♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Today, on "America's Test Kitchen," Becky makes Bridget pan-roasted cod with green olive, almond, and orange relish.

Adam reviews infrared thermometers.

Lisa reviews butter storage containers, and Dan makes Julia braised monkfish with saffron and cured olives.

It's all coming up right here on "America's Test Kitchen."

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♪♪ -Pan-roasted fish, when done well, is the epitome of high reward for low effort.

But things can go wrong, and that's when you call your fairy codmother, as I have.

Becky's here, and she's gonna show us how to pan-roast fish the right way.

-I love that title, by the way.

[ Both laugh ] -It's yours.

-I'll take it.

Yeah, this is a foolproof recipe.

The fish will be nice and moist, well-browned, and cod is lean and mild.

-Right.

-So we're going to be making a Greek olive relish to go with it.

-Ooh!

That sounds great.

-Yeah.

Really good.

So easy.

-Okay.

So let's start by making the relish.

-All right.

We have half a cup of green brined olives.

They've been pitted.

Half a cup of toasted slivered almonds.

This will give a nice bit of crunch to the relish.

-Nice.

-And then a teaspoon of grated orange zest.

Now, orange and olive goes beautifully together.

-Gorgeous.

-This is gonna be a really nice complement to that lean fish.

And then just one small garlic clove that's been minced up.

Okay.

So I'll just pulse this about 10 times in the processor.

[ Motor whirring ] All right.

There we go.

You can see the olives and the nuts still have a little bit of texture.

And you can smell that orange zest already.

It's so fragrant.

-Well, I love that the flavors you're using are very, very fresh because you don't want to mask cod.

Any kind of fish, really, but especially cod because it's so lightly flavored.

-Yeah, it's so delicate.

So this is just a really nice mix of flavors here.

All right.

Now I have 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil and 1/4 cup of orange juice.

-Mmm, more orange.

-Yeah.

So I just zested the orange first and then got some juice.

2 teaspoons of white-wine vinegar just to brighten things up a little bit.

And then just a little bit of cayenne -- I'm not even going to add all of it.

I just want a little bit, just a little pinch, just to give the barest hint of spice in the background.

-Pinch of a pinch?

-A pinch of a pinch.

That's it.

-Mm.

-[ Chuckles ] All right.

That looks pretty good.

That was pretty easy, right, Bridget?

-Yes.

-Okay.

And now I just have some mint, some fresh mint leaves.

-Mmm!

-I know.

[ Sniffs ] You want to sniff?

-[ Sniffs ] Orange and mint.

-Yeah.

So we want 1/4 cup.

The way I chop fresh mint, I just ball it up like this... -Mm-hmm.

-...and then go through it in one direction and kind of turn it and go in another direction.

-Lovely.

Oh.

[ Sniffs ] It smells great.

-Lots of good smells going on.

We haven't even turned on the stove yet.

-[ Chuckles ] -That looks pretty good to me.

-It sure does.

-I'm going to put that into the relish.

So that's 1/4 cup.

Just going to season it with a little bit of salt.

Doesn't need much because those olives have a fair bit of salt.

-Right.

-And that is ready to go.

All right, let's cook this fish.

-They are beautiful.

-They're gorgeous, aren't they?

Nice cod filets.

I made sure to get filets that were at least an inch thick.

An inch and a half would be good, as well.

Filets that are too thin will just overcook with this method.

-And you never get them brown enough.

-Exactly.

-Okay.

-So at least one inch thick.

You can use snapper.

You could also use sea bass.

-Okay.

-We're going with cod cuts.

My favorite.

-[ Chuckles ] These are 4- to 6-ounce filets.

I just want to pat them dry.

That's one of the keys of getting good browning is making sure that it's nice and dry.

-Absolutely.

-All right.

Another way that we're going to help these guys brown is, I'm going to sprinkle them with 1/2 teaspoon of sugar.

When that sugar hits the pan it's going to help to caramelize really quickly.

1/2 teaspoon divided among the four filets here.

And this won't make the fish taste sweet at all.

It'll just make it nice and brown.

Going to give them some salt, as well.

And some pepper.

So, I made sure to season the side that I want to serve presentation side up.

This is the nice rounded side, so this is the side that I want to have that nice browning.

So we're going to brown the fish I have a tablespoon of oil in a non-stick skillet here.

This is an oven-safe skillet.

We're going to steer it on the stove and then put it in the oven.

So once that oil starts to shimmer, which I see is just about happening, we'll put these guys in, and we'll put them in sugared side down.

[ Sizzling ] That's a good sound.

-That's a great sound.

And I like how you're capturing some of the oil as you put that in, too.

-Yep, I want to help with that browning.

Another thing I'm going to do is, I'm going to press down on the fish a little bit.

-Okay.

-I want to make sure we have good contact with the bottom of the skillet.

-Gotcha.

-So we're going to let these brown for two minutes and then we'll flip them over, okay?

All right.

It's been two minutes.

Let's take a peek.

And you can see I'm not using non-stick spatulas here.

I'm just gonna be really careful with the pan.

Oh!

[ Laughs ] I'm happy with that.

-Beautiful color.

-Yeah.

-I like your flipping technique, too.

-Yeah, two spatulas is really helpful here.

-Oh, look at that.

-Oh, these are perfect.

-Non-stick pan makes this very easy.

-That was just two minutes.

-Two minutes.

And that's because of the sugar.

-Right.

So those look gorgeous.

I'm going to put these into a 425-degree oven for 7 to 10 minutes until they reach 140 degrees, and they'll be nice and moist and tender and perfect.

Okay.

It's been seven minutes.

-Mmm.

-Let's take a peek.

Ooh.

Those are gorgeous, aren't they?

-They are gorgeous.

-Let's check.

And we want about 140 for the temperature here.

All right, 140.

-Nice.

-All right.

Put these on a platter here.

That's okay.

You can see that flakes apart a little bit.

That just means that it's perfectly cooked... -Mmm!

-...so that's fine with me.

-Yes.

-I'm just adding some lemon wedges around the edge there.

Okay, I'm going to give you this nice end piece.

I think it's the best one.

I always want my guest to have the best one.

[ Both laugh ] There you go.

And we have to have this beautiful olive relish.

-Yes.

-Nice generous scoop of that on the side.

-Mmm!

-Ooh.

-I'm so glad you didn't just dollop it on the fish because that's a beautiful crust.

-Yeah, you don't want to hide that beautiful browning that we got.

Bon appetit.

I don't even think it needs the lemon.

You could squeeze it on there, but we have this beautiful relish.

-Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Oh, that is so good.

That fish, it's so juicy.

-You can see how juicy it is.

-Mmm.

-It's perfectly tender.

The browning is gorgeous.

And then this relish just complements it.

The fresh mint, the olives.

-This is fine dining, quality food.

Even better, 'cause you got to make it at home.

-That's right.

-Gorgeous.

You're the codmother.

-I earned my title, right?

-You absolutely did.

Thanks so much, Becky.

-My pleasure.

-If you want to make this beautiful dish at home, it starts with using cod filets that are at least 1 inch thick.

Sprinkle the fish with a little sugar to speed up browning, and use both the stovetop and the oven to cook the fish through.

So, from "America's Test Kitchen" and the fairy "codmother" herself, it's pan-roasted cod with green olive, almond, and orange relish.

Mmm-mmm-mmm.

-Bibbidi bobbidi yes.

-Ooh, yeah.

♪♪ -Well, we have the equipment to take the temperature of our food, but what about the cooking surfaces?

Adam's here, and he's going to tell us about infrared thermometers.

I thought maybe you were training to be a state trooper there.

-[ Laughing] Maybe I can talk myself out of speeding tickets.

Infrared thermometers.

What these do is, they take the temperature of a surface really quickly and from a distance, so you don't have to touch it.

-Mm-hmm.

-They're used a lot in industry.

They're used with machinery, ductwork to spot check hot and cold spots.

That can give you an idea if there's some sort of problem.

-Right.

-They're also used in commercial kitchens.

And we were wondering whether they had a place in the home kitchen, too, and, if so, which one is best?

We have this lineup of seven.

Price range was $24 to $162.

-Big range.

-Big range.

We tested these on both cast-iron skillets like this one and stainless-steel skillets.

We read four different temperatures -- 68 degrees, 310 degrees, 450 degrees, and 1,050 degrees.

-[ Exhales sharply ] -It's a thermometer, so accuracy is important to test.

-Yes.

-The best ones here, if they're used carefully, were accurate within about 3 degrees of the true temperature.

-Oh, okay.

-"If used carefully" is an interesting point, though, because some of these were off by more than 100 degrees.

That is not their fault because the accuracy is susceptible to a lot of different factors.

You need to be careful and sort of develop your set of best practices for using these.

Some of those factors are, but not limited to, how reflective the surface is, the humidity in the air, how thick the air is... -Oh, wow.

-...the angle at which you're temping.

You want to try and get right over whatever it is you're temping, so it's perpendicular.

So we consider these good for giving you a ballpark reading.

And that can be useful, definitely.

-Sure.

-If you want to see if your grill is heated up or if you're using a double-burner griddle, you want to see which spots are cold and which spots are warm, spot-checking a freezer or a refrigerator for warm and cold spots.

Any kind of surface that you're cooking on, whether it's a preheated skillet or a baking stone in the oven, or even an outdoor pizza oven, great for that kind of thing, too.

-Okay.

-So, the way these work is, they actually measure energy that's radiating from the surface and convert that into a temperature.

That energy is called emissivity, and it ranges from zero to one.

You can go online and find a chart.

Different materials have different emissivity ratings.

And we found that the more accurate infrared thermometers allows you to adjust for the emissivity of whatever the material you were temping.

-Gotcha.

But you got to do a little homework.

-Got to do a little homework.

Got to go online, find out what the emissivity is.

So, aside from the accuracy issues, there are a couple of design factors that made some easier to use than others.

They all operate with a laser beam or two, just to give you an indication of where you're temping.

It helps you aim.

Our favorite one had a laser beam... and a circle around it like a bull's-eye.

It was actually much easier to see than a single or a double beam, even in broad daylight.

This one was also adjustable for the emissivity, and the handle, believe it or not, made a difference to our testers.

It was sort of a medium thickness, medium length.

People with different-sized hands all found it comfortable.

Some of the others were a little too small, a little too chunky.

This is our winning infrared thermometer.

This is the ThermoWorks Industrial IR with Circle Laser.

It's got an emissivity adjustment.

If you use it according to best practices, it's accurate to within 1.7 degrees.

-There you go.

A little homework and the right equipment, you can tell the temperature of your skillet and so much more.

And our winner is the ThermoWorks Industrial IR with Circle Laser.

And it runs about $90.

♪♪ -In the test kitchen, we fly through cases of butter, but at home, a single stick can last for weeks.

Over time, butter can absorb flavors and odors from nearby foods if it's not stored properly.

So we tested butter storage containers in two styles -- dishes and bells.

Now, butter bells originated in France, and they're always used at room temperature.

You pack the crock upside down with softened butter, and you fill this with a small amount of water.

This forms an airtight seal.

Now, you do have to change the water every few days to keep the butter beautifully spreadable.

Just look at this.

Now, we tested this assortment of butter bells, tasting the butter every day.

All the bells kept butter fresh for two weeks, but our favorite was this one, the original butter bell crock.

This large, easy-to-grab knob gave it an edge over these other butter bells.

Its flared shape is simple to fill and use, and butter stayed fresh and spreadable throughout our testing.

We also tested butter dishes, both in the refrigerator and at room temperature.

As a control, we stored a stick of butter in the fridge and at room temperature, but kept them in their original wrappers.

We checked all the butters every day, looking for signs of spoilage.

Now, first, we found that every container did better than the original wrappers.

Next, we found that dishes kept butter fine at room temperature for two weeks, just like the butter bells, but in the fridge, they worked for about three weeks, and one dish lasted a full month, and that's our winner -- the LocknLock rectangular food container and tray.

These flaps seal tightly to keep butter extra fresh.

It's meant to be used upside down, so the lid doubles as a flat surface of the butter.

It even has these measurement markings right on the bottom.

Now, with either of our winners, your butter will stay fresher longer.

♪♪ -Monkfish is a very meaty, sturdy fish that is perfect for braising.

And, today, Dan's going to show us how.

-So, I love monkfish.

It's such an interesting fish, great texture, and it really does hold up well to braising.

-Mm-hmm.

-Today, we're going to work with a lot of kind of North African flavors to build this.

-Ooh!

-So it's going to be really complex -- sweet, savory, really aromatic.

So I'm going to start with the aromatics.

And I have one onion here, which I'm going to halve.

And then slice pole to pole.

It's about 1/4-inch-thick slices.

-Okay.

-Okay, great.

So, we've got our onions cut.

We're going to work with carrots, as well.

This actually plays into that kind of savory and sweet thing we're talking about.

So, very savory with the onions.

This is going to add some natural sweetness to the dish.

So I'm going to slice these down the center into two.

Okay, I'm going to slice these 1/4-inch thick.

-I'm hearing the sound of a very sharp knife.

It is making a really lovely crack through those carrots.

-Carrots can be a tough vegetable to cut through if you have a dull knife, so this is nice and easy.

Add this to my bowl with the onions.

Now we're going to work with an orange.

This is going to add some lovely aroma to it.

It's also going to hit a little bit more on that sweetness profile.

And it's going to work in a couple of different ways in the dish.

So I'm gonna use my peeler to take off nice wide strips here.

-Mmm.

Orange zest.

-Orange zest.

Okay.

So, two of these are going to go into the bowl with the other aromatics.

And this third one here I'm going to mince really fine, and we're going to mix it with some garlic.

-Ooh.

-So this is going to go into our bowl with a teaspoon of minced garlic.

We're actually going to save this, and it's going to go in at the very end of cooking.

-Ah, a nice bright hit at the end.

-So, we have 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil over medium-high heat, and we want it to just shimmer, which you can kind of see happening now.

-Mm-hmm.

-We're going to go in with all of our aromatics.

And 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

-You know, with the orange in there, that really is an interesting braising profile.

-Little bit different than maybe what you've had before for a braised fish?

-Yeah.

So, I actually grew up eating braised monkfish.

We had it a lot.

-Really?

-Yeah, my mother always braised it in a tomato broth, though.

-Oh, I love that.

-With a little bit of paprika.

Yeah, it was kind of a standard dish in our house.

So I'm excited to see it done another way, because it really never dawned on me to make it different than she always made it.

-That's great.

Yeah, it's going to have some of the same flavors.

We have paprika and tomato paste going in, but, yeah, a few other things going on, as well.

So we're going to cook this until everything is nice and soft and a little bit of browning, which is gonna be nice for flavor.

Takes anywhere from 10 to 12 minutes.

All right.

This is looking beautiful.

You can see there's some fond on the bottom there.

-Mm-hmm.

-Everything's nice and wilted.

And the onions get a little bit sweeter when you cook them that way, so that's going to help out the dish a lot.

Awesome.

So now let's turn our focus to the monkfish.

-It's not a looker.

-It's not a looker in any way right?

If you've ever seen a whole monkfish... -Oh, they're evil-looking.

-This massive head and huge teeth.

They're an interesting fish.

They're a bottom-dweller, and they're like an assassin, like attack hunter, right?

And so they don't move a lot, but when they do, they can go really quickly.

And their muscle structure is really unique.

And I think that kind of almost lobster-like texture that some people attribute to it, it comes from that, and it's going to hold up really well.

It's not the kind of fish that flakes apart.

So braising is a perfect thing to do with it.

So when you're shopping for monkfish, you're only going to see the tail portion if you see it like this at the supermarket, this means that it has the membrane still attached.

-Hasn't been peeled yet.

-Hasn't been peeled.

And it's something you can do at home, but I don't know.

It's kind of a mess.

And a lot of times, you end up taking off more fish than you'd like, so I highly, highly recommend having your fishmonger or whoever is behind the fish counter do it for you.

And then you should have something that looks like this.

-Right.

-So, really, really clean.

And this is what we're going to work with.

All right.

So we're just going to cut this into manageable pieces about 3 inches in length.

So we'll probably get three out of this piece here.

-How many pounds of monkfish is this?

-This is 1 1/2 pounds.

So I'm going to pat this nice and dry.

And we're just going to season it with salt and pepper.

Black pepper is a really nice component of this dish, too, just in terms of how it balances out some of the sweetness.

That really nice heat and sweet is always nice.

All right.

So I'm just going to flip these over and repeat.

Now that everything's beautiful and soft in here, we're going to add the rest of our sauce ingredients.

We're going to start with 4 teaspoons of minced garlic.

Got a tablespoon of tomato paste.

Again, lots of richness and savoriness but some sweetness, as well.

-Mm-hmm.

-And I've got 1 1/4 teaspoons of paprika.

1 teaspoon of ground cumin.

1/2 teaspoon of dried mint.

And I have 1/4 teaspoon of saffron.

-Oh, hello.

1/4 teaspoon?

-1/4 teaspoon.

-Ah, nice.

-I upped the ante there a little bit with the saffron.

-Yeah, you did.

-Right?

-Oh, saffron and a braise is the best, especially when there's fish in it.

Because you can really taste the nuanced fragrance of the saffron.

-Yep.

-I don't like it when it gets covered up with lots of big, meaty things.

-Exactly.

Yep.

Okay, great.

We're just cooking this until it's fragrant.

And that has already happened.

-Smells pretty fragrant to me.

-Great.

So now we're going to do a little deglazing with one 8-ounce bottle of clam juice.

You know, seafood broth out there isn't generally very good.

-No.

-And clam juice is really consistent and adds just some nice background brininess.

It's not going to come off as clam chowder or anything, but adds a lot of flavor here.

And then you can use that.

You can scrape up all of that fond once it gets deglazed there.

Going to add our monkfish now.

Just kinda nestle this into the liquid.

-Mm-hmm.

-Make sure that it's got good contact.

-Oh, that smells good, Dan.

-Doesn't it already?

-Yeah.

-And I'm just going to spoon a little bit of the sauce over the top.

Get that nice and incorporated.

So it's not just unseasoned on top there.

-Makes sense.

You going to have to flip the fish over during cooking or just leave it be?

-Just leave it be.

-Let it ride.

-Yeah.

Let it ride.

And, you know, the thing is, like, braising, most of the time, it takes forever, right?

It's this big project.

You're like, "I'm going to braise something in the winter."

What's great about fish is, it cooks so quickly, you get, like, that comfort and that hominess but in a fraction of the time.

-And usually we braise in the oven, but I don't see the oven on behind you.

-No need.

This is a good summertime dish.

You know, you don't have to turn your oven on.

It's not going to heat up your kitchen very much.

So we're going to let this cook until the monkfish hits 140 degrees.

That's really important.

A lot of people think about temping with just like steaks and meat, but with fish it's just as important.

And that's going to make sure we have really tender, juicy results.

It's going to be perfectly cooked and that's going to take anywhere from 8 to 12 minutes.

Okay, let's check out our fish.

-Oh, what a nice simmer.

-Smells good, too.

-It does.

All right, so I'm going to take our temp here.

We're looking for about 140.

All right, there we go.

We got 142.

-Not bad.

-Nice.

-Not spot on, but really nice there.

So I'm going to turn the heat off.

And then I'm going to go fishing for our orange zest strips.

They've done their job.

They've contributed lots of flavor.

So our final components, we've got lots of cooked rich flavors in there.

And a lot of this is going to add brightness and kind of pops of complementary flavor.

So we first have 1/4 cup of chopped, oil-cured olives.

-Mmm!

-Oil-cured is not the best name for them.

It's kind of a misnomer.

They're actually salt-cured, but they're really rich and dense.

You know, there's no liquid to kind of dilute anything.

So they're going to add a lot of nice salinity and a lot of richness, too.

Then we've got 2 tablespoons of fresh mint that's been chopped.

-Oh, so fresh mint to complement the dried mint that you put in earlier.

-Double mint.

-[ Chuckles ] -Double-mint fish.

-And then, for some acidity, a teaspoon of sherry vinegar.

-Mmm!

-And then, finally, we have our garlic and orange zest mixture from before.

So this is where we're going to get fresh orange flavor and a little bit of nice punch from that garlic.

-Yeah, a little kick -Little kick.

So we're going to gently just stir this in.

Oh, yeah.

It's almost like a folding motion, really, more than anything.

Beautiful.

-Oh, that smells delicious.

-Let's just do a quick taste for seasoning.

It needs a little salt.

-Does it?

-Mm-hmm.

And a little bit more pepper.

That's really our only heat in the dish, and so it's nice to have a good amount of pepper in there.

All right, I'm going to give you this really nice big piece here.

-Oh, thank you.

-Lots of beautiful vegetables.

-Mmm.

That is beautiful.

-Isn't it?

It's gorgeous.

And really not that much effort involved.

-No.

I'm going to go in for some of the sauce first.

I just want to get a sense of the flavors.

Oh-ho!

I love it!

-You do?

-I do.

The carrots, the onions, but then the saffron, and then a little bit of that oil-cured olive.

And then the mint.

It's a complex mixture of flavors.

-Mm.

-Well, and the fish is perfectly cooked.

-Mm.

I love that monkfish texture.

It's so nice.

So unique among whitefish.

-Mm-hmm.

-But it's got the nice resiliency.

-Yes!

-You know?

In that kind of lobster-ish way.

-In that lobstery way.

Dan, this is lovely.

Thank you.

-You're welcome.

-So if you want to make braised monkfish, pull out your Dutch oven and build a flavorful braising liquid using a variety of spices and clam juice, and simmer the fish until it reaches 140 degrees.

From "America's Test Kitchen," braised monkfish with saffron and olives.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with select episodes and our product reviews at our website, americastestkitchen.com/tv.

I'm going to make this for my mother.

-Mm!

-I think she would like the updated sauce.

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