♪♪ -"Cook's Country" is about more than just getting dinner on the table.

We're also fascinated by the people and stories behind the dishes.

We go inside kitchens in every corner of the country to learn how real people cook, and we look back through time to see how history influences the way we eat today.

We bring that inspiration back to our test kitchen so we can share it with you.

This is "Cook's Country."

♪♪ Today on "Cook's Country," Bryan pays a visit to a Portuguese bakery in Fall River, Massachusetts, and shares his version of pastéis de nata... and Jack challenges Julia to a tasting of canned diced tomatoes.

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

-Funding for this program has been provided by the following.

-Monument Grills -- offering innovative technology and design for the grilling enthusiast, with a lineup of gas grills designed with durability in mind, including the Eminence 605 with LED touch panels and side and rear infrared burners.

Learn more at MonumentGrills.com.

♪♪ -Fall River, Massachusetts, is home to one of the largest Portuguese communities in the country.

♪♪ The city's deep ties to the European coastal country are reflected in its monuments, storefronts, and, of course, cuisine.

I met up with the owner of Portugalia Marketplace, Michael Benevides, to learn how the city has become a haven for Portuguese food lovers.

-The Portuguese people came here to work hard and provide for their families.

So here you had, you know, a community of blue-collar Portuguese folks who were very faithful to their community, faithful to their faith, and stuck together.

We created a little subculture locally.

-Yeah, I think even as you walk around the city a bit, you can hear people.

You overhear Portuguese being spoken.

Michael's parents, like many Portuguese at the time, moved to Fall River to work in its booming textile industry.

In addition to his factory job, Michael's father, Fernando Benevides, opened Portugalia.

His goal was to bring a bit of the homeland back to his Portuguese community here in Massachusetts.

Since he founded the company 35 years ago, the Marketplace has taken on a life of its own.

-We have families coming from Connecticut, families coming from Western Mass, from Northern Mass, from New Hampshire.

You know, they'd come down because where they were living, they didn't have any Portuguese shops or commerce.

This place is also serving as a cultural hub for the community.

♪♪ -Michael and his sister, Jennifer, inherited the store from their father.

♪♪ They continue to import and sell Portuguese specialty foods, including hundreds of varieties of tinned fish and over 1,300 different Portuguese wines and spirits.

And while Portugalia is a standout in Fall River, it's definitely not the only option for good Portuguese food in town.

-You have Europa.

Cunha's Bakery.

Their paps are really good.

Their papo secos.

And, of course, Barcelos up the street.

-And Barcelos Bakery is exactly where I was heading to next.

Husband-and-wife team Antonio and Sara Rodrigues bought Barcelos 20 years ago, and since that day, they've dedicated their lives to making the bakery resemble a traditional Portuguese café.

-When somebody walks in, they're like, "Oh, I feel like I'm in Portugal!

I feel like I'm in Saint Michael."

I'm like, "Yes!"

-Yeah.

-That's the best compliment because that's what we aim for.

-From the decorations... all the way down to the acoustics, they haven't overlooked a single detail in designing the café.

And it's that same meticulous approach that they bring to their baking.

Over the years, what's been one of the biggest sellers here at the bakery?

-The natas.

-It's been the pastéis de nata.

It's always been that.

-Pastéis de nata are a classic Portuguese egg tart.

With a sweet custard filling surrounded by a crisp pastry shell, it's the perfect pairing with a shot of espresso.

And Tony makes some of the best in town and maybe the most in town.

After making almost 300 a day for 30 years, you could say Tony's got his one-man show down to a science.

Are you the only person in the bakery who does this?

-Well, my daughter and my wife help me.

But to do the dough, it's me.

Fill it up, it's me.

Do the cream and then stuff.

They don't know the recipe.

They have idea, but they never did it.

-[ Laughs ] ♪♪ After preparing the dough, Tony shows me how to press them into the traditional cups.

-So you go around.

Push.

Push with your finger next to the -- to the walls.

♪♪ That's good.

♪♪ -Then Tony brings out the custard.

Alright.

So what's the method for filling these?

-So no fancy equipment?

Just... -Today they have machines for everything.

We try to keep the things old-fashioned as possible.

-Finally, the pastéis de nata are baked in a very hot oven.

♪♪ Dang!

-Don't touch it!

-Yeah!

-You'll burn your fingers!

-But it's that hot oven that gives them that perfectly golden, crispy bottom.

-That's the perfect color that I like it.

-Nice and crispy, too.

-Mm-hmm.

♪♪ -On my coffee break, I finally lean into a few pastéis de nata.

The pastry's light and flaky.

Really, really crispy.

And the custard itself... nice and soft and runny.

Not overly set.

It's just the perfect amount of sweetness.

And the cinnamon on top really cuts the whole thing, and it's really incredible.

♪♪ Just like Michael received the torch from his father, Tony and Sara will likely hand the bakery over to their daughter one day.

And who knows?

Maybe she'll pass it on to her kids.

♪♪ What I do know is that the Portuguese community in Fall River pours their heart and soul into their food.

For the uninitiated, it's an opportunity to experience a new cuisine.

But for many in Fall River, it's a way to taste a bit of home.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Wow, Bryan.

It was so cool to see that little bit of Portugal here in Massachusetts.

-Yeah, I have to say Tony and Sara are just wonderful people.

Barcelos Bakery makes some amazing stuff.

And I am absolutely in love with these pastéis de nata.

I've had them in Portugal.

They're something that was introduced to me by my Portuguese in-laws years ago, and I absolutely love them, and I'm happy to share this recipe with you.

So let's get started.

Here we have 1 and 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour.

And to that I'm going to whisk in 1/2 teaspoon of table salt.

You want to mix this salt in so it gets evenly distributed in the flour.

And then to that we're gonna add 1/2 cup of water.

We're going to mix this on medium-low speed.

What we're trying to do here is just really make a dough that just comes together and doesn't activate a lot of the gluten.

This takes about 2 to 3 minutes.

And if it starts to stick to the sides, we'll give it a scrape halfway through.

-Okay.

-Alright.

So the dough has just come together.

Just pop this out.

And we're going to turn the dough out onto a well-floured counter.

This recipe uses a lot of bench flour.

And we're going to put a little bit more flour on top of this dough.

So we're going to pat the dough into a rough 4-inch square, then we're going to cover it with some plastic wrap.

And we're going to let it sit for about 15 minutes just so the dough has time to relax.

Alright.

Our dough has been relaxing for 15 minutes.

It was very tired.

Now... [ Both laugh ] -Very funny.

You're very funny.

-Thank you.

We're going to roll it out into a 15x13-inch rectangle.

So this is the type of recipe where you need a lot of bench flour, so you want to make sure there's plenty underneath the dough.

So I'm going to flour liberally underneath and a good bit on top.

And we're going 15 inches tall and 13 inches wide.

Alright.

Let's say it's approximately 15x13" at this point.

-Alright.

-So what we're going to do is we're going to brush off all the excess flour from the dough because we're going to layer some butter in here.

So this is about 5 tablespoons of softened room-temperature butter we've cut into 1/2-inch pieces.

We're going to layer it across the center third of this dough.

And what we're going to do is we're going to smear it into an approximate 5x12-inch rectangle right here in the center.

So this is sort of like a cheater puff pastry.

-Mm-hmm.

-You know, a typical puff pastry, you roll cold butter into the dough, you chill the dough, you put more butter in, roll it, chill it.

We're going to put all this butter in right up front before we do our first chill.

Then it's really important to have this room-temperature butter.

-I see.

-See how easily it spreads?

-Mm-hmm.

-And now we're going to do a letter fold.

We're going to fold the top down over the butter.

And then we're going to brush this excess flour off.

And the reason why we brush the excess flour is so this part of the dough sticks to that part of the dough.

Now we're going to rotate this dough 90 degrees.

-Hm.

-Give it that spin.

I'm going to put some more flour underneath here.

A little more flour underneath here.

And we're going to roll this out twice more, again repeating the application of the butter.

-Okay.

-Okay?

Each time.

See, by doing this, we'll get these micro layers of dough that are sandwiching the butter, and it'll end up in a really crisp, light, and flaky crust.

We're going to roll this dough out into a 15x13-inch rectangle twice more.

And each time, we're going to apply some more butter, do the fold, and roll it out.

Alright, Toni, so that is our third and final application of the butter in between the dough here.

And so we're going to roll it out once more to 15x13".

Okay.

So I'm just gonna square this off a little bit here.

So now we're going to brush the excess flour off the dough.

And if you're cooking with somebody, you want to brush the flour towards them.

-[ Laughs ] -So we're going to roll this nice and tight all the way up.

And as you're going through, you want to just sort of even out the roll.

And if you find that you have an excess amount of flour on here, just give it a brush.

Again, because the idea here is that the dough sticks to itself as you roll it, so if there's a lot of flour on the bottom, that's going to inhibit the stickiness.

And then we're just going to wet the top edge of the dough here.

You can use your finger if you don't have the brush.

Okay.

And just give it a squeeze.

And we're going to pinch this seam... so it sticks together.

And then we can spend just a moment kind of reshaping this dough and make sure the log is even.

And it's okay if the ends aren't perfect because we're going to trim that before we start filling the cups.

So now we can take this dough and we're going to refrigerate it.

We'll put it on our parchment-lined sheet pan here.

We'll cover it with plastic wrap.

And we're going to throw this in the refrigerator, and it will chill for at least an hour, but it could really go up to 12 hours.

And the reason why is because now is the time we want to set that butter and make sure it's firm within the dough because when it bakes up, the butter is going to melt and create steam and create those flaky layers.

Okay, Toni, our dough has been chilling in the fridge for a couple of hours, and you can see it's firmed up quite a bit.

And that's exactly what we want.

So we know that butter is fully chilled.

And so at this point we want to trim it down to 12 inches.

So this is the point where we can get rid of our imperfect ends.

And we can just go ahead and... lop that off.

And we'll lop this piece off.

And now we're going to cut this into 12 one-inch chunks.

So every inch or so, we'll just make a little mark.

-Beautiful.

-Okay, so we've got our 12 pieces of dough.

Now, traditionally, these pastéis de nata are made in these little pastel cups, but we're going to use something that's a little bit more common in most kitchens, and that is a muffin tin.

So we're going to put one piece of dough inside of each of these cups.

And we've gone ahead and sprayed this with a little bit of vegetable-oil spray.

Now for the fun part of the recipe.

We're going to press this dough into these cups.

So you have a little water bowl there.

-Okay.

-And it's best to use a couple of wet thumbs like The Fonz.

And we're going to go in and just start pressing in the center and then kind of work the dough into the corners of the cup and up the sides.

So you want to give it a shot?

-Okay.

I'm excited.

Okay.

Thumbs?

-Yeah.

Thumbs like The Fonz.

-Thumbs in.

-Okay.

And then... Just go thumbs first.

And then you could switch.

-That's really cool.

-Alright, Toni, we're going to keep pressing these in until they're all done.

Then we're going to cover it with plastic wrap and we're going to throw it in the fridge for at least an hour or up to 12 hours, again, so we re-solidify that butter.

-Sounds good.

-Alright.

So now it's time to start with our custard.

Our custard has three pieces.

The first is our hot component where we have a cup of milk, 1/2 cup of water, and 1 and 1/4 cups of sugar.

So we're going to turn this on to medium-high heat and bring it up to a quick simmer.

And we're really just trying to dissolve that sugar.

So we'll give it a quick whisk and we'll let it go for a couple minutes to fully dissolve the sugar.

And over here we have our flour mixture.

So this is 3 tablespoons of flour.

And to that we're going to add 3/4 of a teaspoon of table salt.

We'll give that a quick whisk to combine.

And then we're going to add 1/4 cup of whole milk.

And this flour, the purpose of it in our custard is to really help thicken it and keep the egg mixture from breaking while it's in the oven.

So just whisk this together, and you can see it takes on sort of a pancake batter like consistency here.

And finally we have 6 egg yolks.

We're just going to beat these up.

So just whisk this together.

Okay.

You can see our milk mixture is coming to a simmer.

And really the main goal here is just to dissolve the sugar.

So it really only takes a couple minutes at this stage.

And I like to keep it moving so it doesn't scorch on the bottom.

And now we're going to slowly drizzle this milk mixture into our flour-and-milk mixture.

So we'll just start off going slowly.

Now we're going to add this hot milk-flour-water mixture to our beaten egg yolks.

So this I will drizzle in a little bit slowly because we want to temper the eggs and make sure we don't scramble them.

Just a little bit at a time.

-You're just keeping the eggs moving, right?

So that that hot liquid doesn't settle in one place.

-Exactly.

-That makes sense.

-And there we go.

All that's incorporated together.

And now just in case we did curdle any eggs or get any little pieces of flour stuck in there, we're going to strain this whole mixture.

And that is our custard.

So we're going to let this cool down to room temperature.

Alright, Toni, we have our chilled pastry cups.

We have our room-temperature custard.

I'm just going to give it a quick whisk to reincorporate anything that might have settled to the bottom, and then we're going to go ahead and fill our cups.

Now, as you're filling them, the first pass, you don't want to go too high.

You know?

We have extra.

We'll come back around.

You just want to make sure that you don't spill over the edge of the cup.

Looks perfect.

So one of the main challenges we face with this recipe is that these are traditionally baked in a 650-plus oven.

Alright?

And they're baked really quickly.

Obviously our oven here, it's not going to go to 650.

And the added challenge is we're baking these in a nonstick muffin tin which has a maximum rating of 450 degrees.

So what we ended up doing was setting our oven to 450 degrees, throwing the oven rack up to the upper-middle position about 6 inches from the top of the oven and throwing a pizza stone in there to preheat for a good hour.

This is going to give it a nice blast of heat from the bottom and really get those cups nice and crispy.

So we're going to let those bake for 27 to 30 minutes until the pastry cups get nice and brown around the edge and hopefully we get some nice browning on the custard tops.

♪♪ -There are an overwhelming number of options when it comes to buying canned tomatoes.

Some are quite expensive.

Some are imported.

And today Jack's going to let us know the difference between all these options.

-Yeah, so these are all already diced tomatoes, so, super-convenient.

Some Italian brands.

Some American brands.

You can start tasting.

-Okay.

-You're going to notice three things.

Size of the pieces.

-Mm-hmm.

-It can be a petite dice... -Ooh!

-...which is small.

And some of the chunks are larger.

Flavors.

What else besides tomatoes are you tasting?

And then texture.

Are they soft or are they firm?

So let's start by talking about salt, first of all.

So as you might imagine, the brands with salt taste more seasoning.

-Hm.

-But they also are less bitter because, you know, there's a little bit of bitterness in tomatoes, and the salt kind of tamps down the bitterness.

And so the brands without salt tended to taste a little bit more bitter.

-Interesting!

-Texture is all about whether or not they add calcium chloride.

-Oh.

-It's a firming agent.

And if you don't put that in there, you're going to have very soft tomatoes.

-Okay.

Found that one.

[ Laughs ] -The last thing is citric acid.

So a lot of manufacturers add that for brightness and acidity.

Kind of amps up the natural acidity of the tomatoes.

Again, companies that leave out the citric acid, they're going to be less bright.

They're not going to have the tartness and the acidity that you would get if you add the citric acid.

So it's very easy.

Read the label.

Some of them just say "tomatoes."

Well, it's going to taste like tomatoes.

Many of the others will have tomatoes, salt, citric acid, and calcium chloride on the label, so... -They're really different, first off.

-Very different.

-And if you were just using a standard recipe, you'd wind up with very different sauces here.

This one, I mean, it tastes like a sauce almost already.

You put it in a recipe, and it's good.

The chunks, they hold up, but they're not super crunchy.

Like, there's not too much of that citric acid.

-Yeah, and they're not too big on this one.

-Right.

-Which I think is nice.

-Yeah, these ones, they're very big and they're a little plain-tasting.

-Okay.

-This was very different from the others.

You were talking about salt.

I don't think it has any salt in it.

It almost has no texture.

It feels like a purée, but surprisingly not bad.

It's just you'd have to know what you were doing with it.

You couldn't just plug this into a recipe that called for diced tomatoes.

You'd be sorely disappointed.

-Okay.

-This one was okay.

Almost tasted like sauce that's sitting in purée.

Had a lot going on.

This would work well.

But this was by far my favorite.

I think it's because the liquid it's sitting in.

This feels like a purée, whereas this feels like a liquid.

And when I'm looking for diced tomato, I'm looking for that liquid.

-Yeah, and the liquid often is a sign the juice is fresher, right, than that thick purée.

-Yeah.

-This is fascinating because we found there's a big philosophical difference between American companies and Italian companies.

And you picked this out.

The Italian companies are largely doing just tomatoes.

-Interesting!

-And their philosophy is, okay, people are gonna figure it out.

-Yeah.

-American companies are going to deliver a tomato that's already got salt and acid in it so that, you know, it's ready to go.

Our tasters liked the American brands because that's what we're used to.

We had American tasters.

My guess is if we did the tasting in Italy, we would have gotten very different results with the same brands... -Oh!

-...because Italian cooks are used to different tomatoes, ones that are just canned tomatoes with none of the other added ingredients.

-Oh!

Very interesting!

-So let's start here.

This is one of the two Italian brands.

You weren't wild about it.

Our tasters weren't wild about it.

Because it's just tomatoes.

-Yeah.

-And you missed the other things that we're accustomed to as Americans.

The canned tomatoes -- aren't they supposed to have citric acid and salt in them?

-Right!

-And it isn't a bad tomato.

It's just different.

Let's go here... -Okay.

-...to the one you like the best.

The tasting panel agreed with you.

This is the San Merican.

Not Marzano.

Because those are Italian.

These are -- -Oh!

-So it's a little confusing.

They're actually made with tomatoes from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

-Really?

-Not from Naples.

-Not San.

-[ Both laugh ] -This was the winner because the pieces were nice and small.

They were firm.

They were bright.

They were a nice salt.

Just a lovely tomato.

This was, I think, your second-favorite and this was the runner-up.

This is from Cento.

It's one of the petite diced.

So it has the smallest pieces.

-Ahh!

-If you want really teeny pieces... -[ Laughs ] -...those words will indicate that it is a smaller diced tomato.

You know, it was a very good choice.

Just wasn't quite as good as the winner.

And there at the end, this was kind of at the bottom of the rankings when it came to the American brands because the pieces were just so big.

-Yeah.

-If you were making them in a soup, the pieces are almost so big, they're not gonna fit on a spoon.

-That's true.

Alright.

Thank you, Jack.

This was really interesting.

-Oh, thanks, Julia.

-So there you have it.

If you're shopping for canned diced tomato, reach for the San Merican diced tomatoes.

♪♪ -Alright, Toni, it's been about 28 minutes.

And you can see that these are nice and bubbly and brown.

-Oh, boy!

Beautiful!

-And you can see how these got some nice browning here on the edge of the cups.

Nice little golden brown on top of the custard, as well.

Just like they do it at Barcelos.

I'm so excited for this.

So we're going to let this cool for about 5 minutes in the cups so they're just a little bit cooler to handle, then we're going to take them out of there, transfer them to a wire rack.

We'll let them cool for a little bit longer.

-They're magical.

That's beautiful.

Spectacular.

-Okay.

So we're going to let these cool for about 30 minutes.

And, Toni, our pastéis de nata are fully cooled.

We're going to sprinkle them with a little bit of ground cinnamon, which is very traditional.

And a little bit of powdered sugar.

Alright.

Can I serve you?

-I'm ready.

-I feel the exact same way.

[ Both laugh ] Alright.

I'm so excited for you to try these.

I love these so much.

-I'm really excited about this.

I just have to look at the bottom, though.

Check my bottom.

-Check the bottom.

-It's looking good.

-Okay.

Three, two, one.

-Alright.

-Okay.

Bye.

-Bye.

[ Crunching ] [ Laughs ] -Mmm!

-Mmm.

-Mm-hmm.

-You've made some great things, and your excursions are providing us with so many amazing recipes, but this one, it's so beautiful.

The contrast between the sweet custard and the crackly crust, it's just amazing.

-I've eaten six of these in one sitting.

-No way.

-Oh, yeah.

I'm a big boy.

[ Both laugh ] Alright, Toni.

-Alright, Bryan.

-Cheers.

-Cheers.

-Pinky out.

-Thank you, Bryan.

-You're very welcome.

-This was delicious.

-I'm glad.

-And if you would like to enjoy the sweet taste of Portugal by way of Massachusetts, make a quick laminated dough using softened butter.

Use a room-temperature custard and bake on a preheated pizza stone.

From "Cook's Country," an amazingly delicious pastéis de nata.

♪♪ -I'm gonna have to go in for a second.

-I'm gonna get another bite.

-[ Chuckles ] -I'm going in for a whole other one.

-Let us help with dinner tonight.

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-Funding for this program has been provided by the following.

-Monument Grills -- offering innovative technology and design for the grilling enthusiast, with a lineup of gas grills designed with durability in mind, including the Eminence 605 with LED touch panels and side and rear infrared burners.

Learn more at MonumentGrills.com.

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