hey guys it's welcome tested I'm here at America's Test Kitchen with Brian roof
you work for cooks country among other things I think everybody does anybody
work for everything here or is it kind of well you know we divided up from
we're all in the same kitchen together and we all kind of work collaboratively
on all the recipes so cooks country is one of the newer additions to the
America's Test Kitchen barely um can you tell me a little bit about what you guys
what you guys do is it's different from you know what we're familiar with from
the TV from America's Test Kitchen on TV and Cook's Illustrated sure so cooks
country was launched in 2005 I believe and we take a more regional American
heirloom recipe approach to the whole recipe development process you know
we'll find those recipes that your grandma used to make that you know other
magazines don't cover anymore and we'll kind of bring those back to
life we'll travel around the country go to food festivals find you know a little
hole-in-the-wall diners and kind of bring all those recipes one of the pages
of the magazine so things that are more regional like yes it's a natty chili or
that we've done that shrimp and grits Wisconsin butter burgers oh what's it
what's Wisconsin butter burger it's something we came across when we were in
Milwaukee at a place called Sally's it's basically a fancier burger cheese stewed
onions and a big water bladder on top okay I get you and it's one of the best
things you've ever eaten trust me okay okay um so do you guys actually you
actually travel around the country and and how do you find places to to go
investigate they're there heirloom recipes well what we're trying to do is
not hit the same places that every other magazine would hit you know so we'll try
to uh like for instance just came back from South Carolina where we went
through and did a tour from the top of the state up in the Piedmont down to the
low country where we tried barbecue hash which is a mixture depending on where
you're at in the state of like slow-cooked pork sometimes beef and just
cook down til it's almost like a meaty gravy of sorts served over rice or grits
and so we just trying to kind of dig deep and find you know a lot of food
history you ask people on the side of like how did you interview I'm sure you
do internet research before you leave but then you also correct interview
people on the side of the road people coming out of restaurants and stuff like
that exactly that's actually the way we find the majority to step one we're on
the road we will strike up conversations with everybody so you mentioned butter
burger is right are we gonna make them yeah we
definitely are I got Ashley over here ready to cook for us so we should head
over and take a classic let's go
hey ash so Ashley's gonna make butter burgers for us okay huh
hi I've been told this is a burger with a lot of butter that's definitely true
well I'm skeptical but let's try it okay let's go for it so first we're going to
add to the hot skillet 1/2 teaspoon of vegetable oil and I pre season these
patties with a little bit of salt and pepper
that's going to help give it a nice crust on the outside
so they're aggressively seasoned with salt and pepper on both sides mm-hmm
the salty cheese a mixture of onions she's going to put on later it's a
relatively thin burger compared to what I make at home usually but you're
getting in my are I can't help but notice you're using a timer yeah I watch
the show I see all this stuff a lot of the equipment that we're seeing here
almost all of it it seems like it's stuff that you guys have tested it yeah
even the magaziner for the show and then it's all set to that people can find in
you know regular department stores or online so we try not to use equipment
that people would either be totally scared to use or things that you can't
find the commercial stuff is what the hood and the dishwasher and the walk-in
freezer yeah all right yeah yeah stop you need to have so this is going to be
on there for about three minutes and as we said earlier it just really developed
a really nice crust on the bottom and then we'll flip it over for one minute
let the cheese melt on it and then I'm going to show you the butter okay you
can probably butter up those a burger now so it's gonna look a little scary
but this is just melted unsalted butter its root and salted salted butter okay
that was actually good that you said that because in the beginning of our
nephew we're using unsalted butter which is what we use for all of our recipes
there and honestly the one thing we all kept saying was why don't we try using
salted this looks almost like mayonnaise it's that consistency and release is
good yeah well we're using 90% lean ground beef so it's not like oh yeah
yeah okay watching yeah per file and this is less I should
say than they actually use in in Wisconsin yeah what's the reaction in
the kitchen when you come back with something like this you know there's
always like a first few minutes with everybody's like I'm either not going to
eat that or that's crazy we're not going to do that but then we start tweaking
the recipe and we put it out in front of people when they taste it and like
you'll taste it and we when people over very quickly with a recipe like this
yeah okay seems ridiculous and dangerous but it's very good smells pretty good
right out this is just with good Wisconsin cheddar Land O'Lakes America
really yeah okay I'm the skepticism is getting deeper but
I've learned to trust you guys on that so look at that Brown so this is my art
reaction you're getting in the pan here you probably have a pretty good smoke
ventilation system if you're doing this in your kitchen
otherwise your alarms are gonna be saying I did it I notice you guys don't
have smoke alarms in here no plastic bags taped over anything yeah no not yet
okay now we're gonna put one point per burger okay smells pretty quickly
well it's American cheese yeah what you wouldn't when people win recipes call
for butter should we always assume unsalted well especially for baking
recipes right you want to use unsalted but for the most part we use unsalted
butter because it allows the cooks to control how much salt they put in the
recipe but this is my first time and almost you know for years working here
that I've called for salted butter in the recipe so alright so almost done
take the onions that we shoot a little bit of water and utter as well
add it's a little bit of parcel this is so juicy looking burger oh yeah Wow
still feels ridiculous I look it I look I don't know if you can see this but the
juice is literally coming out of the burger and soaking the bun underneath so
I think this is probably important we have photos from our trip to Wisconsin
and the entire bottom of the plate it's a small 6 inch plate is covered in
butter and the bottom bun is actually swimming Wow
so we'll cut one of these in half for you seeing at the cross-section okay a
lot of times the butter had this stage when you slice it in half actually looks
like it's like cheese Wow okay so the reaction up until this point up until
the tasting little skeptical yeah okay skeptical okay I think it's time right
yeah right there a technique here do anything forward yeah it's a South
Philly dip is what they call it in Philadelphia with cheesesteaks right
yeah much a shirt Wow mmm oh man you don't know so yeah oh I noticed that's
happy so done your onions yeah I mean I got beard issues here the whole thing is
all over the place this is a delightful burger guys people can find out more at
hold on Sam what what exactly is happening here to the butter it is
disappearing just melting into the whole thing the buns absorbing it it's falling
down through the burger onto the onions and at the restaurant what would happen
is when they serve it on these small on a disk plates and you get it you
definitely see the butter but by the time you you know halfway into the
burger the butter has gone from the top of the bun to the plate because it's up
through everything soaks through the burger soaks through the bottom bun this
is a delicious salty burger the onions are just a good flavor they're not
overpowering and the toasted bun is kind of it adds a crispness to that whole
thing that holds it all together I am a huge fan that people want to find out
more about this where can they go so cookscountry.com this recipe will hit
newsstands in our October November fifteen issues and do you accept
submissions from people out in the world to find out where they should go and
where you should go absolutely you can submit your heirloom recipes your family
recipes on cookscountry.com or you could write in and just let us
now awesome thank you guys so much and we look back with more protested real
sentences you guys later right that is awesome