[ Theme music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Today on "Cook's Country," Bryan makes Julia a regional speciality -- Chicago thin-crust pizza... Jack challenges Bridget to a tasting of jar pasta sauce... and Lawman makes Bridget a foolproof pasta e fagioli.

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

-For those of us who live outside the Windy City, Chicago-style pizza means deep dish.

-But the city is also home to a super-thin crust pizza that's loved by locals, and one of the most iconic pizzerias is Vito & Nick's on the South Side.

-Vito Barraco, a Sicilian immigrant, started the business as a small tavern in the 1930s, but it was his wife, Mary, who whipped up their first pizza in 1949, and Vito & Nick's Pizzeria was born.

-Today Vito and Mary's children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren run the restaurant, and their pizza recipe is still the same.

-And today we're bringing the recipe to you.

Let's head into the kitchen with Bryan.

♪♪ -The most important and distinguishing part of this pizza isn't the topping.

It's the crust.

Isn't it, Bryan?

-That's right, and who knew Chicago pizza was supposed to be, according to some, a thin-crust pizza?

I went to Vito & Nick's in the South Side of Chicago, and I spent the morning with the owner, Rose George, and she walked me through the entire pizza-making process, and it was pretty incredible, and I have to admit I'm a convert after spending the morning with her.

So, we have 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour here, and for our dough, we're going to add 2 teaspoons of granulated sugar.

It helps to feed the yeast that's going in right now.

-But it won't make the crust sweet, will it?

-No, no, it's just fuel for the yeast.

1 1/2 teaspoons of instant yeast.

And 1 teaspoon of table salt.

We're just gonna give that a quick three seconds in the food processor to combine.

To this, we're gonna feed in 3/4 of a cup plus 2 tablespoons of cold water along with 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.

So I'll combine these two first so we can just do it all in one quick and easy pour.

We want the water to be ice-cold because the mixer tends to warm the dough up pretty quickly, and if it gets too hot, it can kill the yeast.

And we'll let this go until this dough starts to come together, and it takes about 60 seconds.

All right.

We're looking for all the dry flour to be moistened, and that's good right there.

But we have a perfect hydration here with this dough right now.

We don't want to incorporate any more flour.

So we're just gonna lightly grease the counter, just rub it with a little olive oil.

And you don't have to use very much at all, because, remember, there's a little bit of olive oil in the dough already so it's not really prone to sticking too badly.

Now, we're just gonna give the dough a few turns on the oiled counter just to combine it.

So I'm just kneading this by giving it a press with the palm of my hand and giving it a quarter turn each time.

-And folding it over in between.

-Exactly.

And you don't have to do much here -- just enough to combine the dough.

Then I'll just roll it on the counter like this into a ball shape, and then we're gonna throw it into a lightly greased bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, and we're gonna let this dough rise at room temperature until it's doubled in size, and that takes about two and a half hours.

♪♪ Okay, Julia, while our dough is rising, we can turn our attention to the sauce.

And I think you'll be happy to know this is a quick, easy stir-together sauce -- no cooking involved.

-Ah!

I like no-cook pizza sauces.

-Yeah, I do, too, because the oven does a lot of the work for you, and there's no need to spend hours cooking a sauce down.

So, we have one 8-ounce can of tomato sauce.

That's great because it comes with sugar, salt, spices already in it, so we're already starting off with a little bit of flavor.

To that, we're gonna add 1 tablespoon of tomato paste.

-Just kick up the tomato flavor a little bit.

-And then we're gonna add 2 teaspoons of sugar.

-The sugar in the dough, sugar in the sauce, and you swear this won't be a sweet pizza?

-No, it's not sweet.

It's just -- A little sugar helps balance things out.

1/2 teaspoon of Italian seasoning.

Now, Italian seasoning is great because it has sage, thyme, oregano, basil.

Instead of using each one of those individual herbs in small amounts, kind of a shortcut to use the Italian seasoning.

And then 1/2 teaspoon of fennel seeds.

And then we'll just whisk this together to dissolve the tomato paste.

That's it.

-That was easy.

-When I had the pizza at Vito & Nick's, they have a very distinctive type of sauce that they use, and they go through about 1,000 pounds of it per week.

-Wow!

-I mean, it's a really good sauce.

It has a nice fermented flavor, and I just felt like I couldn't get that exact flavor out of store-bought Italian sausage.

So, we have 1 1/2 pounds of coarsely ground pork, and coarsely ground pork will give you that distinctive sausage chew.

Sometimes you can find it in a case, but other times you can ask the butcher for it, and they're more than happy to do it for you.

-Gotcha.

-Okay, and to that we're gonna add 1 tablespoon of fennel seeds, and we've gone ahead and pre-toasted these fennel seeds, and we want to just give them a quick crack by putting them in a Ziploc bag and seal the bag, and then I just want to kind of run over them with a rolling pin.

This is just gonna really release their flavor, and we're not looking to pulverize them here.

Just break them up in smaller pieces.

-I can smell it all the way over here.

It was immediate.

-Yeah, it's the toasting.

The toasting does a lot for you to help release the oils in the fennel seeds.

So we're gonna add the fennel seeds, the crushed fennel seeds right -- -Whoo!

-It's pretty fragrant, huh?

-That is really fragrant, and I can already tell this is not gonna taste like your average supermarket sausage.

This is gonna have a lot more flavor.

-Yes.

Then we're gonna add 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar.

You know, there's a salty-sweet balance that has to happen in life, so 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt.

There you go.

One garlic clove.

It's a large garlic clove that we've minced to a paste.

Now, you can either do this in a garlic press, or you can do it on a Microplane and just grate it finer.

3/4 teaspoon of black pepper, 1/4 teaspoon of dried oregano, and 1/4 of a teaspoon of red-pepper flakes.

-So this isn't really gonna be that spicy.

Just a little red-pepper flakes.

-Right.

Okay, so we're gonna mix this on low speed for 60 to 90 seconds until it just all comes together.

The stand mixer does a great job of emulsifying the fat and distributing the fat evenly throughout the meat, and it also helps stretch and link those proteins so you get that sausage chew.

All right, Julia, you can see that the sausage has taken on this real tacky texture, and that's exactly what we're looking for.

-You know, it really smells pretty good with the garlic and the fennel seeds in there.

-And we're gonna let this sausage marinate for a bit, 'cause, that way, the flavors will distribute and kind of really soak into the meat.

So we'll let it go for at least an hour in the fridge, cover it with plastic wrap, and we'll transfer it over.

♪♪ Okay, it's been pretty easy up until this point, and now comes the real challenging part.

We're gonna roll out the dough.

So, this will make two pizzas.

Working on the lightly floured counter here.

Going to split the dough in half.

10 ounces each is what we're gonna need, so... Ooh!

Nailed it, huh?

-Ooh, on the nose.

Well done, sir.

-You don't see that every day.

We're gonna start off on the floured countered.

-All right.

-I would recommend that we start with the cut side down.

-Okay.

-I start by just using my fingertips to kind of poke it into a round.

We're gonna try and stretch it to about 8 inches, and I've given you a ruler on your side.

-I got 8 inches, basically.

-All right.

-I'm gonna flour my rolling pin.

-Okay.

-Now, what's the final dimensions we're going for here?

-We're gonna go for 12 inches across.

-Okay.

-And that'll give us about a 1/4-inch-thick dough.

-All right.

Well, I like how you're spinning it, 'cause that's how I do my pie dough to keep it nice and round.

Sort of spin it between every roll.

I think that's pretty good.

That's about a 12-inch round.

-Okay, so, now we're gonna bring this sheet of dough onto our pizza peels.

Before we put them on the peel, we want to dust the peel liberally with cornmeal.

So we don't want to peel the pizza off the peel.

We want it to slide off the peel.

All right, so, I'm just gonna pick mine up and just transfer it right over there and slide it back this way and work on it.

So, now we're saucing.

So, we want to take our sauce.

This is the full amount of sauce that we made.

I just divided it in half so we have enough for each pizza.

And then with the bowl of the spoon, just go around.

We want to push the sauce right to the edge.

-All right.

-Okay, looks great.

We have about 6 ounces of sausage each.

And now we're going to put dime-size pieces of sausage all over this pizza.

-Well, also the sausage is going on raw.

-We're gonna cook this pizza at a very high temperature, 500 degrees, and it's gonna cook for long enough to cook the sausage through, and the sausage will still be moist.

It won't be dry and crumbly.

-And all the flavors of the sausage will still be on the pizza.

It won't be left behind in some skillet.

-It ain't going anywhere.

-[ Laughs ] Wow.

This is not a skimpy amount of sausage, I want to point out.

-That's why this pizza's so great.

-Ohh!

Well, if were competing, I'd say I won, but, you know, this isn't a competition, Bryan.

-We'll just see -- We'll just see how they come out.

Okay, sausage is on.

-Mm-hmm.

-And now we're gonna put the cheese on.

Cheese goes on much the same way as the sauce, all the way to the edge.

So, we have 1 1/2 cups, or 6 ounces, of mozzarella per pizza.

-And this is whole-milk mozzarella.

This is not a place to be using part-skim or non-fat mozzarella, because it doesn't melt the same way.

-All right, and now the final touch -- the 1/4 teaspoon of oregano.

It seems like such a small amount, but you really taste it at the end.

-All right.

-So, before we go into the oven, just give your pizza a little wiggle and make sure it still shimmies on the peel, because if it's sticking anywhere, you could just lift the edge and throw a little bit of cornmeal on it.

-Oh, I got a little sticky.

-This is not where you want to play around.

-All right, I'm good.

-So, we have two ovens heated to 500 degrees.

And there's a pizza stone on the lowest rack that's been preheating for a full hour, so it's nice and hot.

And when you put it on the stone, you want to start it at the back and just kind of shimmy and let the pizza slide right off, okay?

-All right.

So there's a little art to it.

-And we're gonna take these pizzas a little bit darker than you would typically expect.

That's the thing at Vito & Nick's.

They cook the pizza so dark that people actually send them back.

-Oh, really?

They look burned.

-Yes.

The old owner, Nick, used to stand by the oven, and if the cheese had only gone from this nice white to that yellow, golden-brown that we all always pull the pizza out at, he'd yell, "That's canary!

Put it back in the oven!"

-I like the accent.

-That's my Chicago accent.

'Cause the pizza is supposed to be, according to Nick, nice and brown on top.

Okay, and in order to get to that dark-brown cheese, those pizzas are gonna have to cook anywhere between 10 and 14 minutes.

-We're baking these pizza at the same time, because we have two different ovens.

If you only had one oven, you'd bake them one at a time.

-Exactly.

♪♪ -Oh-oh-oh-oh!

All right, Julia, should I grab yours?

-Yeah, let's see how it's doing.

-Oof.

That is not canary.

-[ Laughs ] -So, we're gonna let these pizzas cool for 5 minutes before we cut them.

-Yeah, they are pretty lava-hot.

-Yes.

Okay, it's been a painful 5 minutes, but we're ready to cut the pizza.

So, at Vito & Nick's, they don't cut the pizza into triangles.

The cut it into squares.

-Ah.

Bar pizza style.

-Mm-hmm.

So, I'm just gonna go three swipes this way, turn it around, three swipes the other way.

I'm gonna give you a piece from the center.

-Mmm.

-And also an edge pizza.

-Ah, this smells delicious!

-All right, before you dig in, you have a center piece there?

-I do.

-All right, the way to measure a good and perfectly cooked piece of pizza is that the center piece should be able to stand up straight and support the full weight of the ingredients without flopping over.

-Oh, look at that.

-It should be that crispy.

-Mmm!

-That's a tasty pizza.

-That's not just tasty.

Bryan, I actually think this might be the best piece of pizza I've ever had, and I've eaten a lot of pizza.

-No.

Come on.

-No, I'm serious.

You know why?

Because the crust on the bottom has texture.

It's crisp.

But the sausage has actual flavor.

-The sausage stays very fresh and moist and doesn't dry out.

-You were right about the balance of a little bit of spicy and a little bit of sugar.

-And just enough salt to throw it all in the right spot.

-Mm-hmm.

Bryan, I got to hand it to you -- best pizza yet.

-Aww, thank you.

-Well done.

-My pleasure.

Thank you.

-So, if you want to make an authentic Chicago thin-crust pizza, start by making pizza dough in the food processor using all-purpose flour, yeast, and olive oil.

While the dough rises, whisk together a no-cook sauce using canned tomatoes, then use a stand mixer to make sausage with ground pork and fennel seeds.

To make the pizzas, roll the dough out into a 12-inch round, transfer it to a pizza peel, top with sauce, sausage, and cheese, and bake in a hot oven until it's no longer canary.

From "Cook's Country," the ultimate recipe for Chicago thin-crust pizza.

Well done, man.

-Thank you.

-This is amazing.

-Lesson learned.

Don't eat canaries, right?

♪♪ [ Applause ] -Jarred pasta sauce is a $2.4-billion industry here in the United States.

Now, it's a great shortcut, but only if the sauce is good.

So, Jack's here, and he's gonna tell us which jarred pasta sauce won our tasting.

-The good news is 2 of the 10 sauces we recommended.

The bad news -- 8 are just awful.

-2 out of 10?

-Yeah, 2 out of 10.

So there are some things here that if you pick them, I'm gonna judge you very harshly.

-Oh, boy.

All right.

-So, these are all plain sauces.

You can dig in.

They're lightly warmed.

We did them with spaghetti.

We made lasagna.

These are plain, so no cheese, no cream, no wine, no big chunks of vegetables, and no meat.

-Okay.

-It is a marinara sauce.

-They're literally -- I was at my supermarket this weekend, counted 68 choices.

-68?

-There are literally -- At just one supermarket.

And so these are the plain sauces from the 10 leading brands.

First thing that you notice is sweetness level.

So, there should be a little bit of sugar in them from the tomatoes.

-Mm-hmm.

-So, our winner has 3 grams.

That didn't seem like a best look.

[ Laughs ] -I might frost a cake with that later.

It's pretty sweet.

-Yeah.

So, when you see sugar or corn syrup on the label, that's not a good thing.

Some of these sauces had four times as much sugar as our winner, and they were basically way too sweet.

I believe it.

-The second place these can go wrong is they're flat, they're dull.

They have no tomato flavor.

So if you see tomato paste rather than whole tomatoes, that's a bad sign.

Tomato paste is cooked.

It's great if you want to add a little oomph and a small amount to a chili or a stew, but in a fresh tomato sauce, you want the product that is as close to fresh as possible, which would be whole tomatoes.

Next, herbs that are just way over the top.

You want to taste the tomatoes, not the oregano, not the rosemary, the thyme.

Seems like you have an opinion about that one on the end.

-Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

It's very close to ketchup.

Which I love ketchup on a burger.

I don't want it on my sauce.

Very sweet.

-Well, next thing we looked at is wateriness.

And so I have a little prop here.

These have been in a coffee filter for several hours.

Our winning sauce, you can see there's very little liquid that comes out of here.

In fact, when we did this test, it was 82% solids and 18% liquid, and this really made a difference when we did the lasagna test.

When we used this sauce, which was 43% liquid... -Mm-hmm.

-...57% solid, besides the fact that's it's bland -- water doesn't taste very good -- it made the soggiest lasagna imaginable.

It was just basically a mess.

-Right.

-And so the watery sauce is a bad thing.

Last thing -- fat.

If it has olive oil, it's a good thing.

-Right.

-Our winning sauce has 8 grams of fat, and some of the losers have almost no fat in them, which is not only about how it tastes but how it clings to the pasta.

-Sure.

-If it was without the fat, the sauce was at the bottom of the bowl and would not cling to the spaghetti.

-This is interesting.

This is completely smooth.

I don't like that.

It doesn't seem homemade to me.

-You would like it to seem, to the person that you're serving it to, that you cooked all day.

-Right, exactly, that someone made it in their home, if not me, right?

-That sounds like a good thing.

-Right.

So, I'm gonna start with the one I'm not crazy about.

I want to get this off the table.

This one I do not like.

-So, this is Bertolli.

It was number 8 out of 10.

I put this on the table for you because it is incredibly sweet.

-It is so sweet.

-And there are way too many herbs.

I like herbs, but not dusty, stale, old, dried herbs.

-No, I think the herbs in here were from the Reagan administration.

They just did not taste right.

All right.

And this one.

-The Hunt's -- last place.

It is made with tomato paste, so no fresh tomatoes, you know, or whole tomatoes.

It has really no fresh flavor.

-It tasted like canned tomato sauce -- not pasta sauce, but just tomato sauce.

-Well, look, it comes from a can.

-There you go.

And this one, this was my favorite.

-My faith in you is always constant.

You did choose the winner.

The expert panel chose this.

This is the Rao's.

The audience's landslide favorite.

-You can stay.

[ Laughs ] We can all stay.

-It's the best sauce.

It's made with tomatoes rather than tomato paste.

There's no sugar.

Herbs were under control.

There is some bad news here.

-Okay.

-It's expensive.

This is almost $10.

This is a case of "you are getting what you pay for."

The only other sauce that we recommended, which is from a company named Victoria, was also $7 for a jar.

-Okay.

-And so these cheap sauces, they taste like they're cheap.

-It's good to have a shortcut, but not taste that way.

Well, there you go.

The winner of our tasting for jarred pasta sauce, and there was a clear winner -- It was Rao's Homemade marinara sauce.

It's $9.39 for a 24-ounce jar.

[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ -Today we're making pasta e fagioli, or as Dean Martin might say, "Pasta Fazul."

Now, it's origins from Italy are humble ones.

The dish was cobbled together with leftover scraps or ingredients that people had on hand.

And Lawman's here.

He's got a great, hearty version to share with us.

-That's right, Bridget.

Pasta e fagioli is Italian-American comfort food at its best.

Now, our favorite versions of this dish were pork-y, so we're gonna add a lot of pancetta, about 2 ounces.

-I like where you're going with this.

-Now, I'm gonna cut this fine so that when it renders it all but disappears into the soup.

Pancetta is basically cured, unsmoked bacon.

-And you can buy the big chunks of pancetta at the deli counter.

Don't buy the pre-sliced pancetta, because you won't be able to get these tiny, little pieces like Lawman's doing here.

I imagine something like bacon, regular American bacon, would add too much of a smoky flavor to this?

-Exactly.

So, it doesn't need to be perfect.

We just want it... pretty small.

So, now I'm gonna use one of my favorite kitchen utensils, the bench scraper, just to pick this stuff up, put it right back in the bowl.

And now I'm just gonna finish cutting the aromatics.

-Okay.

-Just have this one onion left to cut.

I'm just gonna cut it down the middle.

-Just horizontal cuts.

-And then a little vertical.

Keep my fingers away from the blade.

We don't want that in the soup.

-[ Laughs ] Yeah, "pasta e fagioli" translates to "pasta and beans," not "pasta and fingers."

-Now, again, it doesn't need to be perfect.

We just want it to be all the same size.

Use that bench scraper again.

-That's great, 'cause it gathers up all the ingredients, but you're not dulling your knife there, right?

-Exactly.

So, now our oil is nice and heated.

Now we're just gonna add all our aromatics and the pancetta to the saucepan.

[ Sizzling ] So we're adding the 2 onions, chopped fine.

-I'll switch you.

-2 carrots, peeled and chopped fine.

This is one celery rib chopped fine.

3/4 teaspoons of salt.

And 1/2 teaspoon of pepper.

-Right.

-Now, we're just gonna cook this for about 10 minutes until the vegetables soften.

The texture of the soup is key.

We don't want something that was too thin or too stodgy.

And we're just gonna add a 15-ounce of can of cannellini beans and 1 cup of water.

We're gonna puree this until it's smooth, about 30 seconds.

Now, we found that when we added all the whole beans to the soup, it was too thin, but when we added the pureed bean mixture that we just made right here, the texture was silky, and it gave it a nice body.

So now we just need to wait for the vegetables to soften.

♪♪ So, it's been about 10 minutes.

The vegetables should be softened, and you can tell because the onions are nice and translucent.

-But you're not looking for a lot of browning at this point, right?

-No -- no browning at all actually.

-So now I'm gonna add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste.

Now, some of the recipes that we came across call for canned tomatoes.

Now, we tried canned diced tomatoes, but the soup ended up being too chunky because they never broke down because of that additive that's in the canned tomatoes.

But for a deep tomato flavor, we found that tomato paste worked best, and we're gonna brown the tomato paste to deepen the flavor further.

-So you're gonna get caramel-y notes, you're gonna get some of that sweetness from the tomato, but not too much.

-Right.

-But also it's super savory.

There's all of that umami, that savoriness.

-So, now I'm gonna add 4 garlic cloves, minced, and a 1/4 teaspoon of pepper flake.

-A little heat in there.

-Yes, and we want to cook this for about 2 minutes until it's fragrant.

So, it's been 2 minutes.

Now we can add our 4 cups of chicken broth.

And I'm gonna add another can of cannellini beans, 15-ounce can.

And this nice bean puree.

So, I'm gonna bring this to a boil over medium heat and then reduce the heat to medium low to simmer so the flavors will melt.

-Okay.

-Bridget, it's been 10 minutes, and the flavors have melded nicely.

We're just gonna bring this up to a boil.

Now, this is when you add the pasta to the fagioli.

We're gonna add 1 cup of ditalini pasta right to the soup base, and we're gonna cook this until it's al dente, about 12 minutes, stirring occasionally to break up the pasta so it doesn't clump together.

-Okay, and could you use another small pasta like macaroni or something like that?

-You can.

-So any small pasta is fine?

-Exactly.

-Okay.

♪♪ -It's been about 12 minutes.

I'm gonna test the pasta to see if it's done.

-I've got my fingers crossed.

-Perfect.

So, I'm gonna take it off the heat.

Now, the soup isn't done just yet.

We're gonna add 1/2 cup of chopped basil.

Now, you want to chop your basil at the end so it doesn't oxidize and you still retain that fresh flavor.

-Mm.

-And it's gonna be 1/2 cup of chopped basil.

So, stir that in.

Now I have 1 cup of grated Parm.

Now, that's gonna add a lot of richness to it.

-Usually I reserve a little Parmesan at the table, but I like it as an ingredient.

-I got good news for you.

I'm gonna add some Parmesan at the end and a little extra virgin olive oil.

-Okay.

-Now, Bridget, this is what you've been waiting for.

We're ready to eat.

-[ Chuckles ] Yes, that is so true.

It's so pretty, I almost don't want to cover it with cheese, but, oh, okay, if I have to.

-And I'm gonna give you a little drizzle of oil.

-Okay.

I mean, look at the texture of this.

It is broth-y, but there is body in there.

It's that pureed beans.

-Exactly.

Speaking of beans, the whole beans are nice and creamy.

You'll notice that little bit of heat on the back end from the pepper flake.

-Mm-hmm.

I'm digging the pancetta, too.

Everything is cooked perfectly.

The onions, the carrots, the celery, nice and soft -- They're almost falling apart in the soup, and then that hit of basil right at the end.

Thanks, Lawman.

This was absolutely a perfect pasta e fagioli.

-You're very welcome.

-Well, for a rich, hearty, and easy pasta e fagioli at home, start with a base of sautéed pancetta and onion, add tomato paste and garlic, and cook until fragrant.

For a soup with body, puree 1 can of cannellini beans with water then add to the pot along with chicken broth and 1 unprocessed can of beans.

Add ditalini and cook until al dente, then stir in fresh basil and Parmesan.

Drizzle olive oil all over the soup and serve.

So, from "Cook's Country," a rich, bright, and hearty pasta e fagioli.

And you can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with tastings, testings, and select episodes, on our website, cookscountry.com.

It's bean-y and bright.

-Let us help with dinner tonight.

Visit our website anytime for access to this season's recipes, taste tests, and equipment ratings.

Or to watch current-season episodes, log on to cookscountry.com.

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