♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Today on "America's Test Kitchen," Keith makes Julia a Southern Thai specialty -- khua kling.

Dan uses dogs to explain how broccoli and kale are related, and Elle makes Bridget mango sticky rice.

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

-"America's Test Kitchen" is brought to you by the following.

Plugrà European-style butter was created for all chefs, cooks, and bakers.

Slow-churned with 82% butterfat for a smooth texture and more pliability for flaky crusts.

Plugrà -- from professional kitchens to your home.

Sur La Table, where you can discover an assortment of provisions for your next meal or gathering.

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♪♪ -Famous for its fiery burn, khua kling is a fragrant and very spicy pork curry from southern Thailand, so who better to cook it for us than our own resident hothead, Mr. Keith Dresser?

-Did you call me a hothead?

-Only because I know you love spicy food.

-And you like spicy food, too, right?

-I do.

-Okay, well, I have a treat for you today.

This is a fiery dish, but it also has a ton of complexity.

That complexity comes from a curry paste.

And there are store-bought commercial curry pastes out there, but they pale in comparison to making your own, which is what we're gonna do today.

-Ooh, fun.

-It's gonna be a lot of fun, actually.

So we're gonna start off with some arbol chilies and we have 10 arbol chilies here.

-I love the gloves.

-Yeah.

So very important to wear gloves because when you're touching something hot, you get those oils on your skin and they can burn for a while.

And also we're gonna be handling some ingredients that will also stain your hands.

-Yeah.

-So two reasons for wearing gloves today.

Like I said, I have 10 arbol chilies.

And what we're doing here is we are taking the top off this and then we'll just split these in half.

Very simple.

And we want to get rid of those seeds in there.

Okay, now that these are prepped, we need to soften these a little bit before we grind them up.

So I'm just gonna put them into a measuring cup here.

And I'm gonna take some boiling water.

And I'm just gonna pour one cup of water over these.

We are gonna let that set and let those arbols soften for about 20 minutes.

So we are starting with two large shallots.

All I'm gonna do is I'm gonna chop these up coarsely.

We don't have to finely chop these because we are gonna grind them later.

Okay.

Shallots are done.

So I have two stalks of lemongrass here.

And I just want the bottom 6 inches of this.

The top is kind of dry and won't add much to that.

I'm just gonna take any kind of tough, hard leaves off the outside of that.

Any dried portions on the bottom.

Now I'm just gonna take these and thinly slice that.

And that will go with our shallots over here.

Now we have four garlic cloves.

I'm just gonna give these a quick chop.

Okay.

Next up is a 2-inch piece of galangal.

-Whoo!

-So galangal is related to ginger, but it's sharper than kind of the normal ginger.

-I've also seen it frozen.

-Yeah, you will often see it frozen.

If you buy it, you can freeze it just like ginger.

So you can buy a bunch of it.

If you're gonna make this, you can peel it, put it in your freezer and you'll always have it.

-Ahh.

-Okay.

We have another root.

This is turmeric root.

-Oh, yeah.

-Earthy flavor, kind of a musky flavor.

-Yeah.

It's really interesting.

-And a beautiful color.

-And also really good at staining everything that it touches.

So again that's why we're wearing gloves.

Now we have more chilies.

-Ha!

-You can never have enough chilies here.

So we're using four fresh Thai chilies.

So I'm just gonna take the stems off that.

Thinly slice these.

We're gonna keep the seeds in these.

Now we have four makrut lime leaves.

-Oh.

Very cool.

-Yeah.

So these are beautiful.

-Yeah.

-I'm just taking the stem out of these, and then we'll just take these into a little pile and slice them thin crosswise.

So a couple more ingredients.

I have 2 teaspoons of gapi here.

This is a fermented paste from krill or shrimp.

-Yeah.

-It's potent.

You open the can, and it just fills the kitchen almost immediately.

And we also have 3/4 teaspoon of salt.

And so that is our last ingredient for our curry paste.

We're just gonna let those arbols finish softening.

And then we can finish it off.

-Alright.

-It's been 20 minutes and our arbols are nicely softened.

So I'm just gonna take a strainer and strain these off.

I'm just gonna transfer these arbols to everything else here.

Now I'm gonna set this liquid aside because we can use that when we stir-fry.

Now, you've noticed that I've put everything into a 2-cup liquid measure.

-Yeah, I didn't know if you're just doing that because it was handy and nearby or if that was on purpose.

-No, there's a purpose for this.

And because we need to grind this up and traditionally this is ground in a mortar and pestle.

It's -- It's a lot of work.

-Yeah.

Some of that stuff is pretty fibrous.

-Yeah.

And you'll get there.

But it takes some time and it takes some... you know, arm work, some elbow grease.

So when we were interviewing one of our experts for this story, she suggested using an immersion blender.

-Cool.

-That's what they use in the restaurant.

And so we want this in a 2-cup measure because it's nice, tall and narrow, and it fits the bottom of that immersion blender.

-Ahh.

-So what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna kind of work this up and down and eventually we'll get a nice, soft paste.

But it's certainly less labor intensive than using a mortar and pestle.

-Okay.

-So I'm using an up and down motion.

-You're just pulsing it.

-Yep.

Just pulsing it.

We're getting down to the shallot layer.

Alright.

I think we...have success.

The good thing about this paste is that it sits in the refrigerator for four days.

-Mm-hmm.

-You can also freeze it for up to four months.

-Oh, wow.

-Yeah.

So it takes a little bit of work right now, but once you have this paste in the freezer, you could have dinner on the table in 10, 15 minutes.

-Wow.

-A really quick stir-fry.

Okay.

It's time to stir-fry.

But before we do so, just kind of some advanced warning.

We're gonna get a lot of spicy vapors coming off this.

Right?

So you want to make sure if you have a hood, you want to have that hood on.

If you don't have a hood, you want to open your windows because you want to make sure you're cooking in a well-ventilated area.

-That makes sense.

-So I have a 14-inch wok here with 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil.

We have that heating over medium heat.

And we want that to come to a shimmer.

So we're gonna start with cooking our curry paste.

We want to cook some of the moisture off this to kind of concentrate those flavors.

So I'm gonna add this.

[ Sizzling ] We're gonna cook this stirring constantly, until that curry paste loses some of that moisture and starts to stick to the bottom of the wok.

It should take a couple of minutes.

-So again, you're just looking for the excess moisture to evaporate, and it looks like it's starting right around the edge of the pan.

But you're looking for the whole paste to have done that.

-The whole -- the whole thing won't stick to the bottom of the pan.

This is getting close where we're starting to stick around the edges.

-Mm-hmm.

-You also see that it's not sizzling as much.

-Yeah.

-That means that we don't have as much water in there.

So that means it's time to add our pork.

So I have 1 pound of ground pork that's kind of broken into some large pieces here.

So we're just gonna cook this and we're gonna stir that curry and pork together.

Okay.

Now that we have these two things combined, we've increased our heat to medium high.

And I'm just gonna cook this stirring constantly until the pork is almost, like, 85% cooked.

So all of that pink is gone.

But we don't want to overcook it.

It's been three minutes and you can see that the pork is almost cooked, but I can still see some pink pieces in there.

-Mm-hmm.

-You also see that it's kind of sticking around the edges right here.

-Yeah.

-So that arbol chili liquid that we had earlier, we can take that and add a little bit to the pan to make sure that it doesn't stick.

-Ah, a little deglazing liquid.

-Exactly.

Just gonna continue to stir this.

That is looking pretty good right now.

So a couple more additions while we'll finish this up.

I have 2 teaspoons of fish sauce.

Again another umami builder.

We also have 2 teaspoons of light brown sugar.

That's gonna balance out some of the salty, spicy flavors in here.

-Mmm.

-And then finally 1 teaspoon of black pepper.

So we're just gonna continue to cook this until we evaporate all that moisture off there and it's dry.

Okay.

That is looking very good to me.

So I'm gonna shut the heat off.

I'm gonna slide this off the heat so it doesn't continue to cook.

-Mm-hmm.

-So a couple more ingredients I have more chilies.

Now, this is optional.

Do you want to opt in or do you want to opt out?

-Let's do it.

-Opt in, okay.

-Yeah.

-So this is four Thai chilies that are sliced on the bias.

-Holy cow.

-You don't have to add them.

-Too late now.

-Too late now.

And then we have some more lime leaves.

I have three lime leaves.

Just the same thing that we added to the curry paste, but these are gonna be fresh.

-Mmm.

-And we're gonna get little pops of that nice citrusy flavor.

Stir that in.

So I'm just gonna transfer this over to our serving platter so we can clean up and then we can try this curry.

It's gonna be great.

-Okay.

-It's time to eat.

-Alright.

-Made a couple of other accompaniments for our khua kling.

The first is some steamed white rice, namely jasmine rice.

That's what you would normally see.

And this is pretty important to this dish.

It's so spicy that you want to make sure that you have some rice to kind of balance that off.

-Ahh.

-Now, in the ideal ratio is kind of two parts rice to one part stir-fry.

-Oh, wow.

-Yeah, it's that spicy.

And lastly we have some cucumbers that have been thinly sliced and they're on ice.

-Look at that.

-It's beautiful, isn't it?

-On ice.

-Yeah.

So you really want some nice cooling flavors here.

So the cucumber, you can take the bites of cucumber in between bites of the curry.

And that will kind of cool your mouth off.

So a nice, cool, crisp flavor.

So let's try this.

Now, another thing... -Mm-hmm.

...which is kind of fun is that you can eat this with a spoon and a fork.

-Okay.

-The idea is that you can load the perfect bite onto your spoon.

So take a little bit of rice... -Mm-hmm.

-...and then a little bit of the curry.

-Alright.

-Perfect.

-Cheers.

-Cheers.

-Mmm.

Mmm!

That is delicious.

Whoo!

There she is.

-It explodes in your mouth, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

-It's like, "Boom!"

-Oh, it's amazing.

-Like, there's so many flavors exploding in your mouth right now.

-Well, you know, I tasted the lemon.

Oh, hi.

[ Both laughing ] That last hit of spice was a little delayed.

-Yeah, it comes in later.

-Yeah.

-You have a little bit initially.

Then as it sits in your mouth, it kind of builds and builds and builds, but there's so much going on right now.

You have the lemongrass, the galangal.

-The lemongrass comes through.

Yeah.

The galangal comes through.

-Yeah.

-You know, you have that fish and brown sugar combo, which is one of my favorites.

And then through the whole thing, you get the heat, but then the heat comes in and it kind of bites you every once in a while.

-Yeah, I know.

-I love that.

-But it's not overwhelming.

-Not at all.

-It's not like you can't take another bite.

In fact, it's so good you want to keep eating it.

-Yeah.

-And then if it gets too hot, you just take a cucumber.

-That's lovely.

-Cools things down a little bit.

-Oh!

Keith, this was fun from start to finish.

Thank you for showing me how to make it.

-I'm glad you liked it.

-If you are into spicy food, you have to try this curry.

Start by using an immersion blender to make a curry paste with fresh and dried chilies.

Give the curry paste a head start in the pan before adding the pork, and serve with plenty of rice and chilled cucumbers.

From "America's Test Kitchen," a fiery recipe for khua kling.

Oh, ho-ho-ho.

I'm starting to increase the ratio of curry to rice.

-Oh.

Living dangerously, huh?

-Uh-huh.

-Nice.

-Oh, yeah.

-Would you believe me if I told you that all of these brassicas are the same species?

The original Brassica oleracea is a wild plant that goes by the common name wild cabbage.

From that one plant, which is native to parts of Europe, we get cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, collard greens, kohlrabi, gai lan, broccoli, kale and more.

"How," you ask?

The simple, patient process of artificial selection.

Farmers selected wild-cabbage plants with attributes they wanted, and here's how that went.

By selecting for terminal buds, they ended up with cabbage.

By selecting for lateral buds, they created Brussels sprouts.

You know what?

There's got to be a better way to talk about this stuff.

♪♪ ♪♪ I'm at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show to talk about...brassicas.

♪♪ ♪♪ As I was saying, artificial selection is the process by which humans choose desirable traits and pick those and over generations and generations, create something with the ideal traits and characteristics.

Artificial selection happens in the dog world.

We have a ton of different dogs under one species, but it also happens in the vegetable world.

All of these brassicas here are the same species.

And just how all dogs are descendants of wolves, all of these brassicas come from one common ancestor, Brassica oleracea, also known as wild cabbage.

And just like these dogs all around me, these brassicas were selected for specific traits that they had over many generations.

And here is how that went.

By selecting for terminal buds, farmers ended up with cabbage, which is, of course, the bulldog of brassicas.

By selecting for lateral buds, they created Brussels sprouts, the French bulldog of the species.

Selecting for stems led to the creation of Chihuahuas.

I mean, kohlrabi.

Selecting for flower clusters gave us cauliflower, which is, of course, a Bichon Frisé.

Selecting for leaves gave us collards, a.k.a.

Basset Hounds.

And last but not least, gai lan is clearly an Afghan Hound.

So the next time you're eating broccoli, think about the Westminster Dog Show.

And even though these vegetables all look super different, as different as poodles and Afghan Hounds, remember that they're all part of one big happy family.

It's technically a species.

♪♪ -Today we're making a delightful dessert from Thailand called khao niaow ma maung.

Now, this dessert takes beautiful, coconut-y, creamy rice and combines it with sweet, succulent mango.

Mmm-mmm-mmm.

Now, the only way to make this better is if the fabulous Elle is here to show us how it's done.

-Well, if a perfectly in season and ripe mango is the key here... -Mm-hmm.

-...the only thing that we can do wrong is to pair it with a bad sticky rice.

-No good.

-The foundations of khao niaow ma maung is the sticky rice, right?

It's sticky, glutinous, coconut rice... -Mm!

-...that just really makes the dish.

And we achieve that by first rinsing the rice.

-Okay.

-We have a cup of Thai sticky rice here.

And what we need to do is rinse this rice until the water runs clear.

What we're doing is getting rid of the excess starch.

So I'm running it under cold water.

It takes about three rinses to get this water clear.

A little trick that I do is I keep the bowl under the running water so that I can gauge when it starts to actually run clear.

-Very smart.

-Alright.

This is the third rinse.

And as you can see, it's clear.

-It sure is.

-Yeah.

And this just needs to be covered with cold water... -Okay.

-...a few inches.

And we're just gonna let this sit for about an hour.

You can also let it sit for up to 24 hours, a day in advance.

Okay.

So it's been about an hour.

The rice is ready to drain.

There we go.

We got all our grains.

Perfect.

I'll just pop that in there.

We can head over to cooking the rice.

There are a few ways to cook this rice.

I like to do what's easier and most successful for me.

-Mm-hmm.

-I use a steamer basket and a flat-bottom wok.

-Nice.

-This is about 4 cups of water in here coming to a boil.

What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna line the steamer basket with a damp towel.

And this is actually to keep the rice from sticking to the steamer.

So I'm just gonna press it in, make sure that the cloth is touching the edges.

-Nice.

-I want the steam to get all the rice.

-The towel is the nonstick surface.

-It is the nonstick surface.

-Got it.

-Alright.

So I'm gonna get the rice in here.

And I'm not gonna really fuss with the grains too much because they're very tender.

-Mm-hmm.

-Right?

So I'm just gonna take the spatula and gently press the rice from the middle outward and make a flat surface of it, make sure it's all touching the edges.

Beautiful.

So I'm gonna fold the sides over.

You're just gonna make, like, a little rice purse if you will.

-Mm-hmm.

-Rice pocket.

Fold that like so.

-You're swaddling the rice.

-Yeah.

It's a tender baby.

-Mm-hmm.

-Water is boiling.

We're gonna put the lid on it.

So I'm just gonna carefully and gently lower this into the wok.

I'm gonna just lower this heat a little bit.

We just want to maintain the simmer.

And we're just gonna let this cook for about 20 minutes.

-Okay.

Well, it gives us a moment to talk about sticky rice.

Sticky rice is unique.

And you can't just substitute any other rice in there and expect the same results.

Here's why.

All rice is full of starch.

And starch is made up of two types of molecules -- amylose and amylopectin.

Amylose is a long, straight molecule.

Amylopectin is a large molecule with lots of branches.

In most types of rice, the starch is comprised of 1/4 amylose and 3/4 amylopectin.

Now, this ratio can vary, but it will affect the resulting texture of the cooked rice.

Sticky rice is unusual because all of its starch is made up of branchy amylopectin.

When sticky rice cooks, those branchy molecules burst through the surface of the rice grains.

The branches act like Velcro and grab and cling to each other more readily.

This makes the grains of rice stick together in chewy, delicious clumps, and that molecular structure is the reason it's called sticky rice.

-Okay, so our rice is almost done, and it's time to make the sweet milk soak that this dish is known for.

-Yes.

-And it starts with 1 cup of coconut milk, 1/4 cup of sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

And this is gonna go over medium heat.

And we just have to stick with this sauce.

No pun intended.

-Ha.

-We have to stay with it and stir it until the sugar dissolves.

-Okay.

-You'll be able to tell that the sugar is dissolved because you won't see little swirls of it in the milk.

-Right.

-Alright.

All the sugar has dissolved.

So I'm gonna turn this off and I'm gonna set it to the side.

But we need to keep it warm.

So I'm gonna cover it up.

And it's time to get our rice out.

It's been 20 minutes.

-Nice.

-Take it off the heat.

Alright.

So let's get this rice out.

I'm gonna just take the whole -- the whole little packet.

Put it in the bowl.

Alright.

I'm just grabbing it from the middle, shaking it out.

Alright.

That looks beautiful.

It's translucent and tender, but it's still gonna give us a good chew.

I'm gonna quickly pour this sweet coconut milk into the rice.

Now, this is gonna take our rice subtly into the dessert territory without it overpowering the mango.

Okay, so now that the rice is covered, I'm gonna wrap it up, let it sit for 15 minutes.

And by then, the rice will have absorbed all that liquid.

Now it's time to get into the other part of our recipe -- the mangoes.

-Nice.

-Yes, these are Ataúlfo mangoes, which are commonly known as honey mangoes.

I have two already peeled here.

I'm just gonna finish off this last one.

Peeling from crown to root is the best way to go.

So I just cut off the bottom where the little root is.

I like to give myself a base because they're pretty slippery when they're ripe.

-It also allows you to see the shape of the pit, which direction it's running.

-Yes.

Just taking off from each side.

Alright.

So I have our slices here and I'm just gonna cut them into half-inch slices.

-Okay.

-Alright.

I'm just gonna finish off the rest of these mangoes and we'll keep it moving.

-Sounds good.

-Alright.

Okay.

So our sticky rice is just about done soaking.

-Mm-hmm.

-So we're gonna work on our garnish.

-Okay.

Great.

-Right?

This is a cup of coconut milk, which is basically the remainder of the can that we had.

-Okay.

-This is gonna be a bit savory.

An eighth teaspoon of salt.

And we're just gonna bring this to a vigorous simmer.

This is gonna give our dessert that slightly savory edge that we need it to have.

-Nice.

-Right?

In the meantime, I'm gonna make a slurry.

-Mmm.

-This is 1/2 teaspoon of cornstarch and a teaspoon of water.

-Okay.

-Give that a little stir till the cornstarch is dissolved.

This is gonna help our savory coconut milk get a little thickness to it.

Alright.

There we go.

Alright, so this will only take about 1 to 2 minutes to thicken.

-No time at all.

-It happens really quickly.

-Okay.

Great.

-No time at all.

Alright.

This is good.

It's been two minutes.

It's nice and thick.

It should coat your spoon.

There we go.

Okay.

We're gonna let this reach room temperature.

We're gonna let it cool a little bit.

You can make the sauce up to 24 hours in advance.

But we don't need that much time.

We're almost ready to eat.

-Yay.

-So we'll let this cool and we'll start plating.

-Okay.

Great.

-We did it.

-Yes.

-So we're gonna start with our sticky rice.

And it is indeed sticky.

I'm gonna fan your mango if you don't mind.

-Oh.

-We have our delicious and savory coconut-milk topping.

So finally we're gonna top it with our garnish of choice.

I have some mung beans.

I have sesame seeds of both black and white variety, toasted.

-Mm-hmm.

-I'm gonna go with black sesame seeds.

-Okay.

-So this recipe is traditionally made with toasted mung beans as a garnish.

Right?

So I'm gonna give you a little bit here.

-Mmm.

-Yeah.

-Nice.

-Very nice.

-That's what I've usually had -- mung beans with this.

-Mm-hmm.

You ready to taste?

-I am so ready to taste this.

-Let's do it.

-I'm gonna go for a little bit of the rice first before I take a bite of both together.

That rice.

That rice is paradise.

-Yes, it is.

Perfectly sweet, not overpowering.

-The rice is sticky, but it's creamy.

-Yes.

-It's not stodgy.

Every grain infused with that coconut flavor.

-Yeah, and that little saltiness of the coconut-milk topping... -Mm-hmm.

-...is the perfect balance of salty and sweet for me.

-I've been salivating ever since you started cutting up that mango.

-Mm-hmm.

-Beautifully perfumed.

Get a bite of them together.

-Yeah.

-Mmm.

And it still is the case that I can eat a lot of this.

-Yes.

-It's light, it's fresh.

It's -- It's unexpected just like you.

-Thank you so much.

-Yeah.

Well, it definitely takes two to mango with this dessert.

And it starts by using a steamer basket to cook the rice until nice and chewy.

Pour sweetened coconut milk over the cooked rice and finish with a savory coconut sauce over the rice and serve with sweet, fresh mango.

So, from "America's Test Kitchen," the delightful, the delicious khao niaow ma maung.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with select episodes and product reviews.

Those are all available on our website.

That's americastestkitchen.com/tv.

-Let us help you with dinner tonight.

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