How to Make the Ultimate Grilled Chicken Thighs and Italian Pasta Salad

today on America’s Test Kitchen danmakes Julia perfect grilled chicken piesJack challenges Bridget to a tasting offresh mozzarella and Keith cooks Bridgetthe ultimate Italian pasta saladit’s all coming up right here onAmerica’s Test Kitchen[Music]bounine chicken thighs have a lot goingfor them they’re more flavorful than thechicken breast they’re less prone toovercooking and also they have thatwonderful piece of skin that isdelicious when it’s brown and crisp butthey also have just a little more fatright under the skin that makes themhard to grill it causes massiveflare-ups and it prevents that skin fromgetting crisp so today Dan is gonna showus how to grill bone-in chicken thighsonce and for all so the name of the gamewith chicken thighs on the grill is togo low and slow low and slow and slowand it’s gonna be perfect but before weget to that we’re gonna talk about howwe’re gonna season these so let’s popover here we’re gonna do a spice pasteon these and so we tried all kinds ofthings marinating you know just drysalting found the spice paste was greatwe had to apply it properly to thechicken so we’re gonna start with threetablespoons of Dijon mustard it’s areally nice intense base to that I’mgonna have five minced garlic clovesalmost got a tablespoon of lemon zestwe’re gonna serve these with some lemonwedges at the end so you kind of get itflavor here and then the acidity at theend which is nice I also have twoteaspoons of minced tarragon are you atarragon thing yeah a huge share it onfat I’ve also have one and a halfteaspoons of kosher salt half a teaspoonof black pepper and just a little bit ofwater this is just a teaspoon of waterif you had too much water and get somereally big issues where we can’t Brownat the chicken thighs a little bit ofwater they’ll help spread the pastenicely so I’m just gonna stir thistogether okay let’s pop over here sowe’ve got eight bone-in chicken thighshere there’s any you know excess skinthat’s really hanging over you want totrim that off but these look really goodso we’re gonna season with a halfteaspoon of salt just over the skin sidehere we’re gonna use a little less ofthe paste so we want to make sure wehave good seasoning and that salt willprobably help to dry the skin outhopefully to make it more crispabsolutely so we tried lots of differentways of putting theon the chicken and we found you know ifwe put it all on the skin the skin nevergot crispy we put it all on the meatside the skin was great but it wasn’tvery well seasoned so we actually foundthat using about a third of it on theskin side and then two-thirds on theflesh was perfect you don’t have to besuper exact about it but I just like towhat you are so I’m just gonna dollopright on top and then I just use theback of my spoon to spread it over justenough to add some flavor but not enoughto get in the way of fat rendering andthat’s key and getting crispy and brownokay that looks great just gonna flipthese over and we’re shopping for theseit pays to go to the butcher counter andpick them out yourself be that personit’s okay because if you buy them in thepackage you’re gonna get a whole bunchof different sizes and they’re not gonnacook at the same rate okay and againjust spread a nice even layer on theflesh side the grills gonna do all thework for us on this we’re gonna go tonice and low and slow get some beautifulresults let’s head out okeydoke okay sowe’ve got our beautiful chicken thighsout here and I’ve been preheating thegrill for about 15 minutes all on highwe have a little bit of grill prep to doand then we’ll get that chicken on whoothat’s a grill nice hot grill so we’regonna do first is cut out these twoburners want to leave this one on highso we’re creating basically a hot zonehere and a cool zone over here known asindirect cooking exactly so we’re gonnaactually cook these chicken thighs overindirect heat for most of the cook timethat indirect cooking is gonna be reallygreat for the meat and the skin actuallyso both of them contain a lot ofcollagen as we cook them low and slowthat collagen dissolves into gelatinit’s gonna help make the meat reallytender it’s also gonna allow us to getthat skin really crispy so this is goodfor dark meat but not for whiteningthat’s right so we’re gonna do now isjust scrape this off we always prefer toclean the grill right before we’re gonnause it because the heat helps loosen upsome of that gunk and you get it goodand clean right before you need itso I’m gonna use a little paper towel inoil and what’s get a nice coating ofgrease on here the oil does a few thingsfirst it helps clean the grill it helpsget any of those last bits off the grillgrates it also polymerizes onto thegrill grace that helps make them alittle nonstick okay so now we’re gonnaput our chicken on and we’re gonna dosomething a little bit different hereI’m actually gonna go skin side down wetested this we went you know skin sideup most of the time and then when weflipped it onto the hot side to get itcrispy all of the fat that had renderedunder the skincame out huge flare up so skin-side downalmost the whole time so I can smellthat a little bit of mustard as soon asthose hit the grill it smells good andit so this is gonna maintain at about350 degrees which is perfect and willcook for 20 minutes all right okay soit’s been 20 minutes let’s take a lookat these awesome thighs they’re lookinggood now we’re gonna do a little shufflearound we want them to cook reallyevenly little dosey doe little doe Setoso we’re just gonna slide these overhere make room for these to move overand then these go right in their placeso it’s starting to render but it’s notbrown at all not brown at all absolutelyit’s very very gentle heat over hererendering lots of fat so it doesn’t endup flaring up on the other side so we’regonna cook this with the lid down foranother 15 to 20 minutes this would berelatively tender around 175 but we findthat if we go even higher about 185 to190 we get more collagen breakdown weget really really tender juicy resultokay so it’s been 15 minutes see how weare on the temp here so we’re lookingfor about 185 to 190 all right rightthere so that is 187 188 fantastic okayso all of this nice indirect cooking wasfantastic for the meat and the skinright we made everything nice and tenderbut the skin needs to crisp up at thispoint so we’re gonna go over to the hotside here finally some direct heatfinally so this is gonna happen reallyfast because we’ve rendered everythingwe’ve got it really nice and soft it’sgonna take a second to crisp it up nowokay okay so let’s been about fiveminutes oh man that is a very beautifullooking chicken thigh gorgeous so we’regonna put these over and cook the pacethat’s on the other side just foranother minute or so right cuz they’recooked through at this point we’re justgetting a little bit of that gorgeouschar all the way aroundexactly okay these smell and lookfantastic time to get them off okay sothese need to rest for about 10 minuteswe’re gonna cover them the foil andwe’ll bring them inside all right okaythese look and smell fantastic oh yeahthe crispy test is some crisp skin rightthere going low and slow like that andjust finishing at the very end is thekey you know tenderizing the skin andthen it puffs and really reallybeautiful and before you dig in let megive you a little lemon wedge definitelyto stop me there well the chicken ismoist and juicy no wonder because it’sthighs and they are always pretty juicybut it’s the flavor I know it’s notoverpowering you know we think about thestrong flavors all that lemon zest andthe mustard I was a little worried thatit would be too strong but it’s just asubtle background to the chicken it’slovely it’s really good just a goodgrill flavor yeah and going low and slowand cooking into a higher temperaturereally melts all that collagen it meansI’ve been really really juicy and thenthat skin kind of call it chicken baconso for the ultimate grilled chickenstart by making a flavorful spice pastewith mustard garlic lemon and tarragonand rub it over both sides of thechicken after heating the grill turn allof the burners off except for one sothat the grill has a hot side and a coolside play the chicken skin side down onthe cool side and cook until the meatregisters 185 degrees finish on the hotside of the grill until the chicken iswell browned on both sides and let itrest for 10 minutes before serving fromAmerica’s Test Kitchen to your kitchenthe best grilled chicken thighs awesomeawesome just awesome[Music]if you really want to lose yourself inthe internet for a few hours just go andcheck out videos of artisans makingfresh mozzarella it is captivating theycook the cheese stretch it into longthick ropes cut it and shape it butwe’ve got Jack here he’s gonna show us amuch easier way to get mozzarella on theplate go to the supermarket and buy itwhich one is bestso we’re doing the eating no shaping yesI mean this is a great simple cheesethese are all fresh mozzarella okaythey’re all domestic this is not pizzacheese this has a higher moisturecontent and it’s designed to eat as youare having it today all right so Ishould explain why these are alldomestic because of course mozzarella ora jensen Italy fresh mozzarella in Italya lot of it is what we know as bufalamozzarella it was made from the milk ofwater buffalos it is delicious there’s alot of fat but it’s highly perishablethat cheese really only has a shelf lifeof four or five days so when it comes tosupermarket options for fresh mozzarellait needs to be made with cows milk nowthey do make cow’s milk mozzarella inItaly it’s called fee or the latte andthat’s the tradition that’s really beenexported here and most of thesupermarket options and in facteverything we’re tasting today is madein the USA with the Italian recipe soit’s cow’s milk you add some salt somerennet an acid and curdle it and thenput it in hot water and start stretchingand making an amazing video moisturecontent is really important some of thebrands basically had as much moisture asyou would get in pizza block cheesemeaning they were dry and rubbery hereyeah that is not a good thing we foundthat the top cheese is had a moisturecontent of around 60% bottom rank cheeseis more like 48 percent which is reallyas I say what you would get in a pizzacheese and this is a fine delicate saladcheese so the second thing to thinkabout is texture and one of the thingsthat influences texture is the pH so ifthe pH is too high it can get very softalmost like a wet sponge and so you wantkind of a moderate pH usually that meansthey were using vinegar or cheeseculture rather than citric acid orlactic acid to curdle the milkthe other thing is salt you want somesalt you don’t want to be totally blandbut you don’t want it to hide the flavorof the milk and so you want the salt tobring out all the flavors you wantgrassy floral notes you don’t want asalt bomb you also don’t want it to betotally bland right right so I’ve givenyou lots of do’s and don’ts when itcomes to making mozzarella what abouteating milk all right I will happily eatmozzarella this one you mentioned ashredded cheese this one I could seeshredding very easily it’s not what Ithink of as fresh mozzarella especiallyI love fewer de latte is that right yougot it I’m so much better than cow’smilk mozzarella doesn’t this one is veryseasoned perhaps just a little tooseasoned but I don’t mind at the textureit’s a little bit red this one is blandbland bland bland and soggy actually alittle bit mushy and these two are myfavorite because they have the betterseasoning this one’s a little bit higherseasoned so I think I would be able toeat at least a pound or two more of thatthan this one and it’s about quantityit’s about quantity for me yes you knowI know that about you and I’m with youso I would say that this is my favoritethis is a very close runner-up maybe toomuch salt do you want to start withshows and you are a winner oh ways butin this case you agree with the tastingpanel this is Bell Joseph from Wisconsinthat’s Italian American family making itin the Italian tradition and we thoughtit was just right had enough seasoningbut not too much salt high moisturecontent it was soft but it wasn’t wetright speaking of yes and that is ourlowest rated cheese to Stefano and itwas at the bottom the ranking because itwas described as a wet sponge yeah I cantotally see that yeah it’s just too softit’s literally slippery not adescription of a cheese that you wantit’s because the pH content which isaffecting the proteins and making thecheese too soft we don’t want that andon the other side and that cheese isfrom crave brothers it was next last cuzit’s a way to dry this is one that had amoisture content below 50% as opposed tothe winners at 60 or 61 it’s not freshmozzarella no I would shred it and heatit and put it between breads but it’snot fresh mozzarella and this one yourrunner-up was also the tasting panelsrun rightit has been that high moisture contentthat we want it’s not bland it’s notoverly soft it’s a good cheese and itwas our second-place choice next timeI’ll have to make mozzarella that’s adate sound good all right but in themeantime let’s go out and buy some thewinner is Bell joy oh so freshmozzarellait’s $7.99 for 8 ounces you know aboutthe food pyramid but do you know aboutBridget Lancaster’s picnic food pyramidwe have at the apex cold fried chickenright underneath that it’s potato saladand baked means you have assorted cakesof course corn bread biscuits a fewsalads under that and then boom right atthe bottom pasta salad everybody bringsthem to the picnics and everybody goeshome with the leftovers cuz no one’seating them the kids here and he hastold me he’s gonna change my mind aboutpasta salad yeah could I bring thatpasta salad up in your pyramid if thesalad had tender pasta fresh flavorfulingredients in a potent dressing thatkind of brought everything togetherrather than sitting at the bottom of thebowlsure but can you also get me a unicornI’ll work on the unicorn let’s focus onthe pasta salad today so we’re gonnaactually start with a pasta which makessense and we’re gonna start with a poundof fusilli pasta this corkscrew shape isperfect for pasta salad because it trapseverything it’s like pasta velcro so allthose dressings and all those flavorfulingredients it caught in these littlenooks and crannies for this pasta so Ihave 4 quarts of water here we’ll justadd our pasta and we want to add 1tablespoon of salt because bland pastain a pasta salad is well bland yes wewant to go 3 minutes passed out that dayso when the pasta cools now it’s stillgonna be tender okay and it will dependon what brand of pasta are you using sowe’ll come back and taste this towardsthe end of cooking to make sure that weget it just right so while we pastascook we’re gonna focus on our dressingnow most dressings are kind of blandthey fall to the bottom a lot of peopleuse the bottled Italian dressing we’renot gonna do that we’re actually gonnabuild a dressing and make sure that wehave something really flavorful to startwith right so here I have 1/4 cup ofextra virgin olive oil and I also have 3cloves of minced garlicthree anchovy fillets and a quarterteaspoon of red pepper flakes ratherthan just whisking these into cold oliveoil and adding some vinegar like mostpeople will make a vinaigrette we’reactually gonna warm this up in themicrowave we’re going to bloom thoseflavors into an infused oil I’m justgonna put a plate on this to make sureit’s covered and doesn’t splatter allover the microwave if we get it too hotso we’re just gonna go in the microwavefor a third of the 60 seconds until it’sbubbling and fragrant all right wow thatsmells quite strong oh it’s bubblingyeah all those aromatics have infusedinto the oil and that will be the basefor our dressing another problem withpasta salad dressings is that they’reusually too thinso if you have a flavorful dressing andso the bottom of the bowl it’s not doingany good now so we wanted to create adressing that had some body to it so wewent through some different variationsand what we found is that we wanted totake some of the ingredients that you’llnormally put in pasta salad and actuallygrind them up and make a dressing fromthose ingredients one ingredient that wefound a lot was pepperoncini thesethings are great they’re tart they’respicy so we’re gonna take a half cup ofthese we’re gonna take the stems offwith like the seeds out and then we’regonna actually process them in the foodprocessor as the base of our dress justgonna take these stems off first thenreach in here and we can kind of pinchthat core out there’s not a lot of seedshere but you can get the majority ofthem oh that’s great but if you leavesome in that’s okay tooit’s not gonna ruin anything we’re goingto process it up nice and fine okay inaddition to our pepperoncini I’m gonnaadd two tablespoons of capers againpotent ingredient briny flavor it’sgonna be really great in our pasta saladokay I’m just gonna pulse this ten timesand tell the pepperoncini and the capersare broken down and finely chopped okaythat looks great you can see thatthey’re nice and finely chopped I cansmell it from over here yepPikul so we’re gonna add two tablespoonsof the pepperoncini liquid that theycome in it’s vinegar and a little bit ofsalt and also pepperoncini flavor sorather than using our wine vinegar orbalsamic vinegar we’re just gonna usethis instead very good two tablespoonsand then we have our warm infused yesoil that we’ll put in here so we haveour infused oil and our pepperonciniliquid in there I’m just going toprocess for 20 seconds until everythingis incorporated okay you can see itlooks almost like a pesto that we havegoing on yeah it sure does really yummypesto yeah so it’s super concentratedsuper flavorful and it’s actually gonnawork into those nooks and crannies andthe fusilli and make sure that we have anice flavorful dressing that doesn’tfall through the bottom all right yougot everything in teeny tiny pieces soI’ll hook on to the velcro pasta okay sothe pasta has been cooking it I’m justgonna give it a test here mmm that’sgreat so it’s passed out that day it’ssoft its tender which is gonna beperfect when we cool it so can I ask youto drain and rinse the pastayou sure can that’s nice and cooled downand we want to make sure that we shakethat really well we’re gonna use a nicebig bowl today to make sure that we cantoss all these ingredients in hereevenly great I’m just gonna add ourthick dressing to this pasta you can seethere’s nothing in the bottom of thebowl right now so it’s clung into thatpasta and you’re gonna get thatflavorful dressing in every biteso now we have our pasta let’s look atour mix-ins and we weren’t reallyinterested in doing more cooking forthis we didn’t want to go out to thegrill to grill vegetables or roastvegetables so we went to our pantry tofind a bunch of nice flavorfulingredients so first up is a half cup ofsun-dried tomatoes that have been thinlysliced a nice bright flavor that thesewill add and a little bit of chew ifthey’re acidic they’re sweet and they’rechewy nice next up I have a 1/2 cup ofkalamata olives that we’ve cut intoquarters again big flavor high-impactingredients you know briny salty flavorsso I have 2 cups of baby arugula we weremissing kind of a salad II elements andthat’s where this arugula came in ok so2 cups of baby arugula and I also have 8ounces of fresh mozzarella cheeseright now we all we have is that quartercup of olive oil we were looking for alittle bit more richness and we’re gonnahave a bunch of bold ingredients inthere and the right fresh mozzarellagave us a nice fresh creamy flavorwithout really dominating like apecorino order or parmesan so now I haveto do a little bit more knife work herewe have 8 ounces of dried salami hereand we like a small salami like thiswe’d like the texture of it we like theflavor of it rather than going to thedeli and buying those slices the delislices will work but you want to makesure that you’re getting a fairly thickslice so you have a nice little dice inhere and the dried salami just has somuch more flavor than the deli salami itdoes much more flavor so you know we’relooking for a Genoa salami or sopressatawhich do have more flavor than thosejelly slices we want a 3/8 inch dicehere and that might sound a littlefinicky but it was the perfect kind ofsize for our salad too small and it kindof fell with the bottom too big and thenyou’re kind of chewing on a big piece ofsalami nobody wants thatok let’s transfer use our bench scraperto transfer this over in the GUI you arenot skimping on the additions either nothis this is hearty and flavor andtexture so I have more pepperoncini wehave that in our dressing but we wanteda little bit more this time we’re gonnaadd it in slices rather than processingit’s so same drill here I’m just gonnatake the top off take the core out soI’m starting with a half cup here andI’m gonna just slice these into thinrings okay one last ingredient andthat’s basil can have pasta saladwithout basil that’s a lot of basil itis we’re looking for a cup of choppedbasil here so again this is like thearugula it’s gonna add flavor but it’salso gonna add freshness and color I’mjust gonna chop this up basil bruisesvery easily especially as it sits afteryou’ve chopped it so a good idea to cutit at the last minute yes same thingwith the arugula too you can make thispasta salad in advance I’ve moved two orthree days but with the Greens thearugula and the basil you want to addthem at the last minute oh that smellsso goodtoss this really well that is beautifulokay one last thing I’m gonna do beforewe eat I’m just gonna taste this he’sthinking about it thinking about good alittle bit more salt and a healthy doseof pepper here okay oh it looks greatI got a met tastes great this is lookinggood it’s climbing up your pyramid todaywell okay so I’m just gonna transferthis into a prettier bowl I just wantyou to notice that there’s no dressingin the bottom of this bowl no there isnot all in the pasta clinging to thevelcro if you’re silly right yeah okayserving for you make sure I get a littlebit of everything in herethis is gonna climb onto the pyramidwell has tons of flavor in them theanchovy capers pepperoncini yeahbeautifulyou can see the toppings and the pastathey’re all mixed together everythingdidn’t make a big dive for the bottom ofthe bowl and the pasta is firm mm-hmmbut tender uh-huh and I love the littlebits of mozzarella in there too they hadsuch a beautiful creamy texture of allthe pasta salads this has definitelyreached the apex yeah this is a pastasalad I’m proud to bring to a picnic youshould be proud for a pasta salad you’llbe proud to take to a picnic cookfusilli until very tender then microwaveoil anchovies and garlic until sizzlingprocessed with pepperoncini and capersand toss with the pasta finished withsalami olives cheese and herbs and ofcourse surf from our Test Kitchen toyour kitchen a surefire flavor packedItalian pasta salad you can get thisrecipe and all the recipes from thisseason along with our tastings testingsand select episodes on our websiteAmerica’s Test Kitchen calmit’s gone shoveling it in Keiththanks for watching America’s TestKitchen what you think well leave acomment and let us know which recipesyou’re excited to make or you can justsay hello you can find links to today’srecipes and reviews in the videodescription and don’t forget tosubscribe to our Channel see you laterI’ll see you later