way-to-turkey-cook-that-bird-sous-vide-for-the-best-feast-ever holiday turkey] with more holiday turkey … meta-turkey, mega-delicious! Make it rain over your piled-high plate: [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/perfect-fluffy-mashed-potatoes mashed potatoes], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sausage-and-mushroom-stuffing stuffing], and [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/air-fried-brussels-sprouts-with-chile-tamarind-dressing Brussels sprouts] will all be better for it. Just make sure to save some floss for upgrading your leftovers and turkey sandos. The key to good floss is nailing the right texture. By using collagen-rich turkey thighs instead of breast meat, the collagen breaks down into gelatin over the extended cooking time (you hammer the meat, low and slow), producing a more tender, fall-part texture. Combining the cooked, hand-shredded meat with sugar, which acts as an abrasive, while paddling it in a stand mixer yields a consistent, fine “grain” with the characteristic fluffy, fuzzy texture of meat floss. The final cook over low heat in a dry skillet dehydrates the floss, making it super fluffy and light.
Turkey stock’s never around when you <em>need</em> it. Think about it: You’re figuring out the annual [link https://www.chefsteps.com/thanksgiving Thanksgiving] dinner prep, you’re filling out spreadsheets, diagramming your oven Tetris strategy, and you’re thinking about gravy. All the recipes are calling for turkey stock but saying chicken stock is “fine.” Well, of course it’s fine! Who has turkey stock lying around <em>before</em> they [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/turkey-butchery-how-to-separate-legs-crown break down] and [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/turkey-perfection-in-only-2-hours cook a turkey]? Well, now <em>you</em> do, that’s who. Or, you can! We’ve rustled up a concentrated turkey stock using our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/bouillon bouillon cube method] for all your Turkey Day needs. No need to follow those directions to stick a turkey neck in some boxed stock the day before the big day; just make these bouillon cubes days, weeks, or months in advance. The process is identical to the one we use in our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/beef-bouillon-cubes beef], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pork-bouillon-cubes pork], and [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/chicken-bouillon-cubes chicken] bouillon cubes: Brown ground turkey meat (preferably dark meat, which is more flavorful) thoroughly, add water to scrape up the fond and all those bits of delicious [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/mastering-the-maillard-reaction Maillard browning] along with some aromatics, pressure cook the whole thing, strain it, fortify it with gelatin, season it with salt and MSG, reduce it until it’s syrupy, and freeze it into perfectly portioned ice cubes. That’s it! Your [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/instant-turkey-gravy turkey gravy] is basically already done, your Thanksgiving is partially prepped. And don’t just limit yourself to Thanksgiving Day fare! Ever had turkey ramen? No? Make it in an [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-instant-ramen instant] by swapping a turkey bouillon cube in for pork. Or use half a cube to give your country gravy an umami boost for a killer [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/crispy-and-juicy-chicken-fried-turkey chicken-fried turkey dinner]. With these bouillon cubes, you can finally always have turkey stock around for whenever you need it.
Everyone always talks about the bird during [link https://www.chefsteps.com/thanksgiving Thanksgiving], but everyone also knows that the gravy is what brings the whole meal together. You drizzle it over the turkey, sure, but it also complements the [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sausage-and-mushroom-stuffing stuffing], the [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/perfect-fluffy-mashed-potatoes potatoes], and all the [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/popped-pot-pie leftovers]. Making good gravy ultimately comes down to basic sauce-making technique: You make a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/roux-vs-slurry roux or starch slurry], add good stock and maybe some pan drippings or browned giblets, and let it cook, hydrating the starches to produce a flowing but thick, spoon-coating sauce. It’s a simple process that’s complicated by one issue: You almost never go into Thanksgiving prep with turkey stock ready to go. So you end up using store-bought chicken stock instead. No shade, but there is a better way: Hack the turkey stock with our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-turkey-bouillon-cubes turkey bouillon cubes]. They give you all the flavor of a stock you’d spend a day preparing, but with all the convenience of those suboptimal store-bought products. You can make a batch of bouillon cubes weeks or months in advance, pop them in the freezer (without taking up any valuable fridge space), and then pull a couple out 15 minutes before Thanksgiving dinner to make the easiest, fastest, best turkey gravy ever.
There isn’t much that goes into baklava. In fact, the best baklava filling is made with just pistachios and salt. And yet with just a short list of ingredients, you can make one of the most delicious pastries in the world: crisp layers of phyllo dough soaked in sugar syrup surrounding a filling of pure pistachio. Since there’s so little to it, using the best ingredients is the best way to make great baklava. If you skip the frozen, store-bought phyllo sheets and whip up some [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/phyllo-dough fresh phyllo from scratch], you’re already almost halfway to better baklava than you can find almost anywhere. Pick up some primo pistachios—the greener the better—for the ultimate baklava experience. The keys to great baklava are preparing the phyllo properly, so it bakes up in distinct, crisp layers, and getting the syrup right. You want a syrup that will resist crystallization, even when cool, and you want to soak the crisp phyllo layers with the syrup, without sogging them out. Our tests found that getting the syrup to [f 225] produced the right fluidity, and the addition of lemon juice both adds a touch of acidity and helps the syrup resist crystallization. Cooling the syrup to [f 90] before pouring it all over the ripping hot pastry straight out of the oven maximizes syrup absorption. As long as you don’t cover the pan, the pastry will stay nice and crisp.
With a spotty charred surface, a tender-crisp crust that cooks in minutes, and simple prep, grilled pizza is one of the best and easiest ways to prepare pizza for a few people or a crowd. While some may contend that grilled pizza is nothing more than a flatbread with toppings (the toppings are applied only <em>after</em> the topside is cooked), we can all agree that it should be <em>delicious</em>. What makes it work so well? The intense heat of glowing charcoal allows you to capture some of the texture and flavor of a Neapolitan pizza without the need for a [link https://breville.oie8.net/R5YaLX fancy] or [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/diy-wood-fired-neapolitan-pizza-oven-for-less-than-50 DIY] oven. It’s a great introduction to pizza making—you can go from dough to pizza night on the same day (or you can use store-bought dough!), and rather than stretching the dough by hand, you use a rolling pin to roll the dough balls into oval pies. With a little planning, you can fire off pizzas one after the other, making it a go-to recipe for entertaining a crowd of people in the backyard with minimal stress. Because a grill heats only from underneath, the dough for grilled pizza has to be par-cooked on one side before being flipped and topped, and you have to build the pizza upside down: The cheese goes directly on top of the grilled crust so it can melt with the residual heat, then sauce (in this case nothing more than good quality crushed tomatoes seasoned with salt) is applied in dollops. The whole process takes no more than a few minutes, and as soon as one pizza comes off the grill, it’s ready for the next. (You can even pre-roll crusts and stack them between sheets of parchment to streamline your pizza party.) The only real “trick” to it is to rotate the pizza between the hot and cool zones of the grill, cooking the pie over high heat to char the crust, and topping it on the cool side so the bottom crust doesn’t burn while you build your masterpiece.
A lot of pizza makers talk about their preferred style as an art form or a Platonic ideal. Chicago’s tavern-style pizza isn’t that. It’s the logical result of Chicago bartenders who wanted to serve up pizza so people would drink more beer, using kitchens that were likely smaller and worse-equipped than the one in your home. No one making tavern-style pizza set out to create a “style.” That means tavern pie isn’t just achievable at home—you can perfect it, whatever “perfect” means to you. Tavern-style pizza can be improved upon or made with as many compromises as you like. That’s a very Chicago attitude to take toward pizza, which is why this kind of pizza is our favorite. The key to the thin, cracker-like crust is an extended cold-proof of at least 48 hours (the sweet spot for me is 5 to 7 days), followed by an overnight “cure” of rolled-out and docked rounds of pizza dough. The idea is to overproof the dough in a guided, controlled way: You want the flavor development from the yeast doing its thing, and you want the gluten in the dough to relax so you can roll it out easily, but you don’t want the substantial rise you’d get from tons of yeast activity and a robust gluten network. The “cure” helps dry the dough out after it’s been formed into a pie shape—it’ll lose about 10% of its weight in water to the dry refrigerator air and become leathery, but it’ll still be pliable. (This is why uncooked tavern pies are sometimes referred to as being “pizza skins.”) This cure is what separates great tavern pies from good ones. The crust bakes up to a cracker-like crispness, and it has the strength to hold up to the toppings—there’s nothing more Chicago than sausage and [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/hot-giardiniera giardiniera].
A fellow pizza geek once told me that school pizza is the best because it both sucks and is awesome at the same time. I think about that a lot. We pizza types have the bad habit of trying to “redeem” the perfectly good food of our youth. This recipe is no such thing. This recipe is from the United States Department of Agriculture’s 1988 <em>Quantity Recipes for School Food Service</em>, and all we’ve done is scale it down to home kitchen proportions and run it through some performance tests for optimizing the final bake. This recipe is quite literally your tax dollars at work. The main adjustments to the original recipe are the solid fat used to slick the pan (the original just called for a scattering of cornmeal, which <em>does not</em> work) and a slight rest period after panning the batter to let the yeast do a little more work while the oven heats up. And while Kraft parmesan is more than perfectly acceptable—in fact, it’s preferable—don’t use Kraft mozzarella product, because all the added starches will burn during the bake.
Giardiniera is a Chicago pantry staple. It’s spicy (or not), fresh, crisp, vibrant, and the perfect foil for the light fare that the Windy City is known for, like [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/tavern-style-pizza tavern-style pizza] and Italian beef sandwiches. Luckily, it’s not difficult to make at all. Buy a bunch of produce, some of those fancy French clamp-lid jars, and make a big old batch of it. If you’re invested enough in pizza to make your own toppings from scratch, giardiniera should be at the top of your list. You need to brine the vegetables overnight, rinse them, then marinate them in seasoned vinegar. The only “trick” is to use a blend of grapeseed and olive oil in the marinade; olive oil solidifies at fridge temperatures, which can be an issue if you’re topping pizzas with drained giardiniera straight out of the fridge. If you want to use just olive oil, you can, but you’ll have to bring the giardiniera to room temperature before using it as a pizza topping.
Pizza is large, it contains multitudes. Whether you’re mangia-ing a puffy Neapolitan cornicione, hoovering up a crispy tavern pie between rounds of brews and Malört (Go Bears!), or scarfing down a fresh-from-the-deck rewarmed slice of pepperoni before schlepping into Brooklyn, you’re eating pizza. You call it pizza, you think of it as pizza, and you love it as pizza, even if a slice of Sicilian is obviously distinct from a Greek pie in New England or a thick, frico-crusted square in Detroit. At its most basic, pizza is a combination of dough, cheese, sauce, and toppings. However, the many different varieties of pizzas out there, the manifold pizza <em>styles</em>, are far from being merely basic; they’re master classes in specificity. Certain cheeses are picked for their flavor profiles and melting capabilities; codified methods for turning tomatoes into a sauce-like form are called for; and, above all, dough processes with painstaking attention paid to the details of mixing, proofing, shaping, and cooking are required. Which makes pizza a prime candidate for our signature parametric analysis! As with our previous parametric analyses, we developed a bunch of our own recipes, carefully selected others from reputable sources, and prepared them side-by-side to fully understand the differences between some of our favorite styles. We then converted the ingredients to baker’s percentages, noting any discrepancies in methods and any outlier ingredients, like milk and diastatic malt powder. We plugged all those values into a chart, organizing the pies by the style of baking (direct deck-baked pies or pan pizzas) and hydration levels. To make the pizzas, we enlisted our team of chefs to make each recipe exactly as written*, and we ate great pizza for weeks. (It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it!) *Most of the recipes are calibrated for home ovens, which are smaller and can’t reach the high temperatures of professional ovens. This is why some of the pizzas, like the New York, are smaller than what you would typically find in a shop.
At some point in every bread baker’s life, they decide to up the water content of their dough. Adding more water to dough can be beneficial—greater loft, a more tender crumb, more extensibility, longer shelf life—but high-hydration doughs are notoriously challenging to work with. They can be difficult to shape because they’re <em>so sticky</em>. Luckily, there’s a simple trick to making high-hydration doughs easy to work with: Use wet hands. Yup, that’s it. With a little practice, you’ll be slinging high-hydro doughs like you’re playing with Play-Doh. <b>WHAT YOU’LL NEED:</b><br> High-hydration dough<br> Small container of water<br> [link https://www.amazon.com/Full-Circle-Service-Refillable-Bottle/dp/B07YP974TK?tag=chefsteps02-20 Spray bottle] of water<br>
In Sicily, pizza can take on a variety of forms, but in the U.S., “Sicilian” pizza usually means a thick-crust, rectangular pan pizza, topped with red sauce and cheese, and cut into squares. Most joints repurpose the same dough and toppings they use on their round pies, but they up the weight of the dough and let it proof a second time after it’s been panned to yield a tall, airy crumb. This recipe uses that model, with one twist to make it more <em>Sicilian</em>: some semolina flour in the dough. Semolina, a flour made from durum wheat, is the flour of choice in most pastas and many Italian breads, especially in Sicily. It lends the pizza a pale yellow color; a tender, slightly sweet crumb; and, because of its high protein content (a proportion of which is made up of non-gluten-forming proteins), a crackling crisp crust. This dough takes a couple of days to make, but it’s pretty hands-off, which is by design. Preshaping the dough in a rectangular cake pan before the cold fermentation step creates a flavorful, gassy, and relaxed dough that’s much easier to gently stretch into the corners of a sheet pan. The key to ensuring the dough is crispy and browned on the bottom without overcooking the rest of the pie is to crank the oven temperature during the preheat and then drop it when it’s time to bake the pies.
Sfincione is one of the classic, “true” Sicilian pizzas, although it’s distinct from the Sicilian American rectangular pies we’re used to in the U.S. Like the American version of Sicilian pizza, most sfincione pizzas are thick-crusted pan pizzas, cut into squares. But instead of getting topped with a classic red sauce and mozzarella cheese, they’re topped with an onion-heavy, slightly sweet tomato sauce, followed by a layer of toma or caciocavallo, cow or sheep’s milk cheeses from southern Italy that have a sharper flavor profile and firmer texture that’s similar to provolone (which makes a decent substitute). The cheese is blanketed with breadcrumbs and seasoned with herbs, Pecorino Romano, and anchovies, a delicious combination that also shields the relatively dry cheese from the heat of the oven, preventing it from burning or drying out. The dough process used here is a little unorthodox since you preshape and then proof the dough in a rectangular cake pan. As the dough ferments, becoming more flavorful and gassier due to yeast activity, it becomes more extensible, and the dough fills the pan, which in turn makes transferring and gently stretching it to fit a sheet pan super simple. The other key to the recipe is the inclusion of semolina, a flour made from hard durum wheat. Used in pasta and bread, particularly in Sicily, semolina has a high concentration of non-gluten-forming proteins that produce a similar crunch in baked goods to bran, which isn’t possible with white flours.
Greek pizza is a hyper-local style of pan pizza made throughout New England—especially in Massachusetts and New Hampshire—in shops owned by Greek immigrants, which for some reason often have “House of Pizza” in their names. There aren’t a lot of great Greek pizza shops, but that doesn’t mean Greek pizza can’t be great. When done right, Greek pies boast a tender and airy crumb, a puffy rim, and a crisp bottom crust, and they’re topped with a reduced, slightly sweet tomato sauce and a generous amount of aged mozzarella and sharp white cheddar—the sharpness of the cheese mix is a defining element of the style. The trick to getting the crust right is dialing in the dough hydration, which hovers around 55% for this recipe (see the “Before we begin” note for more on this). Add too much liquid, and the dough is less puffy and tender than it is just doughy; too little liquid and it’s too dry. The other key is using milk instead of water, since milk has unfermentable sugar (in the form of lactose) and proteins, both of which help with browning. Olive oil enriches the dough (along with a little assist from milk fat) and keeps the crust from taking on a Styrofoam-like texture—the hallmark of bad Greek pizza. For the crisp crust, it’s important to use a baking steel (or stone) and to heat it properly before baking, which means cranking the oven during the preheat before turning it down for the actual bake. There will be enough stored energy in the steel to crisp and brown the crust, so you don’t have to use a long, hot bake, which would hammer the cheese. (This applies just to conventional ovens; if you have a pizza oven that gives you the option to control deck and top temperatures, we’ve got instructions for you in Step 6.)