- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

- And I'm Claudine Pepin.

- You know, even the simplest food taste better when you present them with class and style.

And to prove it, I'm going to show you how to make a beautiful feast of the eye, shrimp and mushroom stuffed salmon in flaky pastry is a tasty appetizer in a stunning presentation.

And chicken salad Danny always bring smile to the table.

As well as my chocolate paradis is like a decadence still alive.

Join us for an artistic banquet.

- Next on "Jacques Pepin Celebrates!"

- Today we are doing an artistic banquet.

I will show you how to do some decoration technique, you know, to make your food look a little bit exciting.

- And aesthetically pleasing.

- Aesthetically, not that I am a great (pan scraping) aesthetic cook- - Yes, you are.

- Yeah, well, I like the taste in the food, but if it happen to taste good and if it happen to look good too, so much better.

So we're going to do a salmon en croute, so more in a crust kind of puff paste, a rough puff paste.

We do a stuffing.

So you wanna start with the stuffing.

- Okay, I have shallots.

- Shallots, so you're gonna put the shallots.

We have three different type of mushroom here.

We have the chanterelle, the famous chanterelle.

We get them in the country, you know?

And this is the cremini mushroom.

It's actually the same thing than the white mushroom, except as a different color and bigger.

- And those are oyster mushrooms.

- Those are oyster mushroom here.

So I'm gonna cut some for you.

(knife tapping) - Okay, so these are gonna go in.

- Yep.

If you only have one type of mushroom, it's perfectly fine too.

Okay, so you wanna saute this on high heat.

During that time, I'm gonna bone out the chicken, the- - Well, okay.

- Okay, the chicken of the sea.

- You're gonna, there you go.

- Okay.

So I cut at the point of the head, twist your knife around, and you wanna put that flat.

That's it.

So I have one filet of salmon here.

Now, you can see here I have the rib cage, and I'm going to slide my knife behind the rib cage.

When you cut your salmon, you have a series of bone, which you can fill when you put your finger right through here, so they have to be removed either with a little plier or one of those things.

And I go by fill.

You see this is a very fatty fish, and it comes out very easily.

Now we have to remove the skin.

So you go ahead.

Press, point your knife this way, otherwise you're cutting into the flesh.

You have to really scrape it.

Now you're getting into the flesh.

I mean, look.

Okay, let me show you then.

- I thought that was pretty good, 'cause I'm- - Yeah, look.

Look at that piece of fish.

- Oh, well, that's why my dinners are more expensive than yours.

- Okay.

The shrimp, you just want them to change color a little bit.

And that's enough, because remember, they're gonna cook in the oven for quite a while.

The part of cutting the stuffing here is especially for the mushroom to release all of the liquid.

Otherwise that put water the inside.

So a dash of salt and paper.

- I did.

- Put your stuffing in there.

Let it cool off, you know?

That's good, okay.

- Okay.

- I'll put it here on the side, so I'll have the space for my salmon.

Okay.

So we let that cool off for a little while.

Now.

- You know what, I'm gonna put the chives on.

- Yeah, you can put them on top of the stuffing.

Okay, and I'll clean my hand during that time.

- And this is a great way to do chives.

I'm still not as fast as you, but- - [Jacques] Oh, that goes fast like that.

That's good, Titin.

- There.

- Great.

So we have our stuffing ready.

This is going to go into a dough, a flaky dough, which is a type of a rough puff paste.

- Now, you always put your dough in the refrigerator, why?

- Well, not always, but of course here it's firm, it's nice.

- And it's just easier to work with if it's in the refrigerator?

- It's easier to work with, yes.

The first one should be rolled, maybe a bit finer than that.

That's for underneath.

You wanna do quite fine, you know?

And I'm gonna put it this way so that I have space for my fish.

It's kind of long, you know?

I even have to cut a little piece of it.

Now, this is the top part.

This should be a bit bigger than the other.

It has to come around it.

- Okay.

- So it's not like a sandwich like this.

You have the food part, and the top part goes this way.

- All right.

- Okay, well, that's good.

Should be all right.

Let's roll it.

Leave it like that on the side here.

This one is here.

Let me see how big it is.

Put it on top of this here.

Top of that there.

I need a bit more space for the tail, you know?

Well, we put that here, but it's still warm.

You probably would want to let it cool off a bit more, you know?

Okay, Claudine, thank you.

So we have that there.

Stuffing of our, again, let's add those piece.

Where is it thin?

Here.

There.

Now, we wanna wet the other side with a little bit of water for the thing to stick, you know?

I can give you a, here.

- I got it.

- See, I do it with my hand.

Usually you do it with that.

So now- - Yeah.

- Okay, let's undo that piece on top.

Bit of mess here.

You have the stuffing, and we wanna stick it outside, you know?

- [Claudine] That's why you did the water, 'cause it'll stick.

- The water will stick to it.

- Oh.

- Looks good.

So now what we wanna do, it's a bit of a decoration so it look like a fish.

We can do anything we want, but certainly we start at the face here.

I think somewhere here there should be a fin, right?

- Yeah.

- So we can cut a fin.

Then again, do we have a small fin here?

Then we wanna do a tail here.

May hang a little bit on the outside, but it will shrink while it cooked, you know?

We can use a bit of the trimming anyway to do more decoration.

I'm keeping it here.

All right, now, let's do a little piece of this.

Okay, brush it with that, so whatever I put on top of it, it's going to stick.

- Okay.

- So let's say this is the head, right, I hope, on this side.

(Claudine chuckling) Okay.

A round eye like this, and I cut another piece from the center.

So you have a strange eye like this.

- Ooh.

- Like that.

Okay, now with this, you know, it's nice to press it this way, first, because it's going to stick things together, which you want to do.

Now let's put a little piece where the tail finish here.

Then you have to re-brush the extra piece.

Here, you know, we could extend this mark.

Took more, I can tell.

Now, you do this.

- Oh.

- You know, with this, yeah?

That does scale, you know?

Or you can use a fork.

Just the front part of it, huh?

Now, I think it's beautiful.

- [Claudine] I think it's really great.

- [Jacques] You're going to put that in the oven.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- [Jacques] So you bring the cooked one.

Looks great.

- Oh, wow.

- Let's put it here.

You don't want to cool it off a bit while we're doing the sauce.

So I'm going to have egg yolk here.

We're gonna start beating into the egg yolk.

- You have water.

We doing a kind of a Greek sauce that I took an idea out of a soup they do in Greece, which is avgolemono sauce.

You do an emulsion with three egg yolk, but the rest is done with chicken stock.

So it's pretty lean.

So come on this side here if you want, and beat into this.

That's it.

I'm gonna thicken this, very lean chicken stock, with a teaspoon of starch here.

All right, bring that back here.

I'm gonna put a bit of this in there.

Go ahead, beat it.

See, that's really foaming.

- Yeah.

- You know what?

Let me finish that.

You know what you can do for me?

I need two tablespoon of lemon juice for that.

- Okay.

- Can you do lemon juice with this?

- Yep.

Two teaspoons or two tablespoons?

- Two tablespoon, yes.

I mean, it's Greek.

Put a lot of- - Okay.

- Well, that's good, I've no salt in there.

Salt, pepper.

Maybe here you should use white peppercorn.

- Yeah.

- Because of the color.

It should be about fine.

We taste.

Mm, that's plenty.

It'd be good to put a dish of cayenne.

That's what you do when you do all on the sauce.

Ooh, not too much, huh?

- I know.

(Claudine chuckles) How is it?

- Mm, good.

It would look pretty good if you put some lettuce like this, to set the fish on a little bit.

Okay.

Yeah.

- [Claudine] Ah, he's beautiful.

- It also will help you there.

If you wanna cut it on that, this is a stainless steel tray.

A stainless steel tray, it's okay.

But if you wanna cut it on top, you can put your spatula underneath and then, - Oh, so that you don't mess up the- - You cut on the spatula, you know?

Should I do one portion?

I should really have a serrated edge.

See the creamy sauce?

- Mm.

- I'm gonna give you the rest of the sauce, and you can put it in there if you want.

This.

I'll go on by spatula here.

All the stuffing is nice.

It's all nicely cooked underneath too.

Maybe a little spring of- - Chives.

- In the center like this.

And then the rest of our fish, the stuffed salmon in flaky dough.

(calm music) Painting is relaxing for me, and it's also frustrating.

It's frustrating because I am not a good technician.

In a painting, you look, you add, you look, you add.

It's almost unconscious.

But in the kitchen to a certain extent too.

You taste, you add, you taste, you add.

You have to have all of those seasoning at the ready here.

I don't know whether I have any talent in painting, because I have no technique.

I start with something, and I usually end up with something else.

As opposed to cooking where I'm very focused.

If I have that idea in my head, this is what will translate in the plate.

In order to be good, you have to repeat the technique so much over and over and over so that it become part of yourself.

So much part of yourself that now you can afford to forget about the technique.

But that the whole point of technique.

It is not as casual as it look.

It's controlled by many years of technique.

So it may look casual, but it's not as casual as it look.

And likewise, in painting.

I'm gonna show you how to poach a chicken a bit of a different way, so- - Oh, okay.

- Here is what I have here.

I have cold water, you know?

- Okay, well.

- And the chicken is put directly in the cold water down this way.

And you want to have a pot which is as snug as possible, you know, so that it goes into it.

You know who showed me how to do this?

- Who?

- Danny.

- Danny Kaye?

- Danny Kaye, yes.

- Oh.

- And Danny Kay was, and he said, "We're gonna cook a chicken upside down this way."

And I say it's not holding in the bottom of the pan.

So he went to his silver.

He picked up a whole handful of silver, stuffed it into the chicken and put it in the pot to make it all in the bottom.

Here, Claudine, you can stuff a couple of cloves in there.

Put your cloves in there.

- [Claudine] So that you can find them again?

- Then you can find them again.

You know where they are.

So three or four of those here, here.

I have thyme, a couple of bay leaf, peppercorn in there, and salt.

You're starting to poach in cold water.

I'm gonna bring it to a boil.

You know, as soon as it boil, you simmer it.

I mean, light, light boiling only for like 10 minutes.

And then you take it and put it on the side and let it cooler for like an hour in that very hot liquid.

And it poach it very, very gently.

Now, just at the end, I put mushroom in it.

- Oh.

- See those large shiitake mushroom?

That will give taste to it, and we use it, we put it in the salad and all that.

Those are nice.

They are the winter shiitake, you know, marked with white like that.

- Ooh.

- They can expand quite large, you know?

What I have here are the garnish for this also.

We're going to do some pecans, so I have a bunch of pecan here that I blanched.

You know, just bring it to a boil, blanch them.

It soften them.

And after, we're going to saute them with a bit of sugar or butter, make them crystalline.

That's good.

So you see, the poached chicken is in there.

And look at those mushroom around.

- [Claudine] Oh, wow, no, they do get very big.

- And they are really flavorful, those.

I get directly inside the chicken here to lift it up.

Okay.

So you see it's very, very moist this way.

We break the other leg.

Easy to do.

- Its juice.

- Break the two wing, that wing and that one.

See all the bone comes out.

- Yeah.

- All of those bone I put back in the stock, you know?

You can recook it.

- So I take the skin off of everything?

All the skin you can put back into the stock also.

I'm taking the wishbone.

You see how easy it is when it's all done.

- You know, I'm saving this.

- And the breast is coming out here.

Breast is coming out there.

And that's it.

Now I'm putting my poached pecan in there.

And on top of that, we're putting quite a lot of- - Of cayenne?

- Yes, because when you fry the cayenne like that, this is a principle of Cajun cooking, you know?

When it's fried half heat like that, somehow it get very mild.

- Really?

- Yeah.

Salt, and then sugar.

The sugar is to do some crystallization.

And we're gonna fry this.

I mean, this is a recipe by itself.

You can use that for many, many things.

- Hmm.

- So here- - I'm gonna make my salad dressing directly in the bowl, or do you want me to make it- - No directly in there, because you see what I'm going to do here?

Just shred the chicken.

I'm just shredding the chicken.

Okay, all my chicken is shredded.

- You put salt and pepper in there?

- Not yet.

- Okay.

- I didn't wanna- - Salt, pepper.

So you wanna bring it here?

And you have a beautiful bowl here, so, you know, you may want to test it gently so you don't dirty the bowl too much.

- So I'm gonna actually use my hands to do this.

- Okay.

- So that I can get the vinaigrette everywhere hopefully.

- I don't usually use my hand, but, you know, if you have to.

Okay, shiitake mushroom, the stem is really tough, so we remove the stem.

- Oh, so you take the stem off.

- Yes.

And we're going to start reproducing a chicken here.

So I have hard-cooked eggs here.

Put one right in the center, that's gonna be the head of the chicken.

Okay, this is the beak of the chicken.

I have a piece of red paper, and that we're gonna do the comb.

Well, something like this.

Oh.

- You know, just your imagination a little bit.

Okay.

- Here's my eyeball.

- Okay, that looks good.

Maybe we start putting the chicken that we're going to do for this, right?

You don't have to do this, of course.

Your chicken will be, if anything else, good or maybe better than mine.

But, you know, sometime- - No, but this fun.

- You wanna be a bit, something a bit different, fancy.

I think that'd be about enough.

So we wanna serve some mushroom, some as well.

- Oh, yeah.

And the rest you're gonna hopefully cut up and give me for my salad.

- Look at that mushroom here, there.

My two leg here.

- How about a wing?

- Yes, we have to have some type of wing.

Maybe we add a little piece, a little couple of pieces of mushroom like this, you know?

Maybe a couple of the red paper like this.

Okay, we have this here.

- [Claudine] Basil.

- Two probably be enough, Titin, because I wanna put some nuts in it.

Some of the crystallized nuts in there.

We want to have some feather coming out of this here.

Okay, so that's enough, right?

Here is our chicken salad Danny.

(bright music) And I'm gonna give you a little bit of this in there.

- Okay.

You can just put it on top.

- Well, you know what?

I can give you a little bit of hard-cooked eggs also.

We have them.

- Okay.

- Okay.

I can put the nuts on top.

- [Claudine] Oh, yeah, make that better.

- Can I eat one of those?

- Yes.

- Chicken salad Danny, which of course I name after my great friend Danny Kaye.

You know, with that very elegant meal, we're going to do a very elegant but very simple dessert.

- Sounds good.

- I have chocolate here.

Melted with cream.

That's what we call a ganache, you know?

- You put the cream already in there?

- Yeah, well the cream, chocolate, and you melt it together.

- Okay.

- We're going to add a little bit of cream to that and some praline.

This is just caramel, you know, and you put almond in it.

And (table thumping) we crush it a little bit, like an almond bread roll, you know?

- [Claudine] Oh, okay.

- That's what we call praline in France, you know?

So this, we're gonna put it in there.

We put that directly into my whipped cream here.

And basically that's it.

So it's a very simple but very rich and delicate dessert.

So we fold that in.

You see how it fold like this.

Maybe we can put a little bit of Grand Marnier in it, you know?

Okay, so as you can see, this is pretty runny now, but it's going to get hard, right?

So we mold it into those cup here.

And you fill it up, you know?

Of course, it is as rich as you can see with the praline.

And you know what?

I have some in the refrigerator, which are set.

- Okay.

- You can see that.

- What did you do?

- See, this is hard now.

- Whoa.

- So then you, you know, small one like this would be enough practically.

So this, you cover leaves like that with chocolate and you put it in the refrigerator.

- Oh, and you take it- - The chocolate.

- You take them off.

- Yes.

You know, a leaf like that.

This one here.

- [Claudine] And it makes the mark.

It leaves the mark- - Leaves the mark of the, okay.

- How about about a white one?

- Oh, you want a white one for this one?

- Yeah.

- [Jacques] You have it?

- Yeah.

- It came out good, hmm.

You don't keep it in your hand long, because- - No.

- You know, it will melt.

Oh, I mean this is your spot right here.

So I put this one here.

- And this.

- And this is it.

You could have even a little- - Beautiful dessert.

- Ting of mint if you want.

And you have a beautiful praline chocolate paradis.

Well, we should have a beautiful table here.

- Oh, yes, we do.

- Okay.

- This is beautiful.

- It's an elegant family meal.

- Yes.

- The salmon with kind of a very lemony type of sauce with the mushroom in it.

Give it some attensite.

And then of course the chicken salad Danny.

- Yes.

- Oh, I love that salad.

Great as the main course for any dinner.

- It's so beautiful.

And it's a beautiful lunch too.

- Mm-hm.

- Would be a very elegant lunch.

- And- - Ah, chocolate mousse.

- [Jacques] Well, chocolate praline.

It's a bit richer.

It's like a ganache, you know?

The mixture of cream- - [Claudine] Oh, also with the praline in it.

- And the praline in it.

- Yeah.

- So what are we drinking with that?

- Well, I thought that we would drink with both of these this beautiful Sonoma Chardonnay is gonna be absolutely lovely.

- Oh, good.

- So I thought I'd pour you a glass.

- So you're gonna give me some?

- Yeah, this is a very elegant wine.

- You sure that I have the right glass here?

- You have the right glass.

- Okay, good, good, okay.

- And with dessert, I wanted to just point out that I did break out the good stuff.

We're having a vintage port.

Only 3% of ports are vintage.

- I'm so glad you did it.

I cooked the right stuff for you, too.

(glass clinks) And I hope you're going to serve me the right type of glasses.

- I always do.

- Okay, thank you very much.

And happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.