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America's Test Kitchen From Cook's Illustrated: Perfecting Pasta Sauces

A pan of sliced tomatoes brushed with olive oil from AMERICA'S TEST KITCHEN. Host Christopher Kimball and the test kitchen team explore delicious recipes and ingredients, new cooking technologies and the science of food to help home chefs find success in the kitchen.
Daniel J. Van Ackere
A pan of sliced tomatoes brushed with olive oil from AMERICA'S TEST KITCHEN. Host Christopher Kimball and the test kitchen team explore delicious recipes and ingredients, new cooking technologies and the science of food to help home chefs find success in the kitchen.

Airs Saturday, October 23, 2010 at 2 p.m. on KPBS TV

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Host Christopher Kimball and his team once again help home chefs find success in the kitchen by solving everyday cooking problems, rigorously testing equipment and tasting supermarket ingredients. In season nine, chefs Bridget Lancaster, Julia Collin Davison, Rebecca Hays and J. Kenji Alt deconstruct America's favorite recipes to reveal the secrets to foolproof cooking at home.

Italian Meat Sauce: Throwing together browned ground beef, onions, garlic and canned tomatoes for a quick half-hour simmer produces lackluster flavor and meat with the texture of a rubber band. Julia Collin Davison shows host Christopher Kimball how to make a weeknight meat sauce that tastes like it’s been simmering all day.

Creamy Tomato Sauce: Creamy tomato sauce sounds easy, but getting the right balance and tomato flavor can prove challenging. Bridget Lancaster uncovers the key steps to making a smooth, full-flavored sauce in which the tomatoes and cream complement each other.

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Tasting Supermarket Extra-Virgin Olive Oil: You get what you pay for with most supermarket extra-virgin olive oils: bland, bottom-of-the-barrel and boring. Is there a brand worth buying? Tasting expert Jack Bishop shows host Christopher Kimball the right way to taste olive oil and reveals the test kitchen’s top choice for supermarket-bought olive oil.

Canned Tomato Products: With all the choices available, buying canned tomatoes can seem intimidating. Host Christopher Kimball visits the supermarket to demonstrate what to look for, and reveals the test kitchen’s winning brands for all types of canned tomatoes.

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