♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Today on "Cook's Country," Julia and Bridget make a streamlined recipe for cheesy stuffed shells.

Adam reveals his top pick for broiler-safe baking dishes, and Bryan makes Julia the perfect eggplant Pecorino.

That's all right here on "Cook's Country."

-Today, every supermarket has an aisle dedicated to pasta.

But before the late 1700s, pasta was not universally known here in the U.S. -After enjoying pasta on a visit to Paris in the 1780s, President Thomas Jefferson returned with cases of noodles, and eventually he had a pasta machine shipped to his home, Monticello.

-He began serving pasta, which at the time was known as macaroni, at all of his famous dinner parties, and soon pasta became fashionable.

-Now, the 19th century brought large groups of Italian immigrants to America, and with them the pasta varieties that were specific to their regions.

-You had ziti from Sicily, fettuccine from Tuscany, and from Campagna, conchiglie, or seashells.

-Today, we're making big, cheesy stuffed shells, so let's head into the kitchen.

♪♪ Now, I love to eat stuffed shells, but I don't like to make them because there's so many components.

Besides the sauce, you have the shells themselves.

You boil them until they're super fragile, and then you've gotta fill them with a cheese mixture.

It sounds good once it's all together, but in practice, it's pretty messy.

So I like to call on a friend like Julia, who's going to make them for us.

-That's right.

Now, on the other end of the spectrum, I've found really simple stuffed shells recipes -- so simple you didn't stuff the shells at all.

-Really?

-You boiled them, and then you kind of stirred in all the ingredients you would have stuffed them with and put them in the oven.

It's called unstuffed shells.

-Huh.

-Quite clever, but not what we were after.

We wanted the traditional style, but we wanted it to be easier.

So we're going to start with our homemade tomato sauce, which comes together in a snap.

Here I have two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, and I'm heating it up in this saucepan over medium heat.

And you can see it's just beginning to shimmer.

-Mm.

-I'm going to add one chopped onion, which is about a cup of chopped onion.

I'm also going to add 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper.

I'm just going to let this cook for about ten minutes or so, until the onions are softened and lightly browned.

While this cooks away, let's come down here and talk about the filling.

Now, traditional fillings are always based around ricotta, and we're not going to change that.

Here we have 10 ounces of whole milk ricotta.

We're going to add a few more cheeses, just to add some texture and flavor.

And so the first cheese up, four ounces of shredded Fontina cheese.

And I'm going to add two ounces of grated Pecorino Romano cheese.

I'm also going to add two eggs to the filling, and the eggs really work as a binder to help that filling stay cohesive as it cooks.

And it also makes the shells easier to fill.

Some fresh chopped basil.

-The good stuff.

-Mm-hmm, not dried basil, and this is three tablespoons.

Fresh garlic, and I always have two cloves.

I'm going to press it right into the bowl.

I love using a garlic press.

-I know.

You're a presser.

-[ Laughs ] I am.

Because it just makes it so easy, and it crushes the garlic nicely so you get all the flavor.

I'm also going to add a little bit of dried oregano.

This is a teaspoon.

Now I'm going to add 1/2 teaspoon of table salt.

And last but not least, this is an unusual ingredient.

This is cornstarch.

-Hmm.

-A tablespoon and a half of cornstarch.

It helps absorb any liquid that comes out of the filling during cooking, but it also helps make that filling be nice and silky.

All right.

We're just going to stir this all together until it's nice and evenly combined.

All right.

That looks pretty good.

So now I'm going to put this into a disposable piping bag.

That's just going to make it really easy to stuff the shells later on.

Now, if you didn't have one of these, you could use a large zipper lock bag in much the same way.

And I haven't cut the tip yet.

All right, so we're just going to set this aside until we need it later.

Now, back here at our onions.

So you can take a look at these onions.

They're nice and soft and lightly browned.

That's going to deliver a lot of flavor to our otherwise fairly simple sauce.

Next ingredient in is garlic, more garlic.

This is six cloves.

And again, I'm just going to use the garlic press to squeeze them right into the pot.

All right, so that's six cloves of garlic.

In addition to the garlic, we're going to add a little bit of heat.

This is 1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes.

We're just going to let the garlic and pepper flakes cook for about 30 seconds until it's nice and fragrant.

Next up, this is a big 28-ounce can of tomato puree, which we like because it has a very smooth texture.

Now, surprise for you.

We're going to add water, a lot of water.

This is 2 cups of water.

And I know it doesn't make sense now because I'm making a very watery sauce, but I'm making it watery on purpose.

And last but not least, just a teaspoon of sugar to take the edge off those tomatoes.

We'll just bring this up to a simmer and then turn the heat down to medium low and let it cook for about five minutes until all of those flavors meld.

♪♪ This sauce has been cooking for five minutes, and you can see it's a little on the loose side.

That's because I added the water, and the reason I added the water is because we didn't precook these shells.

They're still hard right out of the package.

That makes them easier to fill.

And they're going to cook through in the oven.

This is 25 shells, and you can get this amount of shells out of one 12-ounce box.

But when you open the box, you want to go through them and look for shells that are nice and opened, because that means it's going to be easy to fill.

You want to discard or save for another use any of these that are enclosed.

-Gotcha.

-All right.

So, 25 shells.

We have the filling in a pastry bag.

And I'm just going to cut off the tip of the bag.

So I'm just going to fill them up partially, leave a lot of room on top so I can go back and add more filling as I have it.

All right.

Got this last little bit of filling.

-Yes.

-And here we go.

25 perfectly filled shells.

So now it's time to build the casserole dish.

I'm just going to take a cup of this sauce and put it right into the bottom of the dish, get things started.

We'll spread this out nice and evenly.

So this is a 13x9-inch casserole dish, and now we're going to start to layer the stuffed shells in the dish.

And I want you to notice I'm putting these shells in the dish open side facing up.

That's because when we put it seam-side down, all the filling leaked out, and then it's not a stuffed shell.

All right.

So now I'm going to gently pour the rest of this sauce right over the top of all the shells, being careful to make sure it evenly gets over every shell.

Because again, that pasta is not cooked, so it all has to be covered with sauce so that it turns soft in the oven.

All right.

Now we're going to cover it with foil because we want to trap the steam in the dish to help cook that pasta through.

We're going to put this dish on a rimmed baking sheet, and it's going to go into a hot oven at 400 degrees for 45 minutes.

♪♪ -Let me help you out there.

-Thank you.

All right, so you ready to peek under the foil?

-Sure am.

-Oh, you can see it's still bubbling right there around the edges.

Here I have 8 ounces of shredded Fontina.

It's going to melt over the top and look gorgeous and melty and a little bit browned.

That's starting to look better, don't you think?

-Ah, yeah, already.

-So this is going to go back into the oven.

Same oven, middle rack, 400 degrees for another 15 minutes, until that Fontina has melted and begun to get a little brown.

-Okay.

♪♪ -Oh, oh!

-Whoa.

That looks more like it.

-All right.

That's better, isn't it?

-Uh, yes!

-Oh, goodness.

-What an improvement.

-Mm-hmm.

-We have to let this cool, obviously, for a little bit, about 25 minutes... -Okay.

-...then we can dig in.

-Sounds good.

♪♪ -These shells have been cooling for 25 minutes, so it's time to eat.

-Huzzah!

-[ Giggles ] All right, I'm just going to sprinkle it with a little more basil.

-Yeah, just a little.

-Just a tablespoon of chopped fresh basil, a little freshness.

All right.

Now, how many shells would you like?

-I will start with two shells, please.

-I'm going to give you the corner.

-Yes!

-And a middle shell.

-Ooh.

-Yeah.

All right.

Cheers.

-Cheers.

-Mmm.

Oh, that's good.

-Very well seasoned, too.

And a lot of stuffed shell recipes don't season enough, and you end up, it's just all watery, it doesn't have a lot of flavor.

Pasta on its own doesn't have a lot of flavor.

This is very cheesy and delicious.

-Well, I also love the doneness of the pasta, because when you make it the traditional way and you boil the noodles and then you put them in the oven for a while, they get really overcooked and mushy.

This way, they're almost al dente.

They still have some texture.

And the filling is so creamy thanks to that cornstarch.

-This is smooth.

It's almost buttery.

Way to reengineer that.

That is perfect.

-Oh, thank you.

-You've got to make these stuffed shells, and it starts with a pretty thin sauce.

And meanwhile, make a filling and then pipe the mixture into uncooked shells.

Place the shells on top of some of the sauce, top with more sauce, and bake.

Top with more Fontina and then bake it all until browned, and serve.

So from "Cook's Country," the actually easy cheesy stuffed shells.

[ Chuckles ] -They're good, though, aren't they?

-They're really good.

-Just homey.

♪♪ -A 13x9-inch baking pan is a kitchen essential, yet not all pans can withstand high oven temperatures or the direct heat of the broiler.

So Adam's here today with a whole new lineup of dishes that are durable.

-You know, broiler temperatures can go up to 550 degrees.

That's not safe for our favorite glass pan.

It's not safe for our favorite metal pan, which is why you need a broiler-safe 13x9 baking pan.

-Mm-hmm.

-We have a lineup of seven different dishes here.

The prices range from about $37 to about $110.

-[ Whistles ] -They were all roughly 13x9 inches, and the capacities ranged from 3 to 5 quarts.

-Wow.

-Now in each dish, testers made three dishes.

One of them was a yellow cake, which they cut right in the dish to see if they were scratch-resistant enough.

They also made mac and cheese, which you have in front of you, and a salmon dish with rice and vegetables.

And those two they served right out of the dishes with metal spatulas, again to see whether the dishes were going to be scratch-resistant.

And I'll tell you the truth, all of these cooked the food just fine.

-Well, that's good news.

-Yeah, that's very good news.

And so the testers' preferences came down to two design factors.

One of them was the type of handle.

-Mm-hmm.

-You can see, like right here, we have these little sort of tab handles there, whereas something like this is a big loop handle.

-That looks sturdy.

-It is sturdy.

I want you to put on those oven mitts down there and pick up the mac and cheese in this dish with the tab handles.

-Oh, that's dicey.

If it was hot and there were people in the kitchen, I would be a little nervous about that.

-Exactly.

Now try the loops.

-It's very slippery.

-Yeah.

There's no slipping here because you can really put your fingers through the loops, and that gives you a lot of security.

-Yeah, it's much more secure.

So testers preferred the looped handles.

They also talked about the capacity.

Now, testers found a range in capacity from the low end of about 12 cups to the high end of 19 3/8 cups.

-That's a big difference.

-It was a big difference.

And that's due in part to the height of the sides, which ranged from 2 1/4 inches to about 3 inches.

-Hmm.

-Now, the problem with the smaller ones is that it was sort of a tight fit for the salmon and vegetable recipe.

They had to do a little maneuvering to get it all in there.

Also, because the dish was smaller, the mac and cheese sat up a little higher, so when they were scattering those breadcrumbs on top, it was easier to scatter them around rather than in the dish.

-And it can cause things to bubble over more easily.

-Exactly.

That's a problem.

You're going to get your oven messy.

Now, there was also a problem with the dishes that were really big.

The biggest one was 19 3/8 cups.

The mac and cheese sat down kind of low, and a couple of testers thought that it looked a little sad and lost.

-[ Laughs ] I've seen that.

It is sad looking.

-It is!

You know, so really, they like something right in between with a capacity of about 14 to 16 cups.

And in the end, this is the winning pan.

This is the Mrs. Anderson's Baking Lasagna Pan with Handle.

It's got a capacity of 14 1/4 cups, so it's right in that sweet spot between the small ones and the big ones.

And it's $37, which was the least expensive one of the bunch.

-I like it.

So there you have it -- our winning 13x9-inch dish is by Mrs. Anderson.

It's a baking and lasagna pan with handle, and it's about $37.

♪♪ There are many versions of eggplant Parmesan, and I've happily eaten my fair share, but today Bryan has a new one to show us.

-You know, I keep on running into fantastic Italian restaurants in the most unlikely places.

-Oh, really?

It's your skill?

-It's my skill.

I didn't know I had it until it started happening over and over.

I was in Westlake, Ohio, which is a few minutes outside of downtown Cleveland, and I ended up at a little place called La Campagna.

It's a strip mall Italian restaurant with no sign, and as the owner, Carmella Fragassi, says, "If you want to find me, you'll find me."

-[ Laughs ] Oh!

-But I was told to go there to try specifically the eggplant Parmesan.

-Okay.

-It was, I got to tell you, one of the best I've ever had, and I had to rush back to the kitchen, cut my trip short and came back and started working on this recipe.

-That's pretty high praise coming from you.

-It was fantastic.

It all begins with a simple marinara.

So I have two tablespoons of butter melting over medium low heat.

I add 1/4 cup of finely minced onion, three garlic cloves, two minced anchovy fillets.

I know a lot of people kind of shy away from the anchovies, but they add a lot of depth to the sauce.

-Umami is what they add.

-Mm-hmm.

3/4 of a teaspoon of table salt, 1/4 teaspoon of pepper flakes, 1/4 teaspoon of dried oregano.

We're just going to combine that in this melted butter.

I'm going to cook it until the onions just slightly soften, which takes about three minutes.

So the onions have been cooking now for about three minutes.

You can smell how fragrant that is.

We're going to add to that one 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes and one 14-ounce can of diced tomatoes in their juice.

We liked the texture that the diced tomatoes added, and we liked the body that the crushed tomatoes gave us.

Give that a stir to combine and we're going to work in 1/2 teaspoon of sugar as well.

So we're going to bring this to a simmer, reduce the heat to medium low, and let it cook until it's slightly thickened, and that takes about 10 minutes.

Our sauce has been simmering now for about 10 minutes.

You can see it's thickened up nicely.

-And it smells delicious.

-Delish, huh?

All right, so we shut the heat off there.

We're going to add 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.

-Mmm!

-And then 1/4 cup of chopped fresh basil.

With our basil, we're not going to beat it to death here.

We're going to give it a nice, easy chop.

We don't need to pulverize it or chop it so finely that we can't recognize it.

And that's about a 1/4 cup.

Just throw that in there.

It's really, again, just to enhance the eggplant.

-I like it.

-Okay, so now that that's all stirred in, we're going to set this aside and turn our attention to the eggplant.

The thing that separates Carmella's eggplant Parmesan from everybody else's is how she treats the eggplant.

We have three 10-ounce eggplant here.

-Yeah, they're on the small side.

-Yes.

So you want to use something between 10 and 16 ounces, okay?

Any bigger than that, we're not gonna be able to fit it all in our baking dish.

-Okay.

-What she does is she slices them paper-thin lengthwise.

Okay, so we're going to start out by trimming up two of those eggplant, because whether we need two or three really depends on me and how -- -[ Laughs ] -...how perfectly I can slice -- or not -- the eggplant.

So we're going to begin by taking off one small edge there so we have a flat surface.

And then we're going for 1/4 inch slicing lengthwise.

We'll measure the first slice.

-Perfect.

-And then we use that as our model throughout the rest of the process.

-No shame in pulling a ruler out as you cook.

-That's right.

We're looking for 20 slices of eggplant total.

Now if you have a mandoline, that works especially well with some of these smaller eggplant.

-Mm-hmm.

-But one thing we could do is we could lay the eggplant on its side, holding the eggplant in place with the palm of your hand, so in case there's a slip, the knife only bounces off your palm.

You know, and don't push it too far.

This is not going to really yield too much of an eggplant slice for us, so we could just throw that in the scrap pile and we'll continue cutting with our next piece of eggplant.

So another little trick you could do for slicing eggplant, because I don't know if you noticed, they're kind of round and they have a tendency to roll around on a cutting board.

-I noticed that.

-[ Laughs ] You can cut a thin slice off of one side and use that as a base.

So we'll continue cutting this eggplant, and it looks like I'll dip into the third one until we get our perfect 20 slices, and then we'll come back and start frying.

♪♪ Carmella's breading technique for eggplant is different than most other recipes I've seen out there.

What she does is she takes this very thinly sliced eggplant.

She dredges it in flour, dips it in egg, and from the egg, it goes right into hot extra virgin olive oil.

You're not going to get any of the muddy breading in there, and it's going to be all about the eggplant.

So there's just a cup of oil in here.

We're looking for 350 degrees.

We're heating it over medium high heat.

And since it's a shallow amount of oil in the skillet, we want to tilt it away from us so it pools on one end.

Okay, we're well into 350, and that's perfect.

So now we're going to take our eggplant, and I like to work with about three slices at a time, dredge them lightly in the flour, kind of knock off the excess, drop them in the egg.

-Now, you haven't seasoned these eggplant at all yet.

-This eggplant is sliced so thin that a lot of the water cooks off almost immediately.

And the sauce is very flavorful, and we're going to add a ton of cheese to this, so there's really no need to add any extra seasoning.

So we're looking for about a minute and a half on each side of the eggplant.

We're looking for light golden brown.

You can really see it's just like a toasted egg look to it.

You want it to just cook through and be tender enough to go into the casserole.

And as you're cooking and you go further and further through the batch, you want to monitor the temperature and occasionally check it again, because even over medium heat, it has a tendency to rise because, remember, you're taking a little bit of oil out each time when you put the eggplant on the sheet tray.

All right.

So we'll finish frying up the eggplant until we make our way through all those slices.

♪♪ All right, Julia, it's time to start assembling our eggplant.

And here's perhaps where it gets the most interesting, and this is the part that I really fell in love with.

We're going to build individual stacks of eggplant, almost like whole eggplants with cheese and sauce layered in between.

-Usually when you make eggplant Parmesan, you shingle them in addition a single layer, or sometimes in two layers, like a lasagna.

But you're saying we're just going to make individual stacks?

-That's right.

And this is the way it's served to you at the restaurant.

You get a whole rebuilt stack of eggplant.

-Oh, I like that idea.

-It's really great.

-All right.

So we're going to start off by putting one cup of sauce in the bottom of the dish.

This is a 2-ounce ladle, so we'll put four ladles full.

And we're just going to spread that around evenly.

And now we're going to put the eggplant in.

So we're taking the bigger slices of eggplant because we want to build up to a point.

You know, we want to have the bigger slices down at the bottom.

So then I'm going to put the second piece of eggplant going top to tail against that one.

-Ah, yin and yang.

-Exactly.

So it fits nice and easy and evenly in there.

On top of that, we're going to do a half cup of sauce.

Doesn't have to be perfect.

There's going to be so much sauce and cheese in this thing by the time we're done, you're not going to know what happened.

-[ Laughs ] -Okay, then, the real shocker -- that although it's listed as eggplant Parmesan on the menu at La Campagna, there's no Parmesan in it.

-Really?

-It's all Pecorino cheese.

-That is surprising.

-Apparently Carmella Fragassi grew up going to visit her family in Puglia, and all they ever used was Pecorino.

And I got to say, I'm a convert.

I think it's really fantastic stuff and it works really well with this eggplant.

Now we're going to keep on layering.

So another piece of eggplant, another 1/2 cup of sauce, another 1/2 cup of Pecorino.

-It's not shy on the cheese.

-No, that's why we didn't have to season anything.

All right, so that is our final layer of Pecorino.

We'll put our last layer of eggplant on top of that.

-Well, now I see what you mean by putting the smaller pieces on top, so you kind of build up to them, almost like a little pyramid.

-Right.

And it's going to make slicing this and separating your own personal stack a little bit easier.

-I like the idea of my own personal stack.

-So now we're going to put the remaining sauce all over top of this.

-This looks good, Bryan.

-Yeah, and it's so light, it's almost like diet food, you know?

-[ Laughs ] -So we're just going to cover this up with our remaining sauce.

All right, now Carmella does not add any more cheese.

It's all Pecorino all the way through.

I couldn't help but add something that would brown nicely on top.

So we have one cup of Fontina cheese here that we've shredded.

-Ooh.

-And we're just going to sprinkle that over top.

-Well, again, Fontina has more flavor than mozzarella.

So using Pecorino instead of Parmesan, Fontina instead of mozzarella, so you're building in a lot more flavor.

-This is an alternative eggplant Parmesan.

-I'm in!

-Also known as an eggplant Pecorino.

-Hmm, hmm!

-So we're going to throw this into a 375-degree oven.

I've set the oven rack to the upper middle position, which is about 6 inches from the broiler element, because we're going to broil this at the end to brown this lovely Fontina that we sprinkled on top.

It'll take about 30 minutes just to heat the casserole all the way through.

♪♪ It's been about 30 minutes.

We could take a look at our eggplant to make sure it's bubbling around the edges and hot throughout.

-Oh, Bryan, that looks good!

-It's gorgeous, huh?

So now we can make it even more gorgeous.

We're going to switch it to broil.

Now we're going to brown that cheese that's on top.

That'll take about three minutes, but you want to keep a close eye on it because it can go from beautiful to burnt in a matter of seconds.

-Good tip.

-It's been about three minutes, and this casserole is nicely browned.

Julia -- -Oh!

-Do you mind getting that oven door for me?

-You bet.

-Okay.

That looks -- -Oh, goodness, Bryan!

That looks amazing.

-Thanks.

So we need to let this rest for about 20 minutes so the cheese will set and it's easily sliceable.

-Yeah, it looks lava-hot.

-It's very hot.

-[ Laughs ] ♪♪ -It's been 20 minutes.

The eggplant's rested, and we're finally ready to eat.

-And I'm ready.

-All right, so I'm going to serve you an entire stack here, which is, I think, the way that Carmella would like it.

And we could spoon a little bit of the sauce... -Yeah!

-...around the bottom of the eggplant.

How about some for yours?

-Mmm.

Oh!

I really love how this is served with a whole stack.

Mmm.

I know there's a lot of cheese in there, but you really taste the eggplant.

-This dish is all about the eggplant.

It's unlike anything else I've ever had before.

-Well, and if you think about it, at every stage, you added flavor -- the tomato sauce had the anchovies and a little bit of red pepper flakes.

The cheeses were both pretty flavorful, but yet the eggplant can stand up to it.

-That's because we didn't overcook it and we didn't bind it with a whole bunch of heavy breading.

-Mmm!

I don't miss the bread crumbs at all.

Bryan, this is amazing.

Thank you.

-We should thank Carmella for the inspiration.

-So to make this cheesy baked eggplant, start by making a flavorful tomato sauce, slice the eggplant thinly into long planks, coat with flour and egg, then fry in olive oil.

Layer the sauce and eggplant with lots of cheese into a dish, then bake and broil until it's hot and bubbly.

From "Cook's Country," a great new recipe for eggplant Pecorino.