- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

- And I'm Claudine Pepin.

Papa, I need your help.

I have some friends who love good food and I owe them dinner.

- So you made reservation at that bistro next to your place?

- Very funny.

What should I make?

- Well, I'll show you a sea bass, quickly salted and topped with green olives, boneless chicken leg sausage with a portobello mushroom stuffing, very impressive.

- [Claudine] How about the oven dried tomato petals with tarragon oil?

- [Jacques] Yes, that's great.

And I'll show you a simple recipe for apricot and hazelnut biscotti.

- Sounds like a great dinner.

Are you sure I can do it?

- Trust me, titine, I know you can.

- Join us for a food lover's delight next on "Jacques Pepin's Kitchen".

- En coeur with Claudine.

This is a food lover's delight today, and we start with- - Fish.

- What kind of fish?

- [Claudine] Sea bass.

- Yes.

Now what I wanna show you is to take the scale out of fish.

Here's a beautiful, those black sea bass, you know.

The Chinese and Chinese restaurant, this is considered one of the greatest fish.

I love it.

- Me too.

- And it's very white, white, fleshy type of fish.

It has very big scale.

And to remove the scale, you know, if you go into the middle of the kitchen and if you start taking the scale, it's going to be on the ceiling, on the wall, all over the place.

- Mom's gonna love that.

- Your mother would kill me.

- Give me this.

- So put that on the side one second.

I'll show you while we're doing it.

You put it into a bag.

It doesn't have to be transparent for this.

And give me a shell here.

This is clam shell to any of those or the back, I think, and then you use this.

You see.

You can see that?

It doesn't go all over the place.

You wanna try it a little bit?

- Oh, that is awesome.

Yeah.

- Okay, you just scrape the top.

- [Claudine] Well, you already did this part, so I guess- - [Jacques] Yes, but that's it.

- That's nice.

- Anyway, your scale is off, and it's a nice way of doing it.

It doesn't go all over the place, you know?

- [Claudine] Yeah, which is very good.

- I'm gonna take a fillet out of this here.

- Okay.

- And the fillet, I'm cutting it this way, put my knife flat on top of that fish to cut a little fillet like this.

- [Claudine] Hmm.

- See, the flesh is very waxy and nice.

- Yeah.

- I'm going to open that here to remove that line of bone.

And basically, that's it, really.

And what you wanna do is to do a little incision here through the skin.

See, we keep the skin here.

We scale it.

You wouldn't want to take the scale and then remove the skin.

It'd be slightly masochistic, right?

(Claudine chuckles) So what we want to do is to put a dash of oil in the skillet here, just a little bit on this.

Salt, pepper.

You go ahead, season the other one.

Okay, here, give them to me.

And we're gonna cook them skin side down in there.

- Hmm.

- And they are thin enough.

You can cook them a couple of minutes and turn them over.

But frankly, they are thin enough that they may cook this way, on one side.

And if I put the lid on top, it will finish cooking.

So what are we doing?

- Lemon juice.

- Lemon juice.

That's good.

- [Claudine] Thank you.

- [Jacques and Claudine] Olives.

- Garlic.

- There is a lot of different olives on the market now.

- Yeah.

- I mean, the black olive, the green olive.

See, those are Picholine.

You can do it with anyone you want.

You can do a mixture of green, a mixture of red, there is the red olive when they are like Kalamata, or even the black.

- Hmm.

- You know what you can do?

You crush it like this.

And as you crush it like this, then it's very easy to remove the pit, you know?

- [Claudine] Oh, wow.

- This way.

- I need my knife.

- So what else are we putting in there?

- Garlic and chives.

- Okay.

- And it's gonna be a raw sauce.

- It's a raw sauce.

- I guess by that I mean we don't cook it.

we just put it on top at the end.

- [Jacques] Uh-huh.

- [Claudine] Just kind of nice.

- Okay, here we are.

I have your olives.

So you're in charge of the sauce.

- [Claudine] I think I have enough lemon juice with this one.

- You have more than enough, you know, one, one and a half tablespoon of lemon juice.

And this is a nice pan, you know?

It's a non-stick, as you can see.

Now, look, I could turn it on the other side.

I mean, look at it.

See, they are beautiful.

- [Claudine] Yeah, it looks really pretty.

- [Jacques] aI think I'm going to cover them.

- [Claudine] It almost looks painted.

That's beautiful.

- Yeah, I cover them three-quarter of the way so that to avoid the splattering.

And so they cook, they get a bit soft, but I don't want them to get too soft.

- Okay.

- Mix that in there.

Yes.

- Here.

These are clean.

- Olive, black pepper.

- I'm doing the lemon juice.

- Olive oil.

That's it, lemon juice.

Look at that.

- That's very good.

- This is good.

This one works good.

Ah.

And olive oil.

- I just can't get it pushed forward.

- Two cloves of garlic while you're doing this.

Okay, next to you.

- I think I'm good on chives.

- Clean your knife nicely.

You really want a puree of garlic.

Okay, here we are.

- [Claudine] That is nice.

- [Jacques] You wanna mix that- - Yes.

- With a spoon.

Okay, I give you a bit of salt in there.

- [Claudine] Thank you.

- You can test it because with the olive, you know, the olive may be a bit salted.

Here, look at this.

- That looks wonderful.

I love that.

I love the way the skin looks on that fish.

I've never seen it.

- Yeah.

Just about cooked, you know?

You can see I go right through with my knife.

So I think- - You wanna dish?

- We can practically finish it up.

- [Claudine] Okay.

Here's a platter.

- All right.

I like that one.

(Claudine chuckles) I'm gonna do a couple.

That's it.

- [Claudine] You always have your favorites.

- [Jacques] Beautiful, yes.

And this one.

That's it, a little bit here.

- All right.

- Okay.

So here's our sea bass with olives, raw olive sauce.

- Uh-huh.

(soft music) - And what's next?

- What's next?

I think we're going to work on chicken now.

- Sounds good.

- Okay.

- Here we go.

- I'm gonna show you how to stuff chicken leg to do like little boudin, a little sausage of chicken leg.

And you know what we'll start with?

Put that here one second.

- Okay.

- We're gonna start with the stuffing and- - Oh, cool.

- Here, you wanna work on this side and help me with the stuffing?

- Sure.

- Put a bit of olive oil in there.

I have shallot for you.

I have some scallion, a bit of garlic.

And put that in there.

- Okay.

Shallot.

- [Jacques] Again.

- Scallions, rather.

- Yeah.

- Shallots.

- Yeah, this is cooked down, and I'm going to do, here, I do this thing.

- [Claudine] Garlic.

- You saute, salt, pepper.

And I have- - Salt and pepper.

- That large mushroom here that you were looking.

I take the stem out of it.

It's nice and clean, that's fine.

This is, you know what that is.

- Portobello.

- Portobello mushroom.

You can roast the whole thing.

That mushroom is about six, seven ounce, you know?

Are you ready?

- Yeah, I am.

- Here, I'll help you.

(Claudine chuckles) Okay, put a little bit of water and let it cook.

And what we are going to do, you cover it, right?

That's right.

- [Claudine] Yeah.

- And during that time, I'm gonna show you how to bone this out.

- Okay.

- We have two legs.

First, maybe I'll do mine, right?

- [Claudine] Alright.

- Okay, so you take the end of it, like this.

And we wanna take the skin out.

- Okay.

- Okay.

So here.

- Okay.

- Go ahead.

And we won't keep this.

You'd be better off to start here.

- [Claudine] What do you mean, where it's already started?

- [Jacques] It's already started, yeah.

- [Claudine] Because that's the way nature made it?

- Good.

Now the boning out, you see the bone here, you see the thigh bone and the drumstick, I'm going to cut along the bone here.

And then I cut a little bit on the outside to expose it.

Look at me first.

Then I put my finger underneath here to make a hole.

I can put the knife through it to do this.

So that, I'm fine up to the articulation.

- [Claudine] The knee.

- Yeah, the knee.

Then you continue cleaning around the lower part of the leg, cutting all around here.

- [Claudine] Okay, you make this look really easy.

- No, but you follow the bone.

There is a bone near there, you know?

There is two bone, and that's it.

And now, basically, I am at the end of it.

I think those mushrooms are basically ready here.

- Okay.

- You want me to take them out or- - Here.

- [Jacques] I can smell it, you know?

- [Claudine] Hmm.

Smells good, yeah.

Okay.

- All right.

Now, I have the four leg of chicken here.

You know what we want to do?

This is for stuck.

Freeze it, put it on the side.

Let's put our chicken, our stuffing on this.

- Okay.

- Some of it.

- Well, actually, you know what?

I'm just gonna hold and you're gonna- - All right.

Good idea.

- [Claudine] And then you can- - This is enough to stuff.

I keep up with a third of it to make a sauce with it.

- Hmm.

- Okay, so we put that on the side.

I'm spreading this out- - [Claudine] To cool it off.

- So that it cool off so that we don't burn our finger too much for one or two minute here.

- Okay.

- Now in there, you know, the sauce that we are going to do.

After the chicken are stuffed and cooked, we cook them in the oven, and then we do a sauce with that.

- Okay, water.

- Get some water in there.

Oh, that's it, more than enough.

A bit of white wine.

That's it, good.

A little bit of ketchup, we put.

- Okay.

- Dash of salt.

You want to put like, well, a good two, three tablespoon of ketchup.

Okay, that's... And then you smear that together.

This is going to cook, you see, and reduce a little bit and create a bit of a sauce.

- Oh, cool.

Should I cover it?

- Very simple.

No, leave it like that for the time being.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- Put the thing, and we put our chicken here.

- Parchment paper.

- Let's start with three.

Okay?

- All right.

- I'll put them like this, this, one.

- [Claudine] Give me the one with the hole.

- [Jacques] Two.

- Oh, they all have a hole.

- Three.

They have a hole where there is the knees, but, you know, you can always take a little piece of the meat here and you put it in the center where it is the hole, okay?

The fourth one is there.

Let me divide this here.

I have to use my hand for that.

Yeah, that's not too hot.

You want to add a little bit of salt and pepper probably to the meat, you know?

Okay, you know what?

We need a bit of cheese on top of this.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- The cheese, you know, you mix with the- - With a little mix.

- You should mix it with your stuffing.

It's fine one or the other.

- I think it'll be nice 'cause it'll be kinda melted.

- The sauce is going fast.

I'm gonna remove it now.

- There we go.

- Okay, Claudine, you see what I do here.

I close it tight.

And the end of this to do like a sausage, you know?

Okay.

Just put it like that.

We'll do the end after.

First, you know, you want to be sure that this thing is really enclosed together like this.

And you know- - Can I cheat a little bit and stuff it in there?

- But look, I pull it together like this, you know?

And you have a nice sausage.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, that's good, that's good.

Okay.

- Okay, now- - Okay, the aluminum foil because that won't fold in it.

You know, you can also put that into plastic wraps, which is maybe even easier.

But the plastic wrap, someone told me it's not good to cook with it.

- [Claudine] Oh.

- So I decided to do it with... So here, you know, they are very safe here now.

So you can do your own.

Give me one.

- Okay.

- [Jacques] And you know, we took the skin out of it.

We just have the meat.

- Yeah, and there wasn't that much oil or anything.

- We're going to do like a sausage.

Okay, give me the tray over there to cook that on.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- You put them on, that's it.

- [Claudine] Just like this.

- Yeah, and we put that in a 400-degree oven for like 30 minutes.

They'll cook this way.

And let's put it in the oven.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- I have another one in there.

You can bring it back.

And during that time, I'm going to work on those tomato there.

- There you go.

- Yes, let it rest a little bit.

- Okay.

- Okay.

- You want me to- - We'll cut the end of it like this with a scissor.

There is the juice.

The juice are going to come, whoop, this.

- I have an idea.

- And I want to unwrap this in there, you know?

The juice, I wanna keep the juice first.

- [Claudine] Right.

- And in addition to this, if I find the end of it.

Oh, here is the end.

Okay.

- Oh, that is awesome.

- [Jacques] You see a nice little sausage here?

- Yep.

And there's the last sausage.

- Here we are.

I put them on top.

- Okay, right.

- The juice here.

- That's what I was gonna do.

- It's too hot.

This is for me here.

- Thank you.

- I'm gonna cover this.

And then you wanna cook that into the sauce here for a couple of minute, okay?

- All right.

- During that time, I wanna show you how to do that tomato thing, which is really good.

You'll love it during the summer.

- [Claudine] I love tomatoes.

- [Jacques] The tomato, as you see, is peeled, right?

- [Claudine] Right.

- So we cut it into four piece.

You can use other type of tomato.

Now, take a small knife, or even a spoon like this for that matter, and we cut- - Sorry, with a spoon.

- We cut the center of it like this.

If there is any- - [Claudine] Like just- - See with my finger here.

I'm going in the vein to get most of this thing.

And you see what I have here?

I have like a novel petal of flowers, you know?

- Did I take too much out or is that- - No, that's fine because, see, we can use that for ourselves.

But what you wanna be sure, that all of the seed and juice, you take it out.

And all you do with this, you put that on a tray.

We use a non-stick pan here.

And on that non-stick pan, you press it down a little bit on it.

I think I put a dash of salt on top of it.

And you put it in like a 400-degree oven for like 30 minutes.

You know, you have petal.

You have a concentrated taste of tomato now, almost like, not like a dried tomato.

Or almost.

It's really good.

I'm going to stop this.

- Mmm.

Oh, that's really good.

- I'm going to stop that.

It's cooked enough.

Let's get a plate and we can arrange those on top.

- Okay.

- And what I would like you to do, we're going to do a tarragon oil in there.

I have chopped tarragon.

- Okay, I have more tarragon.

- This is the French tarragon here.

I want you to put salt, pepper in it.

- Salt and pepper.

- And olive oil.

And mix it good during that time.

I will arrange that on top.

Hmm.

This is a beautiful dish where this thing is going to be beautiful.

You put the- - I put salt and pepper.

- Salt and pepper.

- [Claudine] Yes.

- Okay, and that would be enough.

It's a very fresh dish, beautiful for the summer, you know?

- That is beautiful.

- Let's put it back.

- [Claudine] Okay, now- - And let's, this is cooked enough.

Look at that.

- [Claudine] Oh, wow.

- You know what I want to do?

I want to take one of those like this.

Give me that plate.

You can dirty that plate.

I just want to cut it open to show you the inside.

All right, so we can see inside like this.

- [Claudine] Yeah, that looks nice.

- And put a little bit of the sauce on the top.

Maybe if you have some parley there, you can add.

- Here you go.

- [Jacques] Here, my special sauce here, there we are.

- [Claudine] That's a great sauce.

- And this is our... Where are you putting it, here?

- Making a mess.

All right.

- Yes, you're putting that here.

This is our chicken leg sausage with mushroom sauce.

- [Claudine] And tomato petals with tarragon oil.

- Well, this is a very, very, very easy recipe.

And I know you love biscotti, so you do it.

- Yep.

- You have two cup of flour in there.

- Uh-huh.

- Put a teaspoon of baking powder.

I put two quarter of a cup of sugar.

Put two teaspoon, two tablespoon of oil.

- [Claudine] Two tablespoons.

- [Jacques] I put all of this in there.

- [Claudine] One.

Two.

- [Jacques] I'm putting one, two, three tablespoon of milk.

- Salt?

- A dash of salt, a little dash of vanilla.

- And everything just goes in.

Okay.

- Well, you can put your dry ingredient first if you want and do the other one after, but basically the same thing.

Now I have here... Okay.

That practically enough.

Now I have hazelnut here, and I have, what do you call those?

Yes.

- Cashews.

- Cashew, yes.

So we can do either one or a mixture of both.

Let me put a little bit of both.

Yeah, it's soft enough here.

- Okay.

- Maybe a dash more- - [Claudine] Milk?

- Milk, yeah, that's it.

Okay, so I'm gonna put half of this here.

- Okay.

- [Jacques] Half of this here.

And I'm going to put apricot.

- [Claudine] Mmm, I love apricot.

- Dried apricot that I put in the mix.

You can actually make that by hand if you want.

You know, do your dough, take that out and mix it by hand.

- Here we go.

- But it's just fine this way.

All right.

That's great, that's fine.

- Whoa.

All right.

- Okay, and that, we are going to put that directly on the cookie sheet here.

That's it.

- Okay, looks good.

- And we are going to arrange that- - Give me this.

- This way directly with a piece of plastic wrap.

I have one here.

It kind of mingle.

You need two people with plastic wrap.

- Always, a minimum of two people.

- The other way, the long way.

And the other way here, you do a thing about, yeah, about 13-inch long, you know?

About three-inch wide like this.

About one, one and a half inch thick.

- [Claudine] Mm-hmm.

- That's an easy way of doing it.

I mean, it can't be easier than that, right?

- I don't think so.

It couldn't be faster either.

- Yeah.

Okay, and then you wanna put that without the plastic- - Obviously.

- In the oven, around 375 degree, 20 minute.

Then you lower it to 350 for about 10 minute.

- Okay.

- Okay?

And what you get out of this after that time is your log, which is cooked like this now.

And at that point, the biscotti... I'm gonna give you that, Claudine.

The biscotti, you take your log like this.

No, you leave that right there because I need you to rearrange that on top.

- Oh.

- You cut it.

And now, you're gonna cut them a little bit on a bias like this.

That, you're gonna put back on this.

You see the way they are here?

- [Claudine] Yeah.

- [Jacques] And that, we're going to redry it in the oven for about 20 minutes, yes, at 350 degree.

Hey, look at that.

- Perfect!

- A whole tray.

- Okay, and I put these- - And that's tall there is to it.

So you put them back in the oven to dry out.

And after they dry out, they're going to brown.

You don't even have to turn them upside down.

They brown on each side.

And this is basically what we get here.

- [Claudine] And I'll start arranging them on a plate.

- Exactly like this.

And this is very good, you know with what?

- Wine.

- [Jacques] Yes.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- In Italy, you eat that, soaking it as it gets very hard with a Vin Santo, you know, the holy wine.

But here, we have a Moscato, a Moscato d'Asti.

So it's a sparkling Moscato, which is very good.

So see, this is dry.

I'm going to give you a piece like that.

You soak it in there.

- How about soaking it in coffee?

- Mmm, this is very good.

Coffee is great too.

(soft music) - Mmm, this is great.

- And this is our apricot and hazelnut biscotti.

We have a food lover delight in our dining room today.

Titine, what are we eating?

- Well, we have the chicken sausage, which I think is like a chicken roulade.

It's really beautiful.

The tomato petals just look, it looks like a flower.

It's wonderful, it's bright, it's summery.

I love it.

- Concentrated in taste.

- Yeah, it's great.

And the fish is beautiful, the sea bass.

I love the skin on the sea bass, and I love the raw sauce on top.

I think that's really fun.

- Easy to do.

You're going to do that one.

- Absolutely.

And the biscotti, thank you.

- I hope you're going to do the biscotti because I developed that recipe for you because I know how you like them and it's easy to make them.

And with that, we're going to have- - I'm having a chardonnay from the South of France, which is very well priced.

- Extremely well priced.

Well, I'm going to have a Zinfandel from Mendocino County.

It's a very powerful wine with strong taste of cherries, plum, even chocolate.

And that's going to go very well with my chicken, which I enjoyed doing with you, titine.

- Thank you.

- I hope we're going to cook together soon again.

Until then- - [Jacques and Claudine] Happy cooking.

(bright music)