
A Tale of Two Pastas
9/20/2025 | 28m 58sVideo has Closed Captions
Pici alla Boscaiola (Pasta with Mushrooms and Sausage), Pasta with Lemon–Sichuan Peppercorn Sauce
Test cook Dan Souza makes Pici alla Boscaiola (Handmade Pasta with Mushrooms and Sausage) for host Julia Collin Davison. Tasting expert Jack Bishop talks all about stone-ground flour. And test cook Nik Sharma prepares a punchy Pasta with Creamy Lemon–Sichuan Peppercorn Sauce for host Bridget Lancaster.
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A Tale of Two Pastas
9/20/2025 | 28m 58sVideo has Closed Captions
Test cook Dan Souza makes Pici alla Boscaiola (Handmade Pasta with Mushrooms and Sausage) for host Julia Collin Davison. Tasting expert Jack Bishop talks all about stone-ground flour. And test cook Nik Sharma prepares a punchy Pasta with Creamy Lemon–Sichuan Peppercorn Sauce for host Bridget Lancaster.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Today on "America's Test Kitchen," Dan makes Julia handmade pasta with mushrooms and sausage, Jack talks all about stone-ground flour, and Nik makes Bridget pasta with creamy lemon Sichuan peppercorn sauce.
It's all coming up right here on "America's Test Kitchen."
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♪♪ -Fresh pasta has a very different texture than dried pasta.
It's softer, but also chewier and has a more nuanced flavor.
Plus, it's a blast to make by hand, which is why Dan's here.
-I love making fresh pasta by hand.
This is a really fun pasta we're gonna make today.
It's totally different.
-Okay.
-It's called pici.
It's a Tuscan pasta that's been around forever.
We're gonna make this really beautiful sauce of mushrooms.
The dough itself really, really matters.
So I have 1 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour here, and I'm actually going to add a full cup of finely ground semolina.
-Okay.
-And that's really important.
So this is Bob's Red Mill.
This is our favorite semolina flour.
If you're working with a different one that's a little bit coarser, you may need to change the water amount.
-Oh, okay.
-So we really recommend searching that one out.
-Gotcha.
-This balance is really, really nice.
I'm just going to whisk this together.
It adds a kind of creaminess to it.
It's a high-protein flour that doesn't produce a ton of gluten.
You just get this really gorgeous noodle.
So I'm just going to whisk this together so it's even.
Now I'm going to do a little well in the center.
I'm just going to use my hand for that.
-Oh, old school.
-Old school.
This is about as old school -- This whole recipe is going to be old school.
-My kind of thing.
-You'll see.
Okay, so I'm gonna add 2/3 cup of room-temperature water.
-All right.
-And we're going to go in with 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.
Now, this is not in every recipe but you do see it in some and definitely some traditional ones.
We really liked it for a couple reasons.
One, its richness, which is really, really wonderful.
It also obviously provides a little bit of flavor, but because it's fat and we're adding it to this dough here, it actually makes it a little bit more tender.
-That makes sense.
-And a tender dough with a little less gluten development is a lot easier to roll out.
So I'm just using my fork to start incorporating the flour here.
That looks good.
I'm going to start getting in there with my hands.
-What is the texture you're looking for?
-With all pasta doughs, we want them to be totally cohesive, but not sticky.
-Okay.
-But obviously not cracking and drying.
All right, so we're going to get this out on our counter.
And pull it together.
So we're not using a machine for any of this.
So we are going to knead it by hand.
I find the process really, really satisfying.
-Totally.
-And it'll come together in, you know, anywhere from 6 to 8 minutes.
You'll see it comes together.
It's going to be like baby skin smooth.
Probably been about 5 1/2, 6 minutes here.
And I want you to feel it again.
See how it's changed.
-Oh, it's much stiffer.
-Right?
-Yeah.
-It's much stiffer.
It's very smooth.
There's no stickiness or tackiness to it.
-Yep.
-And that tells us that we've done a really good job.
And I like to, you know, when I'm kneading, really, like, smear it.
-Mm-hmm.
-The more you stretch it, it's kind of like the harder you are on it, the better that gluten is going to develop.
Okay, this looks awesome to me.
Looks and feels great.
-Mm-hmm.
Nice.
-So we've developed a ton of gluten.
-Mm-hmm.
-If I tried to, like, roll this out into a beautiful little pasta, it's gonna be kind of hard right now.
We're gonna let that gluten relax now so that it's gonna be very easy to roll out.
And for that, we're just going to take a damp towel and wrap it up.
We'll let it sit for about 30 minutes, and it's going to transform during that time.
-Okay.
-Okay.
So I've done a lot of work here.
You're going to get put to work in a second rolling out some pasta.
-About time.
-We're going to start by prepping our sheets.
I have some semolina flour here, about 1/4 cup on each sheet.
Now to our beautiful rested dough.
So this has sat for about 30 minutes.
We're going to break this down a little bit and make it easier to work with.
So I'm going to start by cutting it into four pieces.
And while I work with one, we'll keep the others covered... -Mm-hmm.
-...so they don't dry out.
So here I'm going to pat this out to about a 3-inch round, roughly.
Everything I'm doing here, there's some flexibility to it.
-Okay.
-This is handmade pasta.
So I'm going to give you some numbers, but we don't always have to hit them.
Okay, so that's about 3 inches.
At this point, it's starting to get a little bit tacky.
-Okay.
-And we're going to work with it, you know, on this and on that board.
So we're going to use a little bit of oil and just brush both sides, similar to working with, you know, making dinner rolls or something like that.
A little bit of oil goes a long way.
And we're just going to press this out to about 6-inch square.
-Looks pretty easy to work with.
-It's incredibly easy to work with.
Yeah.
And it stays where you put it.
There's a little bit of springback you'll see later, but it's really minimal.
And that is, you know, lower-protein flour.
We're not using bread flour here.
And then that 30-minute rest makes a huge difference.
Perfect.
So about a 6-inch square.
And then we're going to cut this into 12 strips.
So for this kind of stuff, I'm no geometry whiz, but I like to go kind of halves as much as I can, you know?
Great, so now I have four, and then each one goes into three.
-Okay.
-And again, they don't have to be perfect.
And last one there.
Great.
I'm going to place the strips I'm not using, again, under that towel.
-Mm-hmm.
-Just helps keep everything nice and moist and flexible.
And I'll show you the really fun process.
So I take one strand.
-Mm-hmm.
-And it's really, really simple.
I just start in the middle.
You're going to get a little grip from the counter and you're just rolling it out.
I like to get my hands as big as possible as we sort of go.
So I'm trying to get this to 1/8-inch thickness.
-Okay, so it's not as much about length, again, because it's kind of rustic how you cut them.
-Exactly, and because those pieces weren't all perfect, if we get to 1/8 inch, everything's going to cook really evenly and be nice.
But this is so easy.
Looks great.
Perfect.
Okay, so what I'm going to do now is we have our little plate here with about 1/2 cup of semolina in there, and I just drop it in, make sure it's coated.
-Mm-hmm.
-Okay, once it's coated, I just drape it right onto our sheet pan here.
I'm going to give you a couple over here.
So I like to start in the middle and sort of thin that.
And I don't like to go over the ends until I get a little further along.
Sometimes you can pinch them or make them a little too thin.
-Yeah.
Okay.
-As you can see, it's really, really forgiving.
if this does break, it's the kind of dough that you can just patch right back up.
So you're not done at that point.
Or you could just make a couple shorter noodles.
So this is a really popular recipe on our app.
It's a five-star recipe.
-I can see why.
It's fun.
-Yeah.
The end result is really delicious, you'll see.
But it's interesting because there are a lot of people that are like, "I want to make that dough," a lot of commenters, "But can I make it with a different sauce?"
And the answer is absolutely, -Yeah.
Of course, right?
-And when we get to the sauce, you'll see it's really wonderful.
And they're like, "Can I use dried pasta with that?"
Yes, they're both amazing components.
-Choose your own adventure.
-Choose your own adventure.
We're making a very traditional approach to it, but I think it's really nice to offer that.
And then you can play from there.
-Yeah.
-We're just going to keep cutting, rolling, dipping.
-Keep on keeping on.
-And keeping on until we're done.
-Okay.
-So we're making a really traditional sauce for our pici today.
-Mm-hmm.
-It's from the Tuscan area and it is pici alla boscaiola.
-Boscaiola.
-Yeah, it's fun to say.
-It is.
-It's fun to eat, as you'll see.
So it's kind of a woodman's sauce.
-Okay.
-And that means it has a ton of great mushroom flavor in it.
We're going to start with some porcini mushrooms.
-Mm-hmm.
-These are dried porcinis.
When we dry mushrooms, it concentrates their flavor but also creates new flavors.
-Mm-hmm.
-It's actually a really beautiful thing.
And so porcinis are one of our favorites for building rich mushroom flavor.
So I'm going to use 1/2 cup of boiling water.
I'm gonna pour it over 1/2 ounce of our dried porcini mushrooms, which I rinsed and then chopped up.
-Gotcha.
-We're gonna let this sit for about 20 minutes.
-Hmm.
-During that time, they're going to soften really nicely.
All right, that's 20 minutes.
And we're just going to strain it into this bowl here.
-Oh, look at that liquid.
It's so dark.
It has so much flavor in it.
-All right.
And we're going to build the base of our sauce.
So I have 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.
Heating that over medium.
We're just looking for it to shimmer.
-Mm-hmm.
-I have one half of an onion here.
3/4 teaspoon of salt and a pinch of pepper flakes.
-Just a pinch.
-I'm gonna go a little bit more on this one, but that's a nice pinch.
Great.
So I'm using lower heat here.
We're not looking for browning.
We want the onions to turn translucent.
They get a little bit sweeter and nice and tender.
I'm going to cover it and it takes about 6 to 8 minutes.
Well, we've got the starter pack for making your kitchen smell good.
-Yeah, right.
-Onions and oil cooking smells really, really good.
We're gonna go in with some fresh mushrooms.
-Mm-hmm.
-So this is 4 ounces of cremini mushrooms that I trimmed.
And then we're going to do something that feels a little bit weird but is really, really smart, which is adding 1/2 cup of water.
So we're adding water here, which sounds so counterintuitive.
Normally when you cook mushrooms, you want it to be dry.
You don't want that moisture to come out of them.
By adding water, it actually helps the mushrooms collapse.
So you know those air pockets?
There's no place for oil to go in.
-Gotcha.
-It's really, really nice.
-Like collapsing the sponge.
-Exactly.
That's a great analogy for it.
I'm also gonna add 1/2 cup of white wine.
-Mmm.
-And that is for flavor.
Last step right now is our rehydrated porcini mushrooms.
We're going to hold off on the soaking liquid for now.
So I've increased my heat to medium-high.
We're going to cook this until it is mostly evaporated.
We're going to concentrate a lot of that flavor, especially in that wine.
It's going to take about 8 minutes.
Okay.
Beautiful.
Our liquid has reduced down.
Smell mushroom, mushroom.
-It smells incredible.
-Right?
So good.
So we're gonna add some sausage to this as well.
This is 8 ounces of sweet Italian sausage.
-Mmm.
-Took it out of the casing.
So I'll break it up with my wooden spoon like this.
I like one with a really flat side for this job.
-Mm-hmm.
-About five minutes, we're looking to just cook the sausage through.
Okay, we're going to add some cream to this.
Now I have 1/2 cup of heavy cream.
-Mmm.
-Okay, great.
So that is almost done.
It's time to cook our pasta.
-Yay.
-So I have 4 quarts of boiling water here and our gorgeous handmade pici.
-Mm-hmm.
-It looks so good.
So we added lots of semolina because that helps prevent sticking.
I like to shake a little bit of that off before I add it in.
And we're going to cook it all at once.
So I'm going to go in with that.
Okay.
And of course our salt.
This is a tablespoon of salt.
-Okay.
-So a lot of times we think about fresh egg pastas, and they cook in like a minute and a half, two minutes -- super fast.
-Yeah.
-This is a little bit thicker, a little more substantial.
So we're going to do is bring this up to a boil, make sure we're at a boil, and then cook for about 3 minutes.
-Oh, okay.
-So it's been boiling for 3 minutes.
That's a really good indicator of where probably there.
-Yep.
-But because this is handmade, there's some thickness differences.
It's good to taste one and see where you are.
-There's only one way to know if it's done or not.
-I also just love tasting pasta that's not.
Over and over and over again.
Let's try this.
It's really good.
-And hot.
-Mm-hmm.
-Mm.
-All pasta water is wonderful and magical.
This is really special stuff.
That high amount of semolina on the outside -- you can even see.
I'm going to reserve a cup of this.
-It looks like broth.
-Yeah.
It's really really nice.
So this will emulsify a sauce beautifully.
So we'll set that aside.
So I've saved my cup of water.
-Mm-hmm.
-I'm gonna head over to the sink here and drain.
-I don't even need anything else.
I could just eat these.
They're handmade.
They're wonderful.
Okay, so we're gonna go straight into our sauce.
-Mmm.
-And we're going to finish our sauce with the reserved liquid here.
So what I like to do is pour kind of slowly.
That way you can stop if there's any grit sitting right in the bottom there.
You can stop before that goes in.
Okay.
Great.
Now we're just going to join the pasta and the sauce together.
-They're going to get married.
-Yeah, they're gonna get married.
A little tossing.
Cream makes this very, very easy.
We're not struggling to form an emulsion like you would with a lot of other sauces, so this makes it really easy.
I'm going to adjust it a little bit with some of our pasta water.
-And how much pasta water you add is kind of a preference thing, whether you like it on the thicker side or the looser side.
-All right, so we're going to finish with something really fresh.
We have 3 tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley.
Just going to wake the whole thing up.
-Mmm.
That's pretty.
-So good.
All right, time to plate.
-Mmm.
-Oh, doesn't that look so good?
-That is -- That is cinema worthy.
You know what I mean?
-I'm not going to skimp on portions here, Julia.
We worked for this.
-I appreciate that.
-So what I like to do is I go through and get all the noodles I want.
A lot of the really good stuff in a sauce sometimes falls to the bottom.
So I go with noodles first and then come back.
I'm gonna do a little extra parsley on mine.
I don't know if you would like some as well.
-Yes, please.
This is beautiful, Dan.
-Isn't that gorgeous?
-Yeah.
-It's like rustic and has this sort of elevated quality to it at the same time.
-Mmm.
You can't get that texture with dried pasta.
It's soft but it's chewy, and the flavor.
-And then there is almost like a creamy density to it because of the semolina.
-Yeah.
-This sauce really does take it to a beautiful place.
It's so earthy and rich.
I love the acidity of the wine with the mushrooms and the cream.
It just -- For me, it works so well.
-And it's a deep, hearty mushroom flavor.
You get the creminis, but also that backbone of porcini.
Dan, this is spectacular.
Thank you.
-You're welcome.
-If you want to make this classic Tuscan handmade pasta, start by making a simple dough using semolina, all-purpose flour, water, and a little olive oil.
Roll out the pasta strand by strand using your hands, then toss with a classic sauce featuring mushrooms and sausage.
From America's Test Kitchen, a really fun recipe for pici alla boscaiola.
I'm really digging this.
-So good.
Right?
-Yeah, I'm going to make this with my daughter, I think.
-That's a fun activity.
♪♪ -In the beginning, flour was stone ground and it was local.
They took the wheat that was grown nearby, put it between two stones, crushed it, and you had flour.
A great innovation in the late 19th century was steel rollers.
So what this did was take the wheat kernel and separate out the three parts, could remove that bran altogether, could remove the oily germ, and leave just the endosperm.
The thing about the endosperm, it's shelf stable.
So this allowed manufacturers to create the white flour that would be in the supermarkets.
And the same flour would be in California as in Maine.
But as with many foods, people have been interested in returning to the old ways.
And stone-ground flour has a lot of advantages over modern rollered flours.
So to learn more, we bought five all-purpose flours and five bread flours from different mills around the country.
And then we baked biscuits and we made bread.
Let's say with the biscuits, there were fewer differences.
Yes, some of them had a heartier flavor, a little nuttier, but the performance differences were really modest in the kitchen and really were lovely.
In the bread, everything worked well, but there were some obvious differences.
For example, this is made with King Arthur Bread Flour, the test kitchen's favorite, and it looks quite different from a same loaf made with a stone-ground flour.
There were additional differences in the kitchen that you're not seeing.
Sometimes we needed to add a little bit more water, or we needed to reduce the fermentation time because the stone-ground flours have extra enzymes in the germ that makes them behave differently.
There's lots more information in a great article on our website about using stone-ground flours, but I want to encourage you to rediscover an ancient pleasure -- locally grown stone-ground flours.
♪♪ -When I'm feeling a little bit artistic in the kitchen, I like to take a pasta dish and dress it up with my own tastes and preferences.
But lucky for me, Nik's here today and he's going to show us his own creation.
A lemony pasta spectacular.
-Absolutely.
I didn't grow up eating a lot of pasta at home, so now when I make it as an adult, it needs to do two things for me.
First, it needs to bring in those dishes I love at Italian restaurants and then also fun, bold flavors.
-Okay.
-And so today's pasta dish does all of that.
It's got the creaminess of a cacio e pepe, a little bit of a lemon in there, and then one surprising guest, Sichuan peppercorns.
Sichuan peppercorns are an amazing ingredient.
That's because they produce this numb, tingling sensation in the mouth, and you see them used in Chinese cooking often to produce what's called mala, where it's paired with the heat of chilies.
So we're using this ingredient today.
And the numb, tingling sensation comes from a chemical, hydroxy-alpha sanshool.
Things to keep in mind when you're buying Sichuan peppercorns -- make sure that the husk is completely open.
-Okay.
-You don't want the Sichuan peppercorns to be closed like this and have that black ball in the center, because that creates a very unpleasant, gritty texture in the mouth.
-Okay.
-So we're not going to use these.
First I'm going to start by toasting our Sichuan peppercorns.
I've been heating my medium saucepan for a minute.
And I'm going to add 4 teaspoons of Sichuan peppercorns.
I'm going to toast for about a minute until they turn fragrant.
Now I'm going to transfer these to a mortar and pestle, and I'll leave it to cool completely before I grind them.
-Okay.
-The next step in the recipe is to prepare the lemon for our sauce.
To do this, I'm going to extract 2 teaspoons of lemon zest.
Now that I've got the zest, I'm going to extract 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.
-Okay.
Do you ever juice first and forget to zest?
-Oh, absolutely.
All the time.
Now I'm going to move on to the Sichuan peppercorns that have been cooling in the mortar and pestle.
-Okay.
-And I am going to grind this into a coarse powder.
So this is a nice coarse powder.
We want a little bit of the texture... -Okay.
Great.
-...in the sauce.
Now, the next thing that I'm going to do is divide this in half.
And the reason I'm doing this is because this recipe uses lemon, and lemon is an acid.
And it will start to decrease the potency of the numb, tingling sensation from those Sichuan peppercorns.
So we're going to divide this in half.
Use half now to make the sauce.
And then the other half we'll add at the end.
-Okay, great.
-Now we're going to make the pasta.
To do this I'm going to add 1 tablespoon of table salt to 4 quarts of boiling water.
-Really boiling water.
You get a light show here.
-Now I'm going to add 1 pound of spaghetti and let it cook until al dente.
About 8 to 12 minutes.
-Okay.
Got it.
-Now let's go over and make the sauce.
-Okay.
-To do this, I've got 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat.
The next thing that I'm going to add is half of the toasted ground Sichuan peppercorns.
And we're doing this to get that numb, tingling sensation into the sauce.
-Okay, into the actual oil itself, infused in the oil.
-Absolutely, yeah.
I'm going to add 2 minced garlic cloves.
And now I'm going to cook this until it is fragrant, about a minute.
Now I'm going to add 1 cup of chicken broth.
And I will bring that to a boil over medium-high.
Now I'm going to reduce the heat to a simmer and let it cook for about 4 to 5 minutes, until it reduces by half in volume.
-Okay.
Great.
-Now I'm going to whisk in 1 cup of crème fraîche.
-Mmm.
So lemon, Sichuan peppercorns, crème fraîche.
-Which adds such a nice creaminess to this dish.
-This is definitely pasta alla Nik.
-Next I'm going to add 3 tablespoons of white miso.
Miso not only adds a nice depth and savoriness to this dish, but it will also add thickness with the starches that are present in here will help stabilize the sauce.
-Great.
Little body added in there.
-And then I'm going to add the lemon juice that we extracted earlier.
-What was that, 2 tablespoons?
-Yeah.
And 2 teaspoons of lemon zest.
And finally, 1 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper.
-Now, how did you come up with this dish?
What were you doing?
Were you in a lemon phase?
A peppercorn phase?
-You know, I love citrus.
Any kind of citrus, it just makes my day brighter.
And so if I'm going to eat pasta, I want to feel it light.
I want it to evoke those things that I love.
For me, that's what Sichuan peppercorns and lemons do.
And Sichuan peppercorns actually belong to the lemon family.
-Well, there you go.
-I'm going to increase the heat and bring it to a simmer, and then take it off and taste and season it with salt if needed.
It's good.
It actually doesn't need more salt because of the miso.
Our sauce is done, and our pasta needs a couple of minutes before we can get to it.
-Okay.
-Now let's check and see if our pasta is cooked.
I want it al dente.
-Checking out your method here.
-I'm just going to break it and see how it looks inside.
That's good.
It's al dente.
-So pretty easy to break, but not too easy.
-Yeah.
-Okay.
-Now I'm going to reserve 1 cup of cooking water that I'll use to make our sauce later.
-Very smart.
Now, this is something that we do with most pasta dishes because it allows you to not only thin the sauce now, but later, if it's sitting for a little bit, you can adjust it as well.
And it's already seasoned.
-Absolutely.
Yeah.
I'm going to take the pasta off the stove and drain it.
And I'm going to return the pasta back to the pot.
Now I'm going to add the sauce that we made earlier to the pasta.
-Great.
-Now I'm going to add 1/2 cup of the pasta water that we reserved earlier.
And the Sichuan peppercorns that we toasted and ground, the reserved half, I'm going to add that in now.
This will give me the numb, tingling bite at the end of the dish.
-Right.
Because the ones that you added before, the acid from the lemon juice kind of subdued that.
-Absolutely, yeah.
This gives us that extra bite that we want.
-The vibrancy we're looking for.
-Mm-hmm.
-Yeah.
-And now I'm going to fold this all together and we will be ready to serve.
-Love it.
The sauce has a really nice body to it.
You started off with chicken broth, which is not known for having a lot of body to it, but with the crème fraîche and the miso, that's a gorgeous texture there.
-Nice and thick, yeah.
-Yes.
-Now I'm going to garnish it with a little bit of parsley and finally Parmesan.
-Ah, we're back in cacio e pepe-ville.
-Ah, my favorite place to be.
-Nik, this is beautiful.
All right, I am definitely going to tuck right in there.
I want to make sure that I get a little peppercorn.
Oh, yeah.
-Yeah.
Make sure you got those little peppercorns in there for that feeling of vibration.
-There it is.
Oh, that lemon, that is super bright.
That crème fraîche too.
So lots of tanginess here.
-It's so surprising.
The little play of the vibrations, the lemon, the acid, the miso -- it's just so beautiful.
-This is a blue-ribbon pasta recipe here.
I love just that you were coming up with flavors that you liked and you wanted to incorporate them, and it all kind of went back to cacio e pepe.
But alla Nik.
-I think when making dishes, always come from your heart, and that's what's important.
-Yes.
All right.
One more bite.
Mmm.
Vibrant, tangy, and tingly.
It's got all the feels.
So thank you so much, Nik, for bringing this to us.
-Absolutely.
-And if you want to make this beautiful pasta at home, it starts with using a mortar and pestle to grind toasted Sichuan peppercorns.
Make a sauce using half the peppercorns, garlic, crème fraîche, and miso, and finish the dish with more peppercorns, parsley, and Parmesan.
So from "America's Test Kitchen," pasta with creamy lemon Sichuan peppercorn sauce.
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