How to Make a Hearty New England Chowder and Salad

Test cook Keith Dresser makes host Julia Collin Davison New England Fish Chowder. Equipment expert Adam reveals his top picks for Nakiri knives, and gadget critic Lisa McManus shares her favorite tiny tools. Test cook Dan Souza makes host Bridget Lancaster a Hearty Green Salad with Chickpeas, Pickled Cauliflower, and Seared Halloumi.

Get our New England Chowder recipe: https://cooks.io/3tYVz0l
Get our Hearty Green Salad with Seared Halloumi recipe: https://cooks.io/4bqUvDu

Buy our winning Dutch oven: https://cooks.io/3DzBbCw
Buy our winning chefs knife: https://cooks.io/3WZ7Kof
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– [Narrator] 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 hardy green salad with chickpeas, pickled cauliflower, and seared halloumi. It’s all coming up right here on “America’s Test Kitchen.” – 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 gonna 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 gonna 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 gonna start, with our broth. So I have two tablespoons of butter

That I have melting in this Dutch oven over medium heat. Then we’re gonna add two onions that have been cut into half-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 I’m gonna do one more piece of prep before we get to our fish. So I have a piece of salt pork here. I have a four-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 gonna cut this rind off the top. We don’t need that. And I’m just gonna 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 gonna let those onions soften, and then the salt pork can go in after those are softened. – [Julia] 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 gonna add five cups of water. So I’m just gonna turn this up a little bit, and we’re gonna let that come up to a simmer in a 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 gonna take the fish that we’re using in the stew to make that fish stock. I have two pounds of boneless skinless cod here, and I’m just gonna add our fish to flavor this liquid. But I’m actually gonna do this off the heat. – Oh. – I’m gonna cover it.

So the fish is gonna sit in that water and steep the water and fuse it with flavor, and we get a nice, clean fish flavor. But we don’t want to cook the fish too much, so we’re gonna do it off heat. So we’re gonna let this sit for five minutes.

We are gonna work on our potatoes. I have 1.5 pounds of Yukon gold potatoes. I’m just gonna cut this into half-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. We’ll take the fish out, put the potatoes in.

– All right. – 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. It’s very nice. So I’m just gonna 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 gonna boil those potatoes for 20 minutes. And we don’t really wanna leave the fish in there because they’ll become overcooked. Okay, so the fish is out.

The salt pork we’re gonna leave in there. We still want the flavor of 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. – Turn this on. I’m gonna bring this up to a simmer. I’m gonna 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 gonna add two cups of milk here. We’re gonna add one more thing to this. I’m gonna have a tablespoon of cornstarch here. So I’m just gonna whisk a little milk in here to get that cornstarch dissolved.

And then I have half teaspoon of black pepper to that. Have to have black pepper in chowder. – I agree with that. – So I’m just gonna stir this into our base. So we have the milk in there. And we’re just gonna 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 gonna reintroduce the fish to this. And I’m just gonna slide it in with all those nice flavorful juices. And again, we don’t want to overcook the fish here,

So I’m gonna shut off the heat, cover the pot, and let that sit for five minutes. The fish just needs to cook through just slightly. And it will just warm up, and it’ll be good to go in about five minutes. – All right. – It’s been five minutes,

And our fish should be fully cooked and warmed through. So I’m just gonna take the salt pork out of here. – Snacks. – For later. And there is the bay leaf. Okay. Just wanna taste this and make sure it’s properly seasoned. Add a little bit more salt and, of course, some black pepper. – [Julia] Mm. – Now we wanna stir this gently. We want to break up that fish a little bit.

But we don’t wanna 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. It’s time to eat our chowder. – [Julia] All right.

– [Keith] And make sure you get a nice big chunk of fish in there and plenty of potatoes. – [Julia] Good, looking out. – [Keith] Look at that. That’s beautiful. – [Julia] That is beautiful. – [Keith] Now, I have some chopped chives here. Can I garnish your bowl? – Oh. Yes, please.

That’s fancy. – [Keith] Chopped chives is nice. Adds a little bit of an allium flavor. But crispy bacon is a good way to go here. 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. – [Keith] Not too rich. You have a nice fish flavor. It’s really nicely balanced. I love that. – Mm. Keith, this is delicious. – It is really good. – Yeah. What a clever cooking method. Thank you. – You’re welcome.

– If you wanna make this updated version of a New England classic, start by parcooking the fish, thicken the soup with corn starch, 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.

– It’s a wicked good chowder. – Take our recipes and reviews wherever you go with the America’s Test Kitchen mobile app, – [Julia] Fail-proof recipes, unbiased equipment reviews, how-to videos, and a vibrant community of like-minded home cooks. – [Bridget] With smart searching and handy tools, you’ll have everything you need to create the most amazing meals.

– [Julia] Download the America’s Test Kitchen mobile app today. – 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 wanna start adding to your knife arsenal, you might wanna consider something called nakiri. And Adam’s here, and he’s gonna 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. Fairly short, blunt tip, straight edge. For a lot of contact with the cutting board. – Yes, instead of having a curved belly,

Which some of them do. – Right, you’re not gonna rock this and dice with it. This is meant for slicing straight and even very precisely, very fine. Now, one thing I wanna mention before I even get into the lineup. In a lot of Western markets, these are mislabeled as vegetable cleavers.

They’re not cleavers in the 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 or a super hard squash or something with this, you can chip it.

So don’t use it like a cleaver. 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 six and seven 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, and partially frozen steaks.

Testers identified a couple of factors that really contributed to that feeling of finesse 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. – All right.

So let’s see what’s going on here with the cabbage. That’s not bad. – Okay. Now I want you to try this one for comparison’s sake. – All right, 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 was 1.7 millimeters. – Oh, big difference. – What a difference a millimeter makes. – Sure does. – There was a second factor the tester 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. I want you to try a heavier knife. Try this one. – All right. It looks heavy, and, oh boy, it feels heavy. – [Adam] Yeah.

– Feels clunky and heavy. – That one was closer to 10 ounces. This one that you used before was closer to five ounces. And it’s really easy to see how you could get more fatigue 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. But testers loved this one. This is not gonna 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, 70 bucks. So it’s a great way to supplement your knife arsenal. – 70 bucks for that beautiful knife? – I know. I kind of want one too. – Sold. – I see it in your eyes. – Sold. Yeah.

All of these are coming home with me. So if you wanna 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. Hey there, fellow fans of cooking.

Wanna stay in the know? – [Julia] Visit americastestkitchen.com and sign up for our free Notes from the Test Kitchen email newsletter. – Get exclusive tips, seasonal recipes, product reviews, and more delivered straight to your inbox. – [Julia] Sign up for free at americastestkitchen.com. – 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 vinegarette, 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 its gunk up the top of the handle. This is our winner, the Tovolo stainless steel six-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 like 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 confectioner’s sugar or cocoa powder.

We tested seven. Don’t buy this one from LiveFresh. 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 confectioner’s sugar. Any of our winning tiny tools would be an excellent addition to your kitchen. – At Cook’s Illustrated, we’re food nerds. That’s why every recipe we develop involves research,

Cooking science, and rigorous testing by our team of expert test cooks, before being tested by our dedicated community of 40,000 home cooks. Only the highest rated recipes are in a place in our award-winning magazine. Every issue features our latest recipes and discoveries, cooking tips, and equipment and ingredient reviews. Our step-by-step photos

And hand-drawn illustrations show you exactly how to succeed. What you won’t see? Even a single page of advertising. We’ve worked for home cooks like you for over 30 years. So are you ready to become the best cook you know? Subscribe to Cook’s Illustrated magazine at cooksillustrated.com today. – 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 gonna 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 gonna do is a salad that actually eats like a meal. So like, chef salad, but like, we’re in a whole nother world. – Fabulous. – Yeah. So it’s gonna be really nice.

And it all starts with a quick pickle. So I’ve got a quarter cup of apple cider vinegar here, and I’m gonna add two teaspoons of honey, a little bit of nice sweetness, and 3/4 of a teaspoon of salt. I’m just gonna whisk this together. So I have two cups of cauliflower florets

That I’ve cut into one-inch pieces. So we’re gonna pop those in here. And then we’re gonna head to the microwave and cook them for about 1 to 1.5 minutes. Just get things nice and steamy. Beautiful. So we’ve got that nice and steamy. Gonna give it a quick stir.

But we’re actually gonna do a lot of our softening at this point. So we’re gonna cover, let it sit for about five minutes, while we get into the rest of our prep. – Great. – So now I’m gonna 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 gonna start with greenleaf lettuce. This is a small head, but I’m only gonna use half of it. So I’m gonna start by just cutting in half.

And I’m taking off just the bottom of the core there. I’m actually gonna 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. – All right. – So we’re starting with a small head. Again, I’m only gonna use half of this. I don’t wanna overwhelm it. So I’m just gonna cut down the center.

And we’ve got this little core that we want to get rid of. That’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 gonna slice nice and thin.

Now we have our nice sliced radicchio. Next up, we have grapes. This is six ounces of red seedless grapes. You’re gonna have a really intense dressing, and we’re gonna have bitter radicchio and all these components, and these just add acidity and sweetness. So we’re just gonna cut these in half. Protein.

We’re gonna 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 four 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 gonna 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.

And the reason that’s possible is when they press it and actually get the curds out, they then cook them in the whey. 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 gonna be so nice. So what we’re gonna 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 gonna use this to build our dressing in a little bit. – All right.

– So now it’s time to cook our halloumi. So I have a small, little, eight-inch, non-sick skillet here. I have extra virgin olive oil, which I’m gonna heat over medium high heat until shimmering. And we’re gonna pop in our four slices of halloumi. Get that nice little sizzle. A little bit of sizzle.

So we’re gonna 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. – [Bridget] Great. – So that’s been 60 seconds. We’ll take a look. – [Bridget] Oh, gorgeous color. – [Dan] Isn’t it gorgeous? Oh yeah.

– [Bridget] That color means flavor. – All right, another 60 seconds. And we’ve got lovely browning on the sides. – Beautiful, beautiful. – So this is done. Take it off the heat and pop a lid on. This is gonna help us keep it nice and warm.

All right, 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 wanna focus on so you get different bites all the time and a really complex salad. So I’m gonna start by taking two tablespoons

Of our pickling liquid and adding it to two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil that I have in this large bowl. – [Bridget] Ah, I see the basis of a vinegarette happening. – Just gonna whisk this up. It’s not gonna really emulsify ’cause it’s just a couple ingredients.

The honey will help a little bit with that. Okay, great. Now we’re gonna go in with our greens. So we’ve got our torn-up greenleaf lettuce and then our thinly sliced radicchio. – [Bridget] Beautiful. – It’s so beautiful. I’m just gonna 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, to 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 gonna make another dressing that has a lot more oomph to it. But we want every bite to have a nice base level. – [Bridget] Okay. – Okay. We have our two salad bowls here. So our first element

Is gonna be this lovely greens mixture. – [Bridget] Lovely. – Now, some people would call this a salad, but we’re gonna go a lot further. I’m gonna set these aside for a moment, and we’re gonna 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 gonna add three tablespoons of Greek yogurt. This is gonna add a ton of creaminess and body. Then two tablespoons of tahini. Next, I have one garlic clove minced. And then I have a half teaspoon of Aleppo pepper.

– Gorgeous. – So Aleppo pepper is incredibly fruity. It’s moderately spicy, so you can use a lot of it. 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, a quarter teaspoon of salt.

And I’m just gonna whisk this together. So we’ll take a quarter cup of this dressing and dress the chickpeas with it. So I have 2/3 of a cup of canned chickpeas. They’re really creamy, really nice, super easy, and they’ve just been drained and rinsed. – [Bridget] Okay. – And just stir that in.

Chickpeas are in good shape. They’re gonna come back in just a second. So we’ve got our two beautiful salad bases here. And we’re just gonna build little piles of these wonderful ingredients over the top. So I’m gonna start with a little bit of pickled cauliflower. Okay, so now I’m adding the grapes.

I’m gonna put those in a nice pile next to the cauliflower. And now it’s time for our halloumi. We’re just gonna go two nice pieces. – [Bridget] Oh, lovely. – All right. Now we’re gonna do a nice little drizzle of the remaining dressing over these three piles.

Just make sure everything gets that nice treatment. Gorgeous chickpeas. – Oh. – 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. Like, the vinegarette you love,

And you can 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 gonna go in for some cauliflower now. – [Dan] I’ll join you. – Mm. It’s just softened a little bit, 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. It’s really substantial,

But it’s a gorgeous, light, salty cheese. Definitely seasoned well. I love that browning. That really deepens the flavor. – It’s like, adding chicken to a salad is fine, you know, but it doesn’t add a ton of flavor. – No. – It just 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 wanna make this amazing salad, make a quick pickled cauliflower, brown halloumi cheese for lots of flavor,

And then dress the salad with a vinegarette and creamy yogurt dressing. It’s the salad that never ends, and you’re thankful for that. So from “America’s Test Kitchen,” hardy 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. Mm. Only problem is the bowl’s too small. – We hope you enjoyed this video as much as we enjoyed making it. – Don’t forget to hit that like button and subscribe to our channel.

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Of our test kitchen recipes and 8,000 product reviews, you’ll have everything you need to cook and learn. – So I ask, what are you waiting for? – Let’s make something great together.