♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Today on "America's Test Kitchen"... Keith makes Julia New England fish chowder, Adam reveals his top picks for nakiri knives, Lisa shares her favorite tiny tools, and Dan makes Bridget hearty green salad with chickpeas, pickled cauliflower, and seared Halloumi.

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.

Sailing with American Queen Voyages brings you to mighty rivers and unique expeditions, where passionate explorers can discover the continent of North America.

You can learn more about our voyages at AQVoyages.com or contact your travel advisor.

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♪♪ -New England fish chowder began as a humble dinner made by sailors aboard local fishing vessels, where they'd throw a piece of the catch, usually cod or haddock, into a pot with some water, a little salt pork, and some rustic crackers known as hardtack that just helped thicken things up.

Now, over the years, the soup got embellished just a little bit with some potatoes and some dairy, and that's the version that Keith's going to make for us today.

-Yeah, the problem is with chowders these days is that they've become too rich, so rich that you can't taste the fish.

So today we're going to make a chowder that kind of goes back to the original, where we have nice, tender, moist fish and a really clean, fresh tasting broth.

-I like it.

-And that's where we're going to start, with our broth.

So, I have 2 tablespoons of butter that I have melted in this Dutch oven over medium heat.

Then we're going to add two onions that have been cut into 1/2 inch pieces, 3/4 teaspoon of table salt, 1 1/2 teaspoons of thyme, and one single bay leaf.

Okay, so, the onions are in our pot and softening, and then I'm going to do one more piece of prep before we get to our fish.

So, I have a piece of salt pork here.

I have a 4-ounce piece that I've rinsed to get the salt off the exterior.

You don't want too, too much salt here.

And I'm just going to cut this rind off the top.

We don't need that.

And then I'm just going to cut it into two pieces.

We'll get a nice kind of background flavor, that funky pork flavor, from the salt pork.

But we won't get too much.

It won't be too pervasive.

So, we're just going to let those onions soften, and then the salt pork can go in after those are softened.

-Okay.

-It's been three minutes, and you can see that our onions don't have any color in there, which is important.

And I can add our salt pork to that.

And now I'm going to add 5 cups of water.

So, I'm just going to turn this up a little bit, and we're going to let that come up to a simmer.

Couple minutes.

Okay, the water has come up to a simmer, and now it's time to make our fish stock.

So I'm just going to take the fish that we're using in the stew to make that fish stock.

I have 2 pounds of boneless, skinless cod here.

-Mm-hmm.

-And I'm just going to add our fish to flavor this liquid, but I'm actually going to do this off the heat.

-Oh.

-And I'm going to cover it.

So the fish is going to sit in that water and steep the water, infuse it with flavor, and we'll get a nice, clean fish flavor.

But we don't want to cook the fish too much, so we're going to do it off heat.

So we're going to let this sit for five minutes.

We are going to work on our potatoes.

I have 1 1/2 pounds of Yukon gold potatoes.

I'm just going to cut this into 1/2-inch slabs.

We really like Yukon gold potatoes for a couple reasons.

We like the flavor, kind of a sweet flavor, but we also like the way that they hold up in the chowder.

They'll soften a little bit, but they won't break down and become mushy.

Okay, so that's our potatoes.

And all we have to do is wait for that fish to continue steeping in there, and we can come back, and we'll do a flip flop.

-Ah.

-We'll take the fish out, put the potatoes in.

-Alright.

-It's been five minutes, and hopefully our fish has infused that water with plenty of flavor.

-Oh, it smells good.

-Smells good.

-Yeah.

-Get a hint of that salt pork, too?

-Yeah.

-Very nice.

So, I'm just going to take this out.

And the fish is not quite fully cooked at this point.

We want to try to get as much fish out of there as possible, because we're going to boil those potatoes for 20 minutes, and we don't really want to leave the fish in there, because... -Yeah.

-...they'll become overcooked.

Okay.

So, the fish is out.

The salt pork, we're going to leave in there.

We still want that to flavor the broth.

And now our potatoes can go in.

-Now you can cook the potatoes without overcooking the fish, and the potatoes will take on the flavor of the cod.

-Fish flavor.

-Aha.

-Brilliant.

-I love this technique.

-We're going to turn this on.

We're going to bring this up to a simmer.

We're going to simmer those potatoes for about 20 minutes until they're nice and tender.

It's been about 20 minutes, and our potatoes should be nicely cooked right now.

Check that with a fork.

Oh, yeah.

That's perfect.

-Nice.

-So now for the dairy.

We're going to add 2 cups of milk here.

We are going to add one more thing to this.

We're going to have 1 tablespoon of cornstarch here, so I'm just going to whisk a little milk in here to get that cornstarch dissolved.

And then I have 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper to that.

-Mmm!

-Have to have black pepper in chowder.

-I agree with that.

-So, I'm just going to stir this into our base.

So, we have the milk in there, and we're just going to return this to a simmer so that cornstarch activates and thickens the broth.

Broth has come back up to a simmer, and you can see it's thickened slightly.

So now we're going to reintroduce the fish to this, and I'm just going to slide it in with all those nice, flavorful juices.

-Mmm.

-And again, we don't want to overcook the fish here, so I'm going to shut off the heat, cover the pot, and let that sit for five minutes.

The fish just needs to cook through just slightly, so -- and it will just warm up, and it'll be good to go in about five minutes.

-Alright.

-It's been five minutes, and our fish should be fully cooked and warmed through.

So I'm just going to take the salt pork out of here.

-Snacks.

-For later.

-[ Chuckles ] -And there is the bay leaf.

Okay.

I just want to taste this and make sure it's properly seasoned.

Add a little bit more salt and of course some black pepper.

-Mmm.

-Now we want to stir this gently.

We want to break up that fish a little bit, but we don't want to break it up so much that you just have these tiny shards of fish.

-Yep.

-So I just kind of use the spoon and you kind of break it up against the side of the pot.

I think it's time to eat our chowder.

-Alright.

-Make sure you get a nice, big chunk of fish... -Yeah.

-...in there and plenty of potatoes.

-Good looking out.

-Look at that.

That's beautiful.

-That is beautiful.

-Now, I have some chopped chives here.

Can I garnish your bowl?

-Ooh.

Yes, please.

That's fancy.

-Chopped chives is nice.

It adds a little bit of an allium flavor, but crispy bacon is a good way to go here.

-Mmm.

-Maybe some oyster crackers.

-Oh, that's delicious.

It has such a clean cod flavor.

It doesn't taste like generic seafood.

It tastes like cod.

-Yeah, and just tasting the broth by itself -- -Mm-hmm.

Oh, that's delicious.

-Not too rich.

You have a nice fish flavor.

-Yeah.

-It's really nicely balanced.

I love that.

-Yeah.

Mmm.

Keith, this is delicious.

-It is really good.

-Yeah.

What a clever cooking method.

Thank you.

-You're welcome.

-If you want to make this updated version of a New England classic, start by par-cooking the fish, thicken the soup with cornstarch, and finish cooking the fish off the heat.

From "America's Test Kitchen," a terrific recipe for New England fish chowder.

I loved how you cooked the fish first.

-[ Boston accent ] It's a wicked good chowder.

-[ Laughs ] ♪♪ -There are a few knives, say, a chef's knife, paring knife, maybe a serrated knife, that'll get you through almost any kitchen job.

But when you want to start adding to your knife arsenal, you might want to consider something called nakiri.

And Adam's here, and he's going to tell us all about this wonderful knife.

-A nakiri is a Japanese knife specifically for vegetables.

You'll find one in almost every Japanese home kitchen.

You can see the shape.

Pretty tall blade... -Yes.

-...fairly short, blunt tip, straight edge.

-Right.

-For a lot of contact with the cutting board, and -- -Yes, instead of having a curved belly, which some of them do.

-Right, you're not going to rock this and dice with it.

This is meant for slicing straight and even, very precisely, very fine.

Now, one thing I want to mention before I even get into the lineup -- In a lot of Western markets, these are mislabeled as vegetable cleavers.

-Mm.

-They're not cleavers in the... -Right.

-...classic sense of a cleaver.

The metal is fairly brittle.

It's hard.

It's really designed for precise cuts.

If you try and get through, like, a chicken bone... -Mm-hmm.

-...or a super hard squash or something with this, you could chip it.

-Okay.

-So don't use it like a cleaver.

-Right.

-It's a vegetable knife.

We had a lineup of 12.

The price range was $48 to $255.

-Oh, okay.

-All of them had a blade length of between 6 and 7 inches, which is pretty typical.

By and large, this was a new knife for a lot of our testers and they loved them.

They were chopping onions.

They did a brunoise of carrots, the really fine dice.

They julienned peppers.

They minced parsley.

And they sliced cabbage, delicata squash, which is not super tough... -Right.

-...and partially frozen steaks.

Testers identified a couple of factors that really contributed to that feeling of -- of finesse... -Mm.

-...and control and precision.

One of them was the thickness of the blade.

And I want you to try this knife.

-Okay.

-See how that feels to you with some of that cabbage there.

-Alright.

So let's see what's going on here with the cabbage.

Eh, it's not bad.

-Okay.

Now I want you to try this one, for comparison's sake.

-Alright, this one, which feels different, feels lighter.

Oh.

This one's almost surgical.

-There was a big difference for the testers.

The thicker knife blades felt like they were cleaving through food, sort of wedging through food, whereas you're holding a thinner one.

Look at that.

That's such a beautiful slice of cabbage.

-That is beautiful.

-All of that precision, all of that control was really aided by having a thinner blade.

The first one was 2.6 millimeters measured at the spine.

The second one is 1.7 millimeters.

-Oh.

Big difference.

-What a difference a millimeter makes.

-Sure does.

-There was a second factor that testers zeroed in on, and that's the weight of the knife.

These ranged from about 10 ounces to about 5 ounces.

And you showed that up and down motion, which means you're really using your arm a lot.

-Right.

-I want you to try a heavier knife.

Try this one.

-Alright.

It looks heavy, and it -- Oh, boy, it feels heavy.

-Yeah.

-Feels clunky and heavy.

-That one was closer to 10 ounces.

This one that you used before was closer to 5 ounces.

And it's really easy to see how you could get more fatigued using that heavier knife, right?

-Absolutely.

Absolutely.

-And in fact, what I'm holding is the winning nakiri.

This is the Masamoto Sohonten Wa-Nakiri.

Not an inexpensive knife -- $210.

-Mm.

-But testers loved this one.

This is not going to replace a chef's knife or even a santoku, but it will supplement it, and you'll love prepping vegetables.

If you want a little bit less expensive knife, because this is a supplemental knife, this one is the best buy.

This is the Masutani VG1 Nakiri.

165 millimeters.

-Okay.

-70 bucks.

So it's a great way to supplement your -- your knife arsenal.

-70 bucks for that beautiful knife?

-I know.

-Sold.

-I kind of want one, too.

I see it in your eyes.

-Sold.

Yeah.

All of these are coming home with me.

So if you want to include one of these beautiful knives in your knife drawer, our winner is the Masamoto Sohonten Wa-Nakiri, and it runs about $210.

But our best buy is the Masutani VG1 Nakiri, 165 millimeter, and that's only $70.

♪♪ -Maybe you have no space in your kitchen, or you're cooking smaller portions.

Today I have tiny kitchen tools.

They're not toys.

They're just the right size for certain tasks.

First up, mini whisks.

We tested six brands, making a spice mix, beating eggs, making vinaigrette, honey mustard dipping sauce, and a cornstarch slurry.

Don't buy this one with its measly three loops and this little skinny grip, or this one that just trapped all this gunk up at the top of the handle.

This is our winner, the Tovolo Stainless Steel 6-Inch Mini Whisk.

It aced every test, with a wide head, lots of loops, a comfy handle, and no crevices that are hard to clean.

We love it, and we think you will, too.

Next up, mini bar boards.

They're just right for mincing a little garlic or herbs or slicing a lemon.

They're also perfect for picnics or for serving cheese.

We tested nine.

Skip this one.

It's just ridiculously tiny.

This one kept sliding around.

Here's what we liked best, the OXO Good Grips Prep Board.

It has grippy edges that won't slip, and at about 7 by 11 inches, it's the biggest little board we tested.

And this plastic material goes right in the dishwasher.

In wood, we liked the TEAKHAUS Marine Board with Juice Canal.

It's reversible.

It's heavy and stable on the countertop, and the natural resins in the teak help it stay conditioned and resist stains.

Finally, small strainers.

These are super useful for straining citrus juice, tea and cocktails, or sifting confectioners' sugar or cocoa powder.

We tested seven.

Don't buy this one from LiveFresh.

It broke during testing.

And skip these with their too-open mesh that lets everything fall through.

Here's what you want, the Rosle Stainless Steel Fine Mesh Tea Strainer.

It's well balanced.

This hook sits securely on all kinds of bowls and cups.

Its fine mesh sifted and strained beautifully, giving us crystal-clear lemon juice and really professional looking dustings of cocoa powder and confectioners' sugar.

Any of our winning tiny tools would be an excellent addition to your kitchen.

♪♪ -On those days when it's scorching outside, I don't want to eat a big meal, much less spend a lot of time in a hot kitchen cooking that meal.

I like a big salad.

Hat tip to Elaine Benes.

And Dan is here, and he's going to show me a great salad that's packed full of flavor and vegetables and lots of satisfying protein, too.

-Yeah, so, what we're really going to do is a salad that actually eats like a meal.

-Mm-hmm.

-Right, so like a chef's salad, but, like, we're in a whole 'nother world.

-Fabulous.

-Yeah.

So it's going to be really nice.

And this all starts with a quick pickle.

So, I've got 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar here, and I'm going to add 2 teaspoons of honey, little bit of nice sweetness, and 3/4 teaspoon of salt.

I'm just going to whisk this together.

So, I have 2 cups of cauliflower florets that I've cut into 1-inch pieces.

-Okay.

-So we're going to pop those in here, and then we're going to head to the microwave and cook them for about 1 to 1 1/2 minutes, just get things nice and steamy.

Beautiful.

So, we've got that nice and steamy.

Going to give it a quick stir.

But we're actually going to do a lot of our softening at this point.

So we're going to cover, let it sit for about five minutes while we get into the rest of our prep.

-Great.

-So now I'm going to get into prepping the other components of the salad.

And one thing that we found was really important for a complex, interesting salad was to have two different kinds of greens in the mix.

So we're going to start with green leaf lettuce.

This is a small head, but I'm only going to use half of it.

So I'm going to start by just cutting it in half, and I'm taking off just the bottom of the core there.

And I'm actually going to tear this into pieces.

Okay, so the next green is not even green, but it is one of my favorite salad vegetables, and it's radicchio.

I love the bitterness.

You don't want to use too, too much or it kind of overtakes the salad, but a little bit goes a long way and gives much more complexity to the salad.

-Alright.

-So, we're starting with a small head.

Again, I'm only going to use half of this.

I don't want to overwhelm it.

So I'm just going to cut down the center.

And we've got this little core that we want to get rid of, but it's really easy to just go in with your knife on both sides and pop that out.

I like to cut it in half.

I like to take each side into slightly smaller pieces, and then we're going to slice nice and thin.

Now we have our nice sliced radicchio.

Next up, we have grapes.

This is 6 ounces of red seedless grapes.

We're going to have a really intense dressing, and we're going to have bitter radicchio and all these components, and these just add acidity and sweetness.

So, we're just going to cut these in half.

Protein.

We're going to have protein in a couple of different forms here, and one is one of my absolute favorite ingredients, not just for salad, but everything in general, is Halloumi.

So, this is 4 ounces of Halloumi, which is a very special cheese.

As you know, it doesn't melt... -It does not.

-...which is very weird for a cheese.

I'm going to cut this into four equal pieces.

Now, what makes Halloumi so special is that you can throw it in a skillet.

You can throw it on the grill, and it actually browns up beautifully, and it doesn't melt.

Now, the reason that's possible is when they press it and actually get the curds out, they then cook them in the whey.

-Hmm.

-It's a pretty unusual step for cheese.

Before we get searing, I want to drain my cauliflower pickle over there.

So, it's done a nice job infusing, but it's still crisp tender, which is what we're looking for.

That crunch is going to be so nice.

So, what we're going to do is actually use a slotted spoon and leave all of that pickling liquid behind.

So we've got the cauliflower out.

So, we're going to use this to build our dressing in a little bit.

-Alright.

-So, now it's time to cook our Halloumi.

So, I have a small, little 8-inch nonstick skillet here.

I have extra virgin olive oil, which I'm going to heat over medium-high heat until shimmering.

And we're going to pop in our four slices of Halloumi.

[ Oil sizzles ] Hear that nice, little sizzle?

-A little bit of sizzle.

-So, we're going to cook this for about 60 to 90 seconds per side.

Just wait until I flip these.

The browning is so beautiful, and the flavor gets really intense.

-Great.

-So, that's been 60 seconds.

We'll take a look.

-Oh, gorgeous color.

-Isn't that gorgeous?

Oh, yeah.

-That color means flavor.

-Alright.

Another 60 seconds, and we've got lovely browning on the second side, too.

-Beautiful, beautiful.

-So this is done.

Take it off the heat and pop a lid on.

This is going to help us keep it nice and warm.

-Alright.

We've done all of our salad prep, and so now it's a matter of mixing, seasoning, and then plating really thoughtfully.

And that's another aspect that we want to focus on so you get different bites all the time and a really complex salad.

So, I'm going to start by taking 2 tablespoons of our pickling liquid and adding it to 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil that I have in this large bowl.

-Ah, I see the basis of a vinaigrette happening.

-Just going to whisk this up.

It's not going to really emulsify 'cause it's just a couple of ingredients.

The honey will help a little bit with that.

Okay, great.

Now we're going to go in with our greens.

So we've got our torn up green leaf lettuce and then our thinly sliced radicchio.

-Beautiful.

-Ah, it's so beautiful.

I'm just going to give it a little toss to combine.

And then once it has a nice, little coating of dressing on it, I like to hit it with salt and pepper.

Gives it something for the salt and pepper to stick to.

-Right.

-And make sure that every leaf is well seasoned.

So a little bit of kosher salt and a little fresh black pepper.

So as you can see, we're dressing the greens pretty lightly.

We're going to make another dressing that has a lot more oomph to it, but we want every bite to have a nice base level.

-Okay.

-Okay.

We have our two salad bowls here.

So the first element is going to be this lovely greens mixture.

-Lovely.

-Now, some people would call this a salad, but we're going to go a lot further.

I'm going to set these aside for a moment, and we're going to build a really awesome dressing.

So, we've got our pickling liquid, which has a little bit of honey and salt and the flavor from the cauliflower.

We're going to add 3 tablespoons of Greek yogurt.

This is going to add a ton of creaminess and body.

Then 2 tablespoons of tahini.

Next, I have one garlic clove, minced, and then I have 1/2 teaspoon of Aleppo pepper.

-Gorgeous.

-So, Aleppo pepper is incredibly fruity.

It's moderately spicy, so you can use a lot of it.

-Mm-hmm.

-And it's kind of rough and coarse in the way that it's cut.

So it's just a really beautiful chili pepper.

And then finally 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

And I'm just going to whisk this together.

So we'll take 1/4 cup of this dressing and dress the chickpeas with it.

So, I have 2/3 cup of canned chickpeas.

They're really creamy, really nice, super easy, and they've just been drained and rinsed.

-Okay.

-And just stir that in.

Chickpeas are in good shape.

They're going to come back in just a second.

So, we've got our two beautiful salad bases here, and we're just going to build little piles of these wonderful ingredients over the top.

So I'm going to start with a little bit of pickled cauliflower.

-Mm.

-Okay, so now I'm adding the grapes.

I'm going to put those in a nice pile next to the cauliflower.

And now it's time for our Halloumi.

We're just going to go two nice pieces.

-How lovely.

-Alright, and now we're going to do a nice, little drizzle of the remaining dressing over these three piles.

Just make sure everything gets that nice treatment.

-Mmm.

-Gorgeous chickpeas.

-Ah.

-So, this really is one of those salads where you make it -- You know, follow the recipe exactly the first time, and then you kind of fall in love with little different parts of it.

-Mm.

-Like, the vinaigrette you love, and you would use that on different things.

You know, pickled cauliflower.

And then, the Halloumi is like, you need a quick protein on any weeknight, it's really, really great, too.

-There's no way this cannot taste good.

I mean, it looks amazing.

I got a little bit of the greens.

Beautifully dressed.

I'm going to go in for some cauliflower now.

-I'll join you.

-Mmm.

It's just softened a little bit.

-Mm-hmm.

-But still has that really briny crunch.

Let's tuck into some Halloumi here.

I love Halloumi.

I mean, the texture on its own, it's almost meaty.

-Mm-hmm.

-It's really substantial.

But it's a gorgeous, light, salty cheese.

-Yep.

-Definitely seasoned well.

I love that browning.

That really deepens the flavor.

-It's like, adding chicken to a salad is fine.

-Mm-hmm.

-You know, but it doesn't add a ton of flavor.

-No.

-This brings its own flavor.

But we do have other variations that are just as complex and interesting on our website.

-Fantastic.

Every bite of this gets better.

Thanks, Dan.

-You're welcome.

-Appreciate it.

Now, if you want to make this amazing salad, make a quick pickled cauliflower, brown Halloumi cheese for lots of flavor, and then dress the salad with a vinaigrette and creamy yogurt dressing.

It's the salad that never ends, and you're thankful for that.

So, from "America's Test Kitchen," hearty green salad with chickpeas, pickled cauliflower, and seared Halloumi.

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, americastestkitchen.com/tv.

Mmm.

Only problem is the bowl's too small.

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"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.

Sailing with American Queen Voyages brings you to mighty rivers and unique expeditions, where passionate explorers can discover the continent of North America.

You can learn more about our voyages at AQVoyages.com or contact your travel advisor.

Sur la Table, where you can discover an assortment of provisions for your next meal or gathering, from cookware and tools from a wide variety of kitchen brands to hands-on cooking classes.

Visit us at surlatable.com.

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