♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Today on "America's Test Kitchen", Erica makes Julia pasta alla zozzona and Joe makes Bridget homemade pappardelle with duck and chestnut ragù.

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

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-Pasta alla zozzona translates to "dirty pasta" in Italian, but they mean that in the best way because it has an over-the-top richness thanks to a number of ingredients including sausage, guanciale, pecorino, olive oil, egg yolks.

And today, Erica is going to show us how to make it.

-If carbonara and amatriciana and a whole bunch of sausage and onions eloped in the Roman countryside, -[ Laughs ] -...you'd have zozzona.

-It's a food wedding!

-It is!

It's indulgent.

It's rich.

It's a creamy tomato sauce packed full of sausage and guanciale.

-Mm.

-So let's get started with our guanciale.

I have 5 ounces of guanciale that I'm just going to cut into quarter inch cubes.

-All right, now, if you can't find guanciale... -Yes.

-...what could you substitute?

-You could just sub a big slab of pancetta.

That would also work just as well.

All right, we've got our guanciale, so let's get cooking.

-Okay.

-I have 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and I'm just going to add all of my guanciale right in and heat it over medium heat.

-Mm-hmm.

-And I'm going to let the guanciale render and cook just until it's brown and starts to render.

-Okay.

-Going to take about 4 to 6 minutes, and I'll just stir it occasionally.

-Mmm.

That looks good.

-Mm-hmm.

And it's been about 6 minutes, and our guanciale is nicely rendered and starting to brown.

So it's time to add in our Italian sausage.

I have 5 ounces of Italian sausage that I've removed the casing and broken up into 1 inch pieces.

So I'll just add that right in.

And I have 1/2 cup of finely chopped onion.

-Which is about 1/2 an onion.

-Exactly.

And I am just going to let this cook for about 8 to 10 minutes, just until the sausage is no longer pink.

And I'm going to break up the sausage into some smaller pieces as it cooks.

-Mmm.

-So our sausage is pretty much done.

But we're just going to set it aside and make our pasta.

-Okay.

-So I have two quarts of boiling water, and to that I'm going to add in 8 ounces of rigatoni.

-8 ounces, that's not a lot.

-It's not, but this pasta alla zozzona is so rich, so indulgent, and it's only meant to be consumed as a first course.

So 8 ounces is going to be plenty.

-Plenty for four people.

-Plenty for four people.

-Okay.

-And I'll sprinkle in 1 teaspoon of salt.

And I'm going to let this come to a boil and cook it just until it's al dente.

And I'll stir it occasionally to ensure that it doesn't stick.

-Okay.

-While the pasta cooks, let's finish off our sauce.

So I have 3/4 of a cup of passata, and passata is Italian strained tomatoes.

-Hm.

-It has a really nice silky smooth texture, and it's similar to tomato sauce, except it's made with uncooked tomatoes.

-A-ha.

-So it's going to add some nice bright freshness to cut some of the richness that we have here from all the sausage and guanciale.

-That makes sense.

-It's going to combine with the passata to give us a really nice, rich, and indulgent sauce.

-And passata you can find at most grocery stores.

It's usually in the canned tomato aisle.

-Exactly.

So I'm going to reduce my heat to medium low, and I'm going to cover this and let it simmer for 2 to 4 minutes, just until the passata and the pork fat have fully combined.

-Okay.

-And to finish off our sauce, this is the carbonara component of zozzona.

We are going to make a pecorino egg yolk cream mixture.

-Mmm!

-So add 1 ounce of finely grated pecorino Romano.

I have 2 egg yolks.

-Goodness.

-And 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper.

And I'm just going to whisk this together just until it's incorporated.

It's going to be nice and thick, but we'll thin it out a little bit later with some pasta water.

-All right.

-That looks great.

And now we'll just wait for the pasta to finish cooking.

Our pasta looks great.

It looks like it's just about done.

But just to be sure, I like to take a little piece and just take a bite.

-Mm-hmm.

-See if it's al dente to the tooth.

-Only one way to test if pasta is done.

-Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Perfect.

-All right.

-We are ready to drain.

But before I do, I'm going to reserve 1 cup of the pasta water.

I'm going to set that aside for a little bit later to add to our pasta sauce.

And then the rest, it's ready to drain.

And I'm just going to add the pasta right back to the pot and head right back over to the stove.

-Okay.

-And all of that delicious meat sauce is going to go right in.

-It just slides right out of the pan.

-Yes.

-[ Laughs ] -So I'm going to cook this over medium low.

And I'm just going to stir it together just until the sauce is fully coating every ridge of the rigatoni.

It's just going to take about a minute.

All right.

And that looks great.

-Sure does.

-So I'm going to turn off the heat.

And we are going to finish off that pecorino egg yolk mixture.

-Mm-hmm.

-So to the bowl, I'm going to add in 1/2 cup of our reserved pasta water.

And just whisk that all together just until it's slightly smooth.

All right.

That looks great.

So I'm just going to pour this right over our pasta.

And I'm going to stir it together off heat just until it's slightly thickened and glossy.

Gonna really start to see it come together.

-Oh, goodness.

-Yes.

That looks delicious.

-Sure does.

-We are ready to serve.

-Wow.

That was fast.

-Mm-hmm.

So this is a pasta dish that's really nice to have some bowls warmed ahead of time.

So I have a couple of warmed bowls here.

-Ooh!

-And I'll serve a portion for you.

-Looks good.

-Yes.

Mm.

A bit more pasta and guanciale.

-Oh, oh, oh.

-And I also have some freshly grated Pecorino Romano.

Oh man.

This looks delicious.

-It really does.

Let me stab a piece of sausage here.

-Mm.

Yes.

-All right.

-Mmm.

-Mmm.

-It's so creamy.

-Mm-hmm.

-You taste the cream of the tomatoes, and then you get that meaty punch.

Oh, that's good.

-Mm-hmm.

-You taste this sausage and then the guanciale.

-Yes.

-Mmm.

-And it's really -- the pork fat really has coated the pasta with the passata.

-Mm-hmm.

-It's rich.

But the passata cuts that richness.

-Erica, this is fantastic.

Thank you for showing me how to make it.

-My pleasure.

-If you want to make this decadent pasta, start by browning guanciale in the pan before adding the sausage.

Simmer this sauce for just a few minutes and finish the pasta off the heat with a mixture of egg yolks and pecorino.

From "America's Test Kitchen", a killer recipe for pasta alla zozzona.

Oh, this soothes what ails you.

-[ Chuckles ] It really does.

♪♪ -Have you ever wondered why we sometimes tell you to cut food before putting it into a food processor?

Well, let's see what happens when you don't.

I've got some mushrooms here.

We'll just pop these in.

And process.

[ Whirring ] See how the pieces of mushroom got kicked up by the blades of the food processor?

Those blades are spinning so fast that the mushrooms effectively bounce around the upper half of the bowl.

The larger the chunks, the more they bounce.

The solution is to stop and scrape, right?

Not quite.

What you should do is chop the mushrooms into smaller pieces before you add them to the processor.

If you find that the pieces are still bouncing around, you can actually let the food processor do the rest of the prep work for you by using the pulse function.

Putting short pauses in the motion of the blades lets the chunks fall down between them.

Once your chunks are small enough, then scrape down the stuff that stuck to the sides and process to your desired consistency.

So next time you use your food processor to chop something, say carrots or onions, remember cut, pulse, then process.

♪♪ -Ragù alla bolognese is Italy's most famous ragù, but ragùs vary from region to region, even town to town, and they focus on the local ingredients of the area.

Now Joe's here.

I'm very excited because he's got a duck ragù that one might enjoy in Tuscany.

-That's right.

But this pasta is actually hyper local to me.

When I was back home in London last Christmas, my dad made a very similar recipe, and I loved it.

Thought I could improve upon it a little bit and streamline it for the home cook without sacrificing any of the details.

-So now it's going to be local to us.

-It's going to be absolutely local to us.

-Fantastic.

-But whatever ragù you cook, a fresh egg pasta is really traditional.

So that's what we're going to start with.

-Okay.

-I've got 2 cups of all purpose flour here in a food processor.

And this is an egg pasta.

So we're going to add 2 large eggs and 6 egg yolks.

Now, this is a lot of egg, but this is going to add structure as well as beautiful color.

A nice bit of chew to it, as well.

-Okay.

Make it a little bit easier to work with.

-Yes, exactly.

-Gotcha.

-And to make it even easier to work with, I've got 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil here.

Now, this really helps with the rolling out.

It's very extensible, this pasta dough.

-Nice.

-So we're going to process it for 45 seconds until the ball forms.

[ Whirring ] The size of eggs really varies, and that's where all the moisture is coming from.

So if you find that the ball doesn't come together you can add a little bit of extra moisture, 1 teaspoon of water at a time.

And you can continue to process until it does.

And there we go.

You can see it's just starting to form a ball now.

Stop that.

We can take it out, and we can knead it until it's completely smooth.

-Gotcha.

-So now we're sort of getting to a smooth dough, but it's pretty hard to work with as you can see from the amount of force I'm having to knead it with.

So we're going to let it rest, let it relax until it becomes much easier to work with.

So I'm going to roll it into a 6 inch log.

That'll be easier to work with later.

And then we're going to wrap it in plastic wrap.

We'll let it rest for at least 30 minutes or up to four hours.

-Okay.

-While the pasta is resting, we can deal with our duck.

-Okay.

-So we got 2 duck legs here.

Now, you can get Peking ducks or mulards.

These are Pekings.

They tend to be a little milder, more tender.

They work really well in a braise.

But you could use mulards, as well.

-Okay.

-But whatever type of duck you have, they've all got a lot of fat on it.

And we don't want that fat go into the ragù.

So we're going to render a lot of that.

And so I'm going to pierce each duck leg 15 to 20 times with a skewer.

And we're going to pat these dry because we want to brown them as well as render that fat.

We transfer them to a cold Dutch oven, skin side down.

And we're going to cook them over medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes until the skin is really well browned and a lot of that fat has rendered.

So one of the main ingredients in this dish, which is not very common for ragù, is chestnuts.

So I've got 2 cups of whole peeled cooked chestnuts.

-I've never seen chestnuts in a ragù.

-[ Chuckles ] Right, exactly.

They're very typical in northern Italy.

Quite often you'll see them in a pasta dough or just simply cooked into a stew, as well.

So we're going to process it in a food processor until it's finely chopped, because we're really looking for it to go into the sauce.

We don't want like big chunks of it at all.

-Okay.

-So I'm just going to pulse it 10 to 12 times until it's finely chopped.

Put it back in this bowl.

We're not going to clean out the food processor because it hasn't finished doing its work yet.

Now, the base of pretty much any good ragù is a sofrito, that mix of onion, celery, and carrot, but it has to be chopped very fine.

So we're going to turn back to the food processor, which again is just helping us speed this whole recipe along.

So that's my one onion that I've chopped coarse.

I've got one rib of celery and one carrot that I've chopped coarse, as well.

And we're going to pulse this until it's finely chopped, 10 to 12 pulses.

Great.

Thank you for tending that.

-Mm-hmm.

-Yeah, this is looking very good.

We can set this aside until we need it later.

-Okay, great.

-Let's see how the duck's doing.

So it's been just over 15 minutes now, and you can see there's a lot of fat in there.

-Fantastic.

-And let's check the duck.

-Oh!

-Beautifully brown skin, which is gonna be a lot of flavor in our ragù.

-Yes.

-I'm gonna flip the ducks.

I'm gonna get them browned on the other side.

So we're going to let them cook for another 3 more minutes.

It's been another 3 minutes, and the duck has browned on the underside.

We just want to just take off that raw edge.

-Okay.

-I think we can kill the heat.

-All right.

-So, as promised, we've got some fat, a lot of fat.

Now, this, of course, is a wonderful ingredient in its own right.

-Yeah, it's a beverage.

-[ Laughs ] So I'm going to pour this all out except for 2 tablespoons because we're going to use those 2 tablespoons as the base for our sofrito.

So we get more of that flavor in there.

-Lovely.

-But we don't want to throw this away because we're going to use it later.

And now we're going to return the pan to medium heat, and we're going to add our sofrito.

[ Sizzling ] -Mmm, mmm, mmm.

-There we go.

And we're going to add a teaspoon of table salt.

So we want this to be on medium heat.

We don't really want any browning.

We just want the veggies to turn really sweet and add that body to it.

This will take another 5 to 7 minutes.

-Okay, great.

-So it's been just over 5 minutes.

And the veggies are nicely softened.

-Beautiful.

-And we can add the rest of our aromatics, which, in this case, is rosemary.

I've got a teaspoon of minced rosemary here.

And we let this cook for 30 seconds.

-Mm!

Oh, my goodness.

-Mm, you can just get a little bit of that duck fat.

But what you're really getting is that amazing rosemary smell.

-That's exactly right.

-So there's a little bit of browning formed, not a huge amount.

So we're going to deglaze the pan with a cup of red wine.

And we're going to cook this just for a minute till it's reduced slightly.

We don't want to burn off all the alcohol, but we want to take the edge off.

-Gotcha.

-So that's reduced down just a little bit.

Let's add the rest of our braising liquid.

I've got 2 1/2 cups of chicken broth.

Nice and neutral.

Very savory.

And we're going to add half of our chestnuts.

-To this?

-To this, right into the sauce.

So chestnuts are very high in starch.

So they're not only going to add flavor, but they're also going to help thicken the sauce as it cooks.

We're going to use the other half later.

-Okay.

-So we'll just set that aside.

-This got very interesting very quickly.

-I'll stir that in.

And we can nestle our duck legs straight into the sauce.

-Mmm, mmm, mmm.

-Now I'm going to bring this back to a simmer.

We're going to cover it.

And we're going to cook this in the oven until the meat is falling off the bones.

This will take about two hours.

We're going to put it in a 300 degree oven, set on the middle rack.

-Okay.

So nice low and slow.

-Low and slow, exactly.

So the duck's cooking.

We can go back to our pasta.

-Great.

-This is rested.

And you can see it's already darkened somewhat.

And if you poke it, it should be a lot easier to work with.

Much more supple.

-Yeah.

No spring back.

-Exactly.

So this is a very easy dough to work with.

You could roll it out using a rolling pin, or you could use a manual pasta roller.

But we're actually going to turn to a stand mixer.

It's just a lot more efficient to use.

You just need to open the flap and slide in the pasta roller attachment.

And then you can tighten it here using this bolt.

-All right.

Very simple.

-And we want to set it to the wider setting, which, depending on your model, will have a zero or a one.

So the lowest number.

-Gotcha.

-We can divide our pasta dough into six pieces.

-Just go down the middle, and the rest into thirds.

I'm going to take 1 piece of dough and cover the rest so it doesn't dry out.

-Okay.

-I'm going to pat this into 1/2 inch disk.

It doesn't need to be perfect because we're going to shape it very nicely in a minute.

I'm gonna turn the stand mixer on.

Depending on how brave you are is how fast you're going to do it, so we'll do a medium low.

-Ooh, daring.

-[ Laughs ] And you just feed it through twice.

So now we've got this weird oval shaped pasta, which is going to be difficult to make some long noodles out of.

-[ Chuckles ] Right.

-So I'm going to fold over the edges almost like a business letter.

And at this point, the dough might start to feel a little bit moist, and in which case, it would stick.

So I'm just going to flour it so that it doesn't stick.

And if at any point, the dough starts to feel sticky, you can just add a little bit of extra flour.

-Okay.

-Okay.

And now it did go in this way.

So I'm going to rotate it 90 degrees.

And we're going to feed it through the widest setting, 2 or 3 more times until it's smooth.

Now that we're getting kind of smooth here, I can narrow the pasta roller, which is moving it up a notch each time, and I'm going to feed it through twice each time.

And each time, it's just going to get longer and longer and thinner and thinner.

-Right.

-I tend to do it by sight.

I want to be able to clearly see my fingers.

At the moment, it's still a little thick.

I can see my fingers pretty clearly here.

-Yes.

-So I think that's about as thick as we want it.

-Nice and thin.

Okay.

-Nice and thin.

And this is still quite a wet dough, so I'm going to let it air dry on some kitchen towels for about 15 minutes because it'll make it much easier to cut later.

-Okay, great.

-So I'll finish up the rest of this pasta dough, and we can get cracking.

-Perfect.

-So it's been 15 minutes, and the pasta has dried nicely.

-Sure has.

-Now you can see this would make a pretty long noodle.

-Right.

-So we're going to trim off the ends.

And then I'm going to cut this in half.

I'm going to eyeball it.

And that's a much more reasonably sized noodle.

-Nice.

-And I've already done the same with the other sheets of noodles.

-Okay.

-So now we're going to fold this into a tight rectangular packet just at 2-inch intervals.

And depending on how wide I make my cuts will dictate what pasta shape we have.

So if I wanted linguine, I'd cut them 1/8 inch thick.

Tagliatelle would be 1/2 inch thick.

But we want pappardelle, which is a very traditional shape for Tuscan ragùs, which is a full 1 inch thick.

And it works really well with the meaty ragù because you've got these lovely broad sheets and the sauce will cling really beautifully to it.

-Lovely.

-So now we're going to unfurl our pasta sheets, and we're just going to dust them with a little bit of flour so they don't stick together.

And you can make little nests on a lightly floured baking sheet.

-All right.

Just a few more to do.

-A few more to go.

-All right.

Get the door for you.

-Thank you so much.

-Oh, I'm following the aromas here.

[ Sniffs ] -Yeah.

So let's see how this is going.

Yes.

-Ooh.

-So now we're going to take the duck out of our sauce.

-Okay.

-Transfer this to a cutting board.

I'm just going to let this cool slightly.

So we're just going to turn on the heat a little bit just to thicken it just a little bit.

-Okay.

-I'm just going to turn this on to medium heat.

And we're going to cook this just for 3 to 5 minutes until it's thickened just a little bit.

-Okay.

-Whilst that's going on, we can move to our topping.

So I've added a tablespoon of duck fat to a 10-inch skillet.

Medium heat.

We're going to bring this to a simmer.

The fat's at a simmer now.

And we're going to add 1/4 cup of panko breadcrumbs.

So this is really just going to give us a little bit of crunch as well as absorbing all of that delicious duck fat.

-Lovely.

-I'm just going to cook this over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes until it's golden.

You do want to watch this quite carefully because breadcrumbs can brown very quickly.

Okay.

So we have a nice golden brown here.

I'm going to add the rest of our chestnuts and then 1/2 teaspoon of minced rosemary.

-Mmm.

-I'm gonna stir this together.

But we're looking for this to be golden brown.

Another two minutes in the skillet.

-Okay.

-I'm gonna transfer this to a bowl, because this hot skillet really does continue to transmit that heat.

Let's return to the sauce.

-Okay.

-So the sauce is looking thickened up.

And you can see that the starches have really turned this almost into like an emulsion.

You can see that thick, almost syrupy like glazed texture.

-But everything has melded together.

And that's the beauty of the ragù.

-Exactly.

So I'm going to kill the heat so that we don't over reduce this.

-Okay.

-And we can return to our duck.

So we're going to remove this duck skin.

It's a little bit flabby now, as well.

So now we're going to shred the duck.

-Oh.

-So you can see it really is falling off the bones.

So we've shredded the duck, and we can return it to its sauce.

-Where it belongs.

-[ Chuckles ] Exactly.

Stir this in, and we're going to season it.

And you've got to season with more than just salt and pepper.

Vinegar is one of those vital, vital seasoning tools.

So I'm going to add a teaspoon of red wine vinegar.

This will really nicely offset the sweetness from the chestnuts.

-Gotcha.

-We can get to cooking our pasta.

I've got 4 quarts of water boiling here.

And we're going to season the water, so we don't need to season the pasta.

And that's a tablespoon of table salt.

-Our standard ratio, right?

-Exactly.

We're going to add our pasta straight to the water.

And now we're going to cook this until the pasta is al dente.

And it's always a good idea to move the pasta around so it doesn't stick.

-Yes.

Especially at the very beginning.

-Yes, exactly.

That's when the starches start to gel and stick to one another.

And whilst that's cooking, it's always a good idea to reserve some pasta water.

So I'm just going to grab a measuring jug and just grab about 1/2 cup in case we need to thin the sauce out later.

-Gotcha.

-I think we're pretty much there.

So I want to get this pasta out the water as quickly as possible.

So I'm going to use just a regular strainer.

I like to go in, scoop as much of it up as I can.

And then we're going to go straight into the pasta sauce.

And then if you have any ones that are left behind, you can just simply use your tongs to pick them up, put them into the strainer, and you can get them into the sauce.

And this extra water that's coming in with it is a good idea because it's just going to help thin that sauce out.

-Yeah, the ragù itself was very robust, I will say.

-Exactly.

That's all the pasta.

-Well done.

-And now we're just going to toss the pasta to coat.

And then if you need to thin it out, you can just add a little bit of extra pasta water.

-Do you need some?

-Yes, please.

That's very good.

Thank you so much.

And just keep on stirring and agitating it.

I think we're there.

-I think it looks gorgeous.

-Are we ready to eat?

-Yes.

-Let's do it.

-That's it.

None of these small plates for Bridget.

-[ Laughs ] Okay.

Nice little bit of extra sauce on top.

-Hm.

-And now, of course, we've got the topping.

You don't want to scrimp on this one.

-No.

-Let's eat.

-Looks just about good enough to eat.

I'm going to have some of the ragù on its own first.

Big flavor.

That rosemary, oh.

Perfectly cooked, beautifully tender.

I mean, the chestnuts in the sauce itself.

Beautifully thickened, and they give it a light flavor.

-That's how you know that it's in there.

-Thank you so much.

And I know you're going to appreciate it when you make this beautiful, beautiful duck ragù at home.

And it starts by making fresh pasta dough using plenty of egg yolks and olive oil, then thoroughly render and braise duck legs until they're super tender.

Use chestnuts to thicken the sauce and create a crispy topping with some duck fat.

So from "America's Test Kitchen", the beautiful, the fantastico pappardelle with a duck and chestnut ragù.

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

And those are all on our website, America'sTestKitchen.com/tv.

Oh, this is so good!

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