♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Today on "America's Test Kitchen," Ben makes Bridget pan seared halibut with wilted bitter salad.

Jack challenges Bridget and Julia to a head to head tasting of frozen puff pastry.

And Erica makes Julia ma'amoul.

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

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♪♪ -Sometimes you got to treat yourself right and make a fine dining experience in your own home kitchen.

Well, lucky for me, today, I'm going to get that fine dining experience, thanks to Ben, who's inspired by a recipe from a recent trip.

-That's right Bridget.

I was in Paris recently, and I had an amazing salad while I was there.

And I have a confession for you.

I hate salads.

-I love you.

-So this was a -- [ Laughs ] This was a memorable meal for that reason.

And it was a pile of cold, bitter greens with like a hot salad dressing covering up a little monkfish fillet.

And so I wanted to recreate that dish at home because it made me so happy to be eating it.

So the dish I had in Paris used monkfish fillets, but at home, I wanted to use a fish that's a little easier.

-Right.

-And so I use halibut here because it's nice and meaty white fish, similar to the monkfish.

But you truly could use salmon.

You could use, honestly, catfish.

You could use any kind of fish fillet you want.

-Okay.

-You could use chicken if you really wanted to.

-Hey!

-So I patted dry the halibut here.

And I'm just going to season it with a little bit of salt and pepper on both sides.

So we are heating up about 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium high heat just until the oil is starting to smoke a little bit and kind of rippling on the surface.

So I'm going to add the halibut fillets to the oil.

[ Sizzling ] So we're gonna let these cook for about 8 to 10 minutes.

We're gonna be looking for 130 degrees on the inside.

And we're gonna flip them about half way through.

And so while those are cooking, we're going to prep the fennel.

So we use one bulb of fennel.

And what we're going to do is actually use some of the fronds for the top of the salad greens, but then cook the bulb, and that kind of goes under the salad, as well, on top of the fish.

So I'm going to take about a quarter cup of these fennel fronds here.

And you can just tear them off with your hands and pack them into this little quarter cup measure here.

And then I just want to trim off these stalks here just to give us a nice, even bulb.

I'll take all these fronds, put them back out of the way here.

And then for this bulb, I'm going to trim off the end here just to make it nice and flat.

And then I'm going to cut the fennel bulb lengthwise into about half inch pieces, which ends up being about 12 wedges.

Makes nice little even wedges.

And cutting through the core helps to keep everything together, because we're going to be frying and flipping these later, so... -Got it.

-...I'm just going to add these to the bowl here.

Okay, so the halibut has been cooking for about 4 or 5 minutes now, so it's time to flip.

So I'm just gonna flip over each fillet.

-Ah!

-And that's what you want -- nice light golden brown sear.

Nothing too dark.

So now those are flipped over, I'm gonna move it back on the heat, and we're gonna continue cooking for about five more minutes until it reaches about 130 degrees.

Perfect.

-Well done.

-We're gonna transfer all these fillets to plates.

So this is a nice, like, kind of single serving... -Ah.

-...piece of fish for each person, you know, so... -You're starting the restaurant plating.

I love it.

-Exactly.

You got it.

So now to the skillet that's still here.

It still has a little bit of oil in it, but that's okay.

We're going to add a little more oil to cook our fennel.

So we're going to heat this over medium heat.

I'm going to add the fennel wedges.

These will cook for about 10 minutes.

And we'll flip them about half way through.

-Okay.

-Just to make sure they're really nice and caramelized and tender on both sides.

Meanwhile, we're going to start making the greens for the salad.

So this is our salad that has 2 cups of arugula right here.

Nice and green and crunchy and a little bitter.

And then we're also going to have some radicchio and endive.

So I'm just going to tear each of these leaves probably in half just make like kind of big leaves.

So we're going to add these to the bowl of arugula.

And now I'm going to trim the endive.

What I like to do is just trim off the root end here.

And then cut the entire head in half crosswise.

That just gives you slightly smaller pieces.

So you don't have these like big spears you're tackling.

-Right.

-And then I just kind of pull the leaves apart one by one.

-Lovely!

-And then I'm just going to toss these together with my hands just to make sure they're nice and mixed.

Bridget, the fennel has been cooking for about 10 minutes now.

As you can see, it's lovely golden brown.

-Mm-hmm!

-It's starting to soften.

So we're going to leave the fennel in the pan and continue cooking while we make the sauce around it.

So what I'm going to add is I have one shallot that's been finely minced.

And then also I have three cloves of garlic that I've minced up, as well.

And we mince them because we want them to cook really fast.

-Okay.

-This is gonna cook for about 2 minutes, just until they're soft.

So now it's time to make the dressing.

So we're going to pour in about 3/4 of a cup of dry white wine.

Anything that you love to drink.

Then we're gonna add 2/3 cup of lemon juice.

I know it sounds like a lot, but it's dressing for four servings.

And also, the acid really cuts through the bitterness of the greens that we have over here, as well... -Got it.

-...and the sweetness of the fennel, so it's really nice.

But also just to make sure that it's not too acidic, we're going to add 3 tablespoons of water.

The nice secret ingredient in a lot of salad dressings is water, because it helps kind of cut through how intense they can be.

-Sure.

-So we're going to add that, as well.

I'm just going to bring this up to the simmer.

And we're going to let that go for about 2 minutes just until it reduces a little bit and gets nice and thick.

-Great.

-So the sauce has been nice and reduced, as you can see.

And it's like bubbling, which looks really lovely.

So the final touch to make it really French, but also to make it taste great, is we're going to add 2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard.

This helps to kind of emulsify the dressing and just adds that lovely flavor.

So now that the mustard is in, I'm just going to kill the heat.

Season it with just salt and pepper.

-Mm.

-That's perfect.

Doesn't that smell wonderful?

-It smells beautiful.

-So now I'm going to take those fennel wedges.

And we're going to remove these from the sauce.

And we're going to place these on top of the fish.

-Okay.

-So put about three or so on top of each fish fillet.

Then we're going to come back to that in one second because we want to dress the salad first.

So we're going to add a little bit of olive oil, about 2 tablespoons, to the salad greens.

And then also about a teaspoon and a half of lemon juice.

This just kind of makes like a pre-vinaigrette for the salad.

And season with little salt and pepper.

Okay, so now the salad is nice and dressed.

It's time to place it on top of the fish.

I actually like to use my hands for this.

So I just take, you know, a small handful here, just kind of let it fall artfully over the top of the fish as much as possible.

If any leaves go off to the side, just kind of bring them back up or let them go as they are.

I like to drizzle around the outside first, and then kind of finish up right in the center to make sure the fish below gets all that dressing, as well.

We're going to come back to those fennel fronds that we had earlier, tear them up a little bit just to give a nice little final flourish.

We're going to add a little bit of sea salt on top, as well, just because it is a French restaurant dish.

Of course it has to have some flaky sea salt on top.

-It's the law.

-It's the law.

Exactly.

And then to further gild the lily, just because we want to make sure it shines brightly, we're going to add just another little drizzle of olive oil, because remember, we have all that lemon juice in there, as well, and the bitter greens.

We just want to make sure everything is nicely balanced.

-All right, going for a little bit of this endive.

Mm.

-It's not too tart, but it cuts through, which is really nice.

-It's just softened a little bit.

-Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

-Gorgeous.

All right.

I've got to find some fish.

-Yeah.

-There it is.

-It's a surprise.

-Mm!

That's how all halibut should be -- should be served, bright and punchy, tangy.

-Because it's pretty neutral fish.

So it goes really well with soaking up all these kind of acidic bright flavors.

I love the sweetness of the fennel here, as well, with the bitter greens.

It's really nice.

-Six stars.

-Oh, fantastic.

-Way beyond five.

Just gorgeous.

Thank you so much for showing us how to make this.

-Of course.

My pleasure.

-Well, if you want to make Ben's fabulous salad at home, it starts by sauteing halibut until golden brown.

Cook fennel wedges in the same skillet, and then arrange with dressed greens and spoon the warm vinaigrette over to finish.

So from America's Test Kitchen, à la chez Ben, it's pan seared halibut with wilted bitter salad.

All right.

Seven stars.

-Okay, you gave me the seventh.

-Yes.

-Thank you so much.

♪♪ -So we're talking puff pastry.

This is super simple.

Some brands have butter.

Some brands don't.

They have vegetable shortening or vegetable oil.

There are brands here with butter.

I want you two to find those brands.

Okay?

-Okay.

-Find the butter?

-Find the butter.

It's a flavor thing, right?

I mean, it's going to taste better with butter.

The second choice you have to make, which does make a difference when you are rolling it out, is the format inside the box.

So there are now some brands that come rolled, which is nice because there are no creases.

And as you guys know, when you're rolling out puff pastry and you have to unfold it, those creases can sometimes have stress points and... -Right.

-...break.

Some of them are larger, so this has several folds.

But when it unfolds, it's very large, which is nice because you have to do less rolling.

And this is probably the least desirable, the sort of narrow letter format, because you've got a lot of creases and it still doesn't get you that much puff pastry on a single sheet.

The other thing is we thought, "Oh, there's a brand now that's not frozen, it's just refrigerated."

Wouldn't that be convenient?

You don't need to plan the night before, put it into the refrigerator, which is what you want to do with the frozen brands.

We found that the refrigerated brand stuck a lot.

And so we're still recommending that you plan ahead, put the box in the refrigerator the day before you want to actually use it, but that the frozen brands are a little easier to work with.

So there are going to be lots of crumbs everywhere.

Don't worry.

Are you noticing any flavor differences?

I'm going to start with you, Julia.

-If you put blue cheese and walnuts on these and made a tart, I don't know that I'd be able to tell the difference.

If you're using something with strong flavors, I think this would pretty much be passable.

Any of them would be in my house.

-Yeah, we didn't think anything was unacceptable.

We did think the brands with butter had an advantage.

I mean, I can see that -- -I've made a mess, first of all.

They're all quite flaky.

-I really liked C.

-Oh, okay.

Even though it's the one that's left on the plate.

-I was like... -I had to go back to make sure I liked these others as much.

D, I liked D. It had a familiar sort of sweet finish that I liked.

A was pretty good, too.

B was my least favorite.

-Okay, so C is your favorite?

-C is my favorite.

-And what are you thinking, Bridget?

-Yeah, they were all beautifully crisp.

Nice browning.

Some were browner than others.

I suspect milk solids might be the culprit there.

-Maybe.

-Don't know.

But there was some puff difference in these definitely.

I think my favorite was probably C. I actually didn't mind B. A was a little bland for me.

Do I have to pick one?

-I'm going to make you pick one.

-All right.

-I'm just going to go with A.

-You're both winners in different ways.

-Yay!

-A and C are the butter brands.

So A is Trader Joe's.

This is all butter.

Now it's not necessarily available 12 months of the year.

So if you shop at Trader Joe's and you see it, you should buy it and keep it in the freezer.

-Oh, interesting.

-It is half the price of C, which is the Dufour, the other all butter brand that you liked that is available pretty widely in supermarkets, but literally is twice the price of the Trader Joe's.

-So I win twice.

-[ Laughs ] -They were the favorites because they had the butter.

And so the Dufour, which is the classic that professionals use.

The Trader Joe's was a kind of revelation, that it was half the price.

So the other two brands.

So B is the Pepperidge Farm.

So this is the classic.

You know, it's not a bad choice.

I mean, as you were saying, you put blue cheese, you know, a tart or potpie, it will be fine.

And then D is the Jus-Rol.

So it's not another one that unrolls.

But this is the refrigerator one.

And again, we just found it will stick a little bit more to the counter.

And so you may want to be a little bit more generous with the flour if you end up buying that brand.

But that said, if you're going to go buy this, get a brand with butter if you can find it in the supermarket.

-So mine had butter, it was cheaper, and no fissures in it.

I'm the triple winner.

-Mine was French.

-Yeah.

There you go.

[ Laughter ] ♪♪ -Ma'amoul is a traditional Middle Eastern cookie that's made with semolina flour, filled with either nuts or dates, and often shaped using a hand-carved wooden mold.

And today, Erica is going to tell us more.

-Ma'amoul are one of the first things that I ate when I moved to Jerusalem.

-Oh, wow.

-And I absolutely love them.

They're festive, the ultimate sign of hospitality, and just really fun to make.

Let's get started with our dough.

In my bowl, I have 2 cups plus 3 tablespoons of semolina flour and 6 tablespoons of all-purpose flour.

-Okay.

-So traditionally, doughs are just all semolina.

But we found that the combination of the two provides structure and also keeps the dough from being too crumbly.

-Okay.

-So I'm going to whisk that together.

And here I have a special spice.

This is called mahlab.

-Mahlab.

-Yes.

And would you like to give that a whiff for me?

Let me know what you think.

-Oh, it kind of has a brown sugary, nutmeggy sort of nutty quality to it.

-So mahlab is actually made from cherry kernels found inside of cherry pits and sold either whole or ground like we have here in specialty stores or online.

This is a 1/4 teaspoon of ground mahlab.

And I'll whisk that all together.

And to our flours I have 12 tablespoons of softened unsalted butter.

-Mm-hmm.

-And 1/3 cup of honey.

3 tablespoons of orange blossom water.

-Ooh.

-And 3 tablespoons of rose water.

-Oh, they're so fragrant.

Even the bowls left over are fragrant.

-They are.

They're very fragrant.

They're very aromatic.

But they're just going to lightly scent the dough.

Everything is going to work together and really give a very light taste.

-I can't wait.

-All right.

So now I'm going to use my hands to just work the butter and the wet ingredients into this semolina and the all-purpose flour, but just until it's nice and cohesive.

-Okay.

-Now we have our dough complete.

I'm just going to cover it with plastic wrap, and it needs to sit at room temperature for four hours until it fully hydrates.

-Okay.

So semolina flour has a lot of protein, which if it was wheat flour would make a lot of gluten and a very tough cookie.

So why do these cookies bake up so tender?

Our ma'amoul dough consists of both semolina and, in order to keep the gluten content down, only a little bit of all-purpose flour.

The flours are mixed by hand with butter and liquid ingredients, then the dough is covered tightly with plastic wrap to rest.

During the four-hour rest, the flour particles hydrate and form a gluten web that hold the dough together, but the semolina particles are much larger and simply soften as they hydrate.

The protein strands inside the pieces of semolina remain separate from the gluten network in the dough, and thus they won't make the cookie tough.

So it's the combination of semolina and all-purpose flour that give us just the right amount of gluten development for that iconic tender texture.

-We have our dough.

Let's make our filling.

-Okay.

-I have 3/4 cup of raw shelled pistachios, 1/2 teaspoon of ground aniseed, 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon of ground mahlab.

-So it's in the filling and the dough.

-Yep.

You've got it.

It's a double cameo.

1/4 teaspoon of table salt.

Now I'll just process this until the pistachio pieces are about 1/4 inch.

It's going to take about 5 to 7 pulses.

Our pistachios look great.

Now it's time for our dates.

-Okay.

-I have 7 ounces of pitted Medjool dates.

And traditionally, you wouldn't combine dates and nuts together when making ma'amoul.

But we really love the flavor and texture combo of the two of them.

3 tablespoons of softened unsalted butter.

-Mm-hmm.

-And 1 tablespoon of honey.

Now I'm just going to process this again until we get a nice smooth cohesive paste.

-Okay.

-It's going to take about 20 seconds.

And as you can see, the pistachio pieces are about 1/8 to 1/16 of an inch.

And that's important because when it comes time to shaping, we don't want the filling to poke through the dough.

-Gotcha.

-So I'm just going to cover this with some plastic wrap.

And we're going to pop it into the refrigerator until we're ready to use it.

-Okay.

-It's been four hours.

Our dough has fully hydrated.

Now let's finish it off.

In my bowl I have 3 tablespoons of milk that we warmed in the microwave and 1/4 teaspoon of table salt.

To that I'm going to add in 1/2 teaspoon of instant yeast.

I'm just going to whisk it all together.

And I'll add this milk and yeast mixture right to the dough.

And just mix it together until it's nice and cohesive.

About 30 seconds.

-Okay.

-Now I'm just going to turn the dough onto the counter, and I'll knead the dough for two minutes until it's nice and soft, and at first it looks like it's starting to stick.

It might seem like we made a mistake, but as we continue to knead, it's going to come together.

I think we're just about there.

There's still going to be a little bit of softness to it, but that's okay because we're going to let it rest again.

So I'm going to take my dough and place it back in the bowl.

Now cover it again with plastic wrap.

And I want to let it rest for another 30 minutes.

We have our dough.

We have our filling.

Now it's time to assemble our ma'amoul.

So let's start with the filling.

We need 30 equal portions.

Each of them need to be 1/2 ounce.

So what I like to do is just take a piece and weigh it.

There's a little bit extra.

I'm going to pinch off a bit.

That's exactly 5.

So I'll just roll it into a ball and place it on our prepared baking sheet.

-Okay.

-Julia, do you mind working on the filling?

-Sure.

-I can pivot to the dough.

-You bet.

-All right, I appreciate it.

All right, so our dough -- Oh, it's really nice and soft and elastic.

So now I'm just going to cut it into two equal pieces and roll each piece into a 15-inch log.

That looks great.

And then I just want 15 equal pieces.

-Okay.

-Just take it and I'll roll it into a ball and make 30 dough balls to match our 30 balls of filling.

Julia, we have our tray of the balls of dough and the balls of filling.

You did a great job, by the way.

-Thank you.

-So now it's time to put them both together.

So I'm going to take a ball of the dough, press it into the palm of my hands to create a 3-inch round, working pretty quickly so the heat of my hands doesn't transfer onto the dough.

-Mm-hmm.

-Then I'll take a ball of the filling, place it right in the middle, pull up the sides of the dough all around the filling to completely cover it.

Then I'll just pinch the top and roll it into a ball until it's nice and smooth.

Now it's time for my favorite part.

This is called a qalab.

It's a traditional wood hand-carved mold that's made with beautiful, intricate designs, and different styles are used to denote what type of filling is in our ma'amoul.

So for date filling, traditionally you'd see a round flat top.

For pistachio, you'd see an oval, and for walnut you would see a cone shape.

-Oh, very cool.

So you could just look and tell what's inside each cookie.

-Exactly.

And you can find them online or in specialty stores.

But if you can't find them, you can also use a small bowl with 1/8 cup capacity lined with plastic wrap.

So we take our dough ball that's been filled, place it right in the center, press down with either your fingers or the palm of your hand just until it's flush to the edges.

And here's where the magic happens.

Just take it and tap it on the countertop to release it.

-Oh.

-Voilà.

-Isn't that cool?

-Voilà.

That's beautiful.

-Right?

So much fun.

So I'm just gonna use my offset spatula to carefully transfer it onto the baking sheet.

Kind of tuck it in there.

Now, we do have to keep the rest of these covered, so I just have a damp dishtowel here that I'll just place right on top.

-Oh, otherwise they'd dry out and be hard to shape.

-Exactly.

-Gotcha.

All right, so we've got some cookies to make.

-We do.

-All right, here we go.

-Ah, Julia, you're such a pro at these.

-It's so much fun to slam the qalab on the counter to release the cookie.

-It really is.

It's actually one of my favorite parts.

And the beauty of when you make these in community is all you hear is this slamming, slamming, slamming and chit-chat.

Julia, these ma'amoul look amazing.

We have two trays, 15 ma'amoul each.

They need to bake.

Our ovens have been preheating to 350 degrees.

They'll bake on the middle rack, and they need to bake one tray at a time.

-Mm-hmm.

-Since we're in the test kitchen, we have two ovens.

-We do.

-We'll take advantage of both of them.

They'll bake for 16 to 20 minutes, and we'll rotate them halfway through.

-So one tray for the bottom, one tray for the top oven?

-Yes.

Ooh.

-Those smell delicious.

-Don't they?

We know that the cookies are ready because they're nice and lightly golden-brown around the edges.

And then if we pick them up and look on the bottom, we can see that they're also nicely browned.

-Oh, yeah.

Okay.

-So they do need to cool for about 20 minutes and then it'll be time to finish them off.

-Okay.

-So now it's time to finish off the ma'amoul with some powdered sugar.

-Oh, pretty.

-I'm just going to lightly dust so you can still see that beautiful, intricate design.

It's a touch of elegance, really, but it also adds a little extra sweetness, because all we have in there for sweetness is a little bit of honey and the dates.

Now it's time for the best part.

-I know.

I was waiting.

This one.

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

There is so much flavor in here.

You taste the dates and the pistachios, but then the spices and the rose water and the orange water.

You wouldn't be able to pick them out necessarily.

But they give you this fragrant backbone and it's not too sweet.

-Yes.

-Which I love.

-Me too.

They're really just so simple and feel very nourishing somehow as well for a cookie.

-Mm-hmm.

Erica, these are delicious and really fun to make.

Thank you.

-Oh, my pleasure.

Thanks for making them with me.

-If you want to make this traditional Middle Eastern cookie, start by making a dough by hand using semolina and all-purpose flour.

Grind the pistachio-date filling to a fine paste in a food processor.

Then use a mold to seal and decorate the cookies.

From America's Test Kitchen, a delicious recipe for ma'amoul.

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

This and a cup of tea.

-Ohh.

-Oh, that'd be a nice afternoon.

-Indeed.

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