♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Today on "America's Test Kitchen," Erin makes Bridget erbazzone, Adam reveals his top picks for milk frothers, and Bridget makes Julia soeupa alla valpellinentze.

It's all coming up right here on "America's Test Kitchen."

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♪♪ -The list of foods that come from the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna -- they read like a culinary who's who list.

You have Parmigiano, prosciutto, mortadella, and balsamic.

All sounds great.

But today, we're going to make something called erbazzone.

And it's a savory pie.

It's sometimes eaten as a snack during the summer or the fall months.

Erin's here.

She's gonna show us how easy it is to make.

-I am, Bridget.

This is such a great pie, filled with flavorful Swiss chard.

It's a very humble and kind of rustic pie.

-Love it.

-And it's a snap to make.

-Okay.

-Alright.

So let's start with the crust.

So, I'm gonna start with 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour.

And then I'm gonna add 1 teaspoon of table salt.

I'm just gonna pulse this together until it's all combined.

[ Blender whirring ] -Alright.

Now I'm gonna add my butter.

So, we have two sticks of butter here, unsalted.

And now I'm gonna process this until it becomes a homogenous paste -- about 30 seconds.

[ Blender whirring ] So, what we're doing here is that we're waterproofing this amount of flour.

The butter is totally coating the flour.

And that's gonna prevent it from actually creating gluten.

-Right.

Because when flour mixes with the liquid, that's when the gluten is activated.

-Exactly.

Yes.

So this is part one of our dough.

-Okay.

-Alright.

So I'm just gonna take this, and I'm gonna it up into two-inch pieces and redistribute it throughout the bowl.

And now I'm gonna add 1 cup of all-purpose flour.

So this is the second part of the dough that we're really kind of making.

So, I'm just gonna add this to our paste.

And now I'm just gonna pulse this in.

It's gonna take like four to five pulses.

And all I'm doing is breaking up those larger pieces and cutting the flour in.

But I still want some free flour.

-Okay.

-Okay.

[ Blender whirring ] Alright.

So, we're pulsing it until most of the pieces are less than one inch.

-Okay.

-So, as you can see, it still looks dry, but our pieces are a lot smaller.

Now I'm just gonna transfer this to a bowl.

So I have a half a stick of butter that earlier I grated on the large holes of the box grater, and then I froze it.

And now I'm just gonna throw it into this mixture.

And it's frozen for a reason.

So, we took the two sticks of butter, and we made a paste out of it.

Now we're adding grated frozen butter to it.

So we're kind of creating two doughs here.

We have, like, the one paste that is gonna be very tender.

And then we have the other part of the dough that has the flour and the grated butter.

That's gonna be very flaky.

Alright?

-Okay.

-Yeah.

So now I'm just going to kind of toss this in, break it up a little bit.

And now I'm gonna add 1/4 cup, or 4 tablespoons, of ice water.

All that I'm doing is distributing it throughout the mixture.

I'm just folding.

Now I'm just gonna make two disks of pie dough.

Two pie doughs.

Now, we just want to fold it up, and we're gonna shape it into a five-inch square.

-You want me to help you?

-You got it.

Wrap it up.

-How's that?

-I think that's perfect.

Excellent.

Alright.

So, I'm gonna refrigerate these for at least two hours, but you could also do this in advance, up to a couple of days.

And while it's in the refrigerator, that flour is gonna continue to hydrate.

-Okay.

-And it's gonna make it really easy to roll out.

Alright, Bridget.

It is time to start on the filling.

-Okay.

-Alright.

So, we're gonna start with pancetta.

-Mm.

-And this is gonna give our dish a really nice, meaty pork-undertone flavor.

So, I'm finely chopping 3 ounces of pancetta.

Now I'm gonna divide this up.

So take 1/3 cup, and the rest of it's gonna go in the bowl to use later.

-Okay.

-So, I'm just gonna turn this on to medium-low heat and add our 1/3 cup of chopped pancetta and a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.

Now what we're gonna do is basically just render out the fat from the pancetta.

It's gonna take about 5 to 7 minutes over medium-low heat.

I want it to start getting a little brown.

Alright.

So it's nice and golden-brown and crisp, and now I'm just gonna remove the pancetta.

So now we have flavorful fat to cook our -- the rest of our filling in.

We need about a tablespoon of fat.

Now on to the filling.

I'm just gonna add one onion that I finely chopped.

And we're just gonna cook the onions until they're softened.

This is gonna take about five minutes.

-Okay.

-Okay?

Alright.

On to the star of the show.

We have Swiss chard.

We're gonna use 3 pounds of Swiss chard, and we're gonna cut it into 1-inch pieces.

So I, hold on to the stem, and I just pull the leaves away from it and pull the stem up.

Now all you have to do is stack the leaves.

And we're gonna cut them into 1-inch pieces.

So I'm just gonna cut them into 1-inch strips.

And then turn it, and then 1-inch squares.

It's as easy as that.

So, we're really not looking for color.

We're not looking to brown the onions.

We're just looking to soften them.

And those are perfect.

And now I'm just gonna add four garlic cloves that I've finely minced.

I'm just gonna stir this in until it's nice and fragrant.

And now we're going to add our 3 pounds of Swiss chard.

So this is quite a lot.

So all I'm going to do is add a handful at a time.

As it wilts, I'm going to stir it in and keep adding handfuls.

And remember, you have your onions and your garlic on the bottom, so you really want to keep keep it moving.

You don't want that to burn.

-All right.

-Now I'm just going to put the lid on it, and this is going to help the Swiss chard to cook down even more quickly.

-Okay.

-Which is what we want.

So I'm going to cook this for about 2 to 4 minutes, until it's still bright green.

I'm going to go in there occasionally and stir it, just make sure that it's moving around.

All right, Bridget, it's been about three minutes.

-Beautiful color.

-Yep.

Bright green color.

You can see that liquid that's cooking out.

That's a good thing.

We want it to throw off that liquid, or else it's going to make our pie soggy.

So now I'm going to cook it for another five minutes or so until all that liquid is cooked off.

-Okay.

-There we have it.

So all of our moisture has cooked off.

You don't really see any.

There's a little bit of steam coming off.

That's quite all right.

Now I'm just going to transfer it to a bowl, and it needs to cool for about 30 minutes.

-Okay.

-All right, Bridget, it has been 30 minutes, and this has been sitting at room temperature and has cooled off.

-Okay.

-Enter the cheese.

-Oh, yes.

Oh, yeah.

-Yes.

-Lots of cheese.

-A lot of cheese.

So this is parmesan cheese.

This is traditionally used in it.

We're going to add four ounces of finely-grated parmesan cheese.

-Mmm!

-And we're going to add the rendered pancetta.

I'm just going to stir this together.

-That is a really thick filling.

-Yeah.

We cooked off all that moisture.

It's very important.

Again we don't want our crust to sog out.

Now we're going to move on to our crust.

This dough is really forgiving.

This has been sitting out for about ten minutes just to soften a little bit so it's easier to roll out.

And I'm going to roll this into a 10-by-14-inch rectangle.

-Okay.

This is not a round pie.

-Which is why we started shaping it like a square.

So it makes it a little easier.

So we have a 14-by-10-inch rectangle.

-Okay.

-And now I'm just going to roll it around my rolling pin.

And I have a pastry brush here.

I like to just brush off any excess flour as I go and just kind of roll it up.

Now I'm just going to transfer it to our greased, rimmed baking sheet.

So now we're just going to spread this filling over the surface of the pie dough.

We're going to leave a one-inch border, and we want to make sure that it's an even thickness.

Now I'm going to take an egg wash. And I'm just going to brush this along the one-inch perimeter.

All right.

We're in great shape.

I'm going to hold on to that.

Now I'm going to come over here and roll out our top crust just the same way that I rolled that out.

So it's going to be a 10 inch by 14 inch rectangle.

-Great.

-So now I'm gonna transfer this.

-Lovely.

-And now the crimping begins.

Okay, so first, I'm just going to press, go around the perimeter and seal the two crusts so that they stick together.

Don't want anything to leak out.

-We want it to be a pie, not a pizza pie.

-Exactly.

All right, so I just go around, all right.

And now I'm going to take the edge and roll it towards me.

And I'm basically going to roll it towards me and roll it under.

Make sure you get that bottom crust.

All right.

Now I'm going to crimp it.

So all I'm doing is crimping, a typical crimp, where I have my two fingers here and I have my index finger here.

And I push my index finger in to create that crimp.

In order to portion this, I'm going to score the top crust -- I'm not going to cut through the filling -- so that we have 12 pieces.

And I like to kind of score and just kind of, like, eyeball things first.

You could also grab a ruler, but I'm not going to.

I just like to make my score just to know where the knife should go.

So now I'm just going to connect the two.

So all I'm going to do is, you need a sharp knife and your dough should be cold.

If it's too warm, you should put it back in the fridge before you cut or else it'll get -- it'll drag it and make a mess.

So now I'm just cutting through that top dough.

And what this is going to do is, once it's baked, it's going to make it a lot easier to cut through.

We won't be having to cut through that top crust.

It's already done for us.

So now I'm just brushing the dough with my beaten egg.

And as it bakes, it's going to help it to brown and it's going to make a nice sheen.

-All right.

-How lovely.

-And one last ingredient.

Remember that leftover pancetta we had from earlier?

-Yes.

-So now I'm going to sprinkle this right on top, and as it bakes, that fat's going to render out.

The pancetta is going to get nice and crisp, and it's going to give this top crust nice porky flavor.

-Yes.

-Yeah.

-All right.

So it's time to bake, Bridget.

So we're going to bake this at 400 degrees on the lower middle rack for about 30 minutes until it's nice and golden brown.

I'm going to rotate it halfway through.

-Okay.

-Mmm.

-Wow.

-Oh, look at that.

Yep.

-Gorgeous.

Oh my goodness.

-Look at it.

Golden brown.

-Absolutely beautiful.

-The pancetta rendered, and it's nice and crisp.

So we're just going to let this cool for 30 minutes.

All right.

30 minutes are up.

-I'm very excited for this.

-Excellent.

I am, too.

Oh, my gosh.

All right I'm just going to transfer this to the cutting board.

We'll cut our portions and dive right into it.

I'm just going to follow the lines that we already scored.

And how many slices would you like?

-Yes.

-Yes.

[ Laughs ] -How many columns?

-This one is calling your name.

-Yes, it is.

I was eyeing that one up.

It really almost does look like puff pastry.

It's like a rustic puff.

-Yeah.

This is my kind of eating.

-Now, what's surprising is that the bottom crust is still there.

It's not soggy at all.

-The greased sheet pan helped to kind of make it crisp.

-Mmm.

-Is that delicious?

Flaky?

-Oh, it's beautifully crisp.

-And that pancetta on top, it's perfectly rendered.

It almost melts in your mouth.

-That's the best thing we've ever done with Swiss chard.

-Mm-hmm.

-Thank you, Erin.

-Thank you, Bridget.

-Well, if you'd like to try your hand at making erbazzone at home, it starts by rendering pancetta to flavor the filling, par cook Swiss chard to drive off excess moisture, and then sprinkle the pie with more pancetta before baking.

So from "America's Test Kitchen" and Italy, it's erbazzone, or Swiss chard pie.

Mmm-mmm-mmm.

This is how you eat your vegetables.

-[ Laughs ] Just a little bit of pork.

-Mmm.

-Right?

♪♪ -I had no idea that there were so many styles of frothers out there for making a simple coffee drink.

-You know, the steaming wand on our favorite countertop espresso machine makes lovely foam.

You just have to be willing to spend the $600 for the machine to which it comes attached.

These are standalone frothers.

We have this lineup of 12 different frothers here.

Price range was $11 to $129, and they come in three styles.

The most expensive type are the countertop types.

That's this group in front of you.

They will heat up the milk and foam it all in one machine press of a button.

Super easy.

We also have this, which is the battery operated handheld wand.

I think that you're probably familiar with this.

I can tell from the look in your eye.

-Yep.

-And then you have the last kind, which is the manual type.

And these are almost like French presses.

You put the the milk in, you hold it with one hand, and you pump like that.

-That looks ridiculous.

-Fairly tedious.

Testers were not impressed, and we are eliminating those from the get go.

So, you know, there are two types of foam.

This is the first type.

That is sort of more silky and pourable.

That's what you use for a latte.

It will mix readily with the espresso.

-That makes sense.

-This one, you can see that it's got a more stable head on it.

It's more voluminous, it's more stable.

That will sit on top of the mixture of steamed milk and espresso.

That's for a cappuccino.

-Aha.

Okay.

-All of these machines had to make both types well.

We tested these with dairy milk and plant milk.

We used almond milk, both warm and cold.

It will not surprise you to learn that these countertop models were definitely the easiest to use.

You know, they have fill lines.

You just pour in the milk to the fill line, put on the top, turn it on.

It will heat up the milk for you because there's a built-in heating element.

It foams it for you.

They're terrifically easy to use.

This was our favorite among them.

This is the Breville Milk Café.

It's $130, so it's not the cheapest among them, but it gives you all kinds of features that our testers loved.

Number one, it's got an auto shut off and an alert to tell you when it's done foaming.

Number two, you can set precise temperatures, and there's a setting for cold milk.

And it just -- it did a great job.

You can even throw it in the dishwasher.

However $129, it's not the least expensive.

We were hoping for something a little more reasonable.

So we're coming back to this wand style foamer.

These things, you can see, it's a handle with a button at the top, and it's like a little immersion blender.

And you have one there.

Why don't you give that a shot and show us how it's done?

You just move it up and down in the milk, you know?

-Ooh, I like this one.

[ Imitates motor revving ] [ Laughter ] Oh, that's nice.

It's very reactive.

-Yeah.

-It's very light.

-Yeah.

-I could do this for hours.

-You are zeroing in into all of the points the testers liked.

It does a great job foaming.

The handle is comfortable for hand sizes of all different kinds.

The power button, very responsive.

And this one made a very stable foam because it actually was a little more gentle on the milk than some of the others.

So this is the winning wand style.

This is the Zulay Kitchen Milk Boss.

-Oh, a good name.

-It's a great name.

And it's $13, so it's a great price, too.

-All right.

So there you have it.

If you like foamy milk with your coffee, you have two options.

There's the handheld version, and the winner is the Zulay Kitchen Milk Boss at just $13.

Or if you want a milk frother to sit on your counter and do everything for you, choose the Breville Milk Café at $129.

♪♪ Today, we're making the classic Italian dish of soeupa alla valpellinentze Now soeupa means soup, but this is more like a soup/casserole, isn't it, Bridget?

-Don't you love recipes like that?

You're not quite sure how to distinguish them or describe them, but this is great.

It's layers of vegetable soup, cabbage soup, and pork and bread and cheese all layered together.

It's gorgeous.

Think French onion soup on the top, and kind of a ribollita almost mixture below.

Now, as I mentioned, a lot of recipes will just layer the components and put it all in the oven.

We want to control the flavor and get everything exactly to the right texture.

So we're going to start off with a very flavorful base.

I've got two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in my Dutch oven.

I'm going to add a tablespoon of unsalted butter.

And I just want to get this to the point that it's melted.

Now the butter, of course, adds a little bit of flavor a little bit of richness.

-Mm-hmm.

-This is a northern Italian dish, so you're going to start to see a lot more butter in dishes that are towards the alpine region.

All right.

So we need some pancetta in there.

And this is four ounces of pancetta, chopped pretty fine.

This is going to go about -- -Oh.

-I know.

Eight minutes.

Again, this is medium low, even though we're seeing some smoke.

That's because the pancetta has a low smoke point in here.

But we're going to let this go until the pancetta is rendered, it starts to brown.

It's going to flavor the whole dish.

Now, while that's cooking, let's talk bread.

Rye is specific to that area and specific to this dish.

Rye is one of those grains that's easier to grow in the northern climates, much easier than wheat.

So rye bread is really essential to this.

And we need to stale it.

But instead of doing the actual waiting three, four, five days or even a week, we're going to stale it in the oven.

We're going to dry it out completely.

This is 12 ounces of a hearty rye bread, and I'm going to cut it into pretty big pieces.

These are croutons.

So we're going to do about 1.5 inch cubes here.

All right.

So put these here on the baking sheet.

All right.

So this bread is going to go into a very low oven, 250 degrees.

We're going to leave it in there for a while, about 45 minutes I'll go in there, toss it, make sure that it's drying evenly.

And then once it is done, after 45 minutes, we're going to let it cool completely.

-Okay.

-Oh, you know a soup's going to be good when it starts with browned pancetta.

Oh, isn't that gorgeous?

-It is beautiful and it smells amazing.

-Mm-hmm.

All right.

And that only took eight minutes.

So now we can move on to our next ingredient.

I have one onion, sliced thin.

That goes right in.

All right.

So that's the onion.

And I've got a half a teaspoon of salt.

Just regular salt.

And we're going to cook this.

Now I've got this over medium heat at this point.

We want the onions to get a little bit brown and soften.

That's only going to take about anywhere from 5 to 7 minutes.

-Okeydoke.

-It's time to prep the cabbage, and we are using Savoy cabbage.

So this is a one and a half pound-ish of Savoy cabbage.

Love the roughly green leaves.

And we do want to trim this a little bit.

So I'm going to cut through just right through the core and cut it into quarters.

And then I'm going to take the cabbage here, and I just want to core it out.

I'm just using my knife at an angle.

I want pretty big pieces here.

So I'm going to take a few leaves off.

And we're looking for about one-inch pieces.

I would call this a very rough chop.

So you don't need to be too precise.

Again, just cutting right across.

And I'll keep doing this with the rest of the cabbage.

All right.

Oh, doesn't that smell amazing.

Oh, this is going to get even better.

I've got three cloves of minced garlic here just right in, and about 30 seconds is all we need at this point.

Just really want to get the flavors to bloom.

And now the cabbage.

All of this cabbage is going to go right in there.

And that's looking good.

Now I'm also going to add in a couple of bay leaves and four cups of beef broth.

You can use just store bought beef broth.

But I highly recommend using a really good quality beef broth or even a beef bone broth... -Yes.

-It's perfect here because it really is one of the stars of the show.

Oh, that looks so good.

All right, so we brought this up to a boil.

So now at this point, I'm going to reduce the heat to low.

If you can put the lid on.

-All right.

-There we go.

We're going to let this take over for about 45 minutes.

We do want that cabbage to be really nice and soft.

It's going to exude some of its flavor into the soup itself.

So the level of soup might go up a little bit, but we'll know it's done 45 minutes later.

I'll give it a couple stirs.

All right.

Let's check on the soup.

That's what 45 minutes of cooking looks like.

[ Both laughing ] -Oh, gorgeous.

-We've got a lot of good flavor in here.

All right.

So just want to take out those bay leaves.

-Mm-hmm.

-So we're going to start layering this in our oven-safe dish.

We will be using the broiler here.

I'm going to layer about half the cabbage on the bottom of the pan.

All right.

And then on to our croutons.

We're going to use half in this layer.

So that looks good.

And just start nestling them down.

So I'm going to pour the rest of this over the top.

And the rest of the bread goes on.

Now the best part is when you tell people you're making soup and you come out with a dish like this.

and I'm going to take a rubber spat and kind of press everything down.

It'll continue to sink as they start to hydrate these little croutons.

We need to top this with cheese.

-Mm-hm.

Yes, please.

-Yes, please.

And we're using a cheese of the area.

So we're using a fontina.

This is a fontina d'Aosta.

All right.

So this is four ounces of fontina.

And now I'll just scatter this all over the top.

Now since we did so much of the cooking on the stove top, this does not need a lot of time in the oven.

In fact, we're just going to throw it under the broiler for a few minutes.

So I've got the rack set about six inches from the broiler.

And this only is going to go in there until the cheese gets nice and bubbly brown.

Some of that bread is also going to start to crisp.

That's going to take about four minutes.

-Mmm!

[ Both laugh ] -The aroma!

-Yes.

Oh!

-Wafting.

Goodness, Bridget.

-That was just four minutes under the broiler.

Two things left to do.

The first of those two things is I'm going to sprinkle over some parsley -- about a tablespoon of fresh parsley.

And the second thing I'm gonna have to do is eat it.

Haha.

Look at that.

You're going to get some cabbage dumplings there.

Oh, that's what you want to see.

-Goodness.

-And that's stretching a lot of cheese.

That's for you.

-Thank you.

-All right.

Let's just add a little bit more parsley.

-All right.

First up, the broth.

I'm digging in.

-Oh.

-And if you're wondering where the broth is, it's inside of those croutons.

So you're still going to get it, whether or not your bowl is laden with liquid.

-Now I see what you're saying.

The beef broth and the pancetta, it is just hearty.

And then you have the cabbage, which is lovely and light and silky.

-Right.

-It's not totally overcooked.

It's just buttery and silky.

-Well, it's the rye, the cabbage and the pancetta.

The combo is out of this world.

-Bridget, this is delicious.

Thank you.

-You bet.

So if you want to make this classic soeupa from Valle d'Aosta, start by drying out big cubes of bread in a low oven.

Simmer the cabbage on top of the stove and layer it all into a casserole dish, and broil until bubbling.

From "America's Test Kitchen," a hearty, delicious recipe for Savoy cabbage soup.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with select episodes and our product reviews at our website, AmericasTestKitchen.com/TV.

-Soup's getting cold.

-[ Laughs ] -Visit our website where you can sign up for our free e-mail newsletter for even more of the recipes and stories you love from all of our cast and cooks.

AmericasTestKitchen.com/TV.

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