- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

- And I'm Claudine Pepin.

- Today, the special occasion, a dinner party in honor of graduation.

- But I'm already finished with school.

- Yes, I know, but you have friends who are graduating, and here is the menu you could cook for them.

- Oh, well, when you put it that way, let's get busy.

What's on the menu?

- Well, we're starting with elegant shrimp pane, lightly browned, and served on a watercress salad.

Roast rack of lamb is our main course, served with individual lamb timbales and salted spinach.

- [Claudine] For dessert, a beautiful berry rafraichies, mixed berries cooked in red wine.

And as a special bonus, we'll make an easy and delicious berry jam.

- Join us for a graduation party.

- Next on "Jacques Pepin's Kitchen."

- "Encore with Claudine."

(train horn bellowing) Today, we have very special meal, a graduation party.

We go all the way when we graduate.

Right?

(Claudine chuckling) - I have some friends graduating, so this is gonna be fun.

- Not you.

- Nope, not me, but Roberto's graduating and Ildy's graduating.

- Oh, good.

- That's good.

- So we have a beautiful rack of lamb.

You see?

- Ooh.

- And this is the two rib.

I mean, if you have the rack, you know, it would be that part there.

This is the part toward the, you know, the back of the, here.

This is toward the shoulder here.

You wanna sure that part is the best.

But to separate the rack of lamb, usually you're going to get it all done by the butcher anyway.

- Oh, yeah.

- You want to cut on each side of what we call the chine bone here.

This is the old way (knife scraping) of doing it.

And then you use the cleaver to cut that up in here.

You see?

No.

(cleaver thudding) - I'm helping.

- But now what you do, so you start this one, and then after... No, you can let it go, I think.

(cleaver thudding) I start it now so that it's ready for me later.

(cleaver thudding) That's it.

So we're going to do one rack, you know, that often you will buy in a store just like this.

And what we're going to do is to roast the rack to clean it up completely of all fat and everything on top that you see here.

And we're going to clean that part and do something with it.

Or you can buy it at the store in a package like this, you know, a lamb chop like this.

- Just a lamb chop.

- And clean the meat out of the lamb chop.

This is a shoulder lamb chop.

And you can do your mousse with that.

- No, that's the kind I buy.

I like shoulder lamb chops.

- That the way to do it.

Well, maybe before I do that, continue cleaning the top of this 'cause we want to remove all the fat out of this here.

But we go directly to the bone.

In fact, you see I finish removing the fat here.

This here, you know, that white thing, is the silver skin, you know?

It's not even fat.

So I put it this way, and I run my knife, you know, very tight this way.

- Hm.

- So that I can... You can see that?

- Oh, wow.

- This is very- - Oh.

- Tough, but this is not fat.

- [Claudine] It's like sinew or something.

- Yeah, sinew.

Okay, this is practically clean, you know?

When you're at home, you can do that ahead and finish your rack when your guests come.

You know, put it into the oven when the guests come.

So I'm going to start this now.

I'm putting a little bit of oil there, just a touch.

It's nice and warm.

To brown this, I want to brown that on each side for a couple of minute.

During that time, I want to clean up this.

Maybe you can get rid of that for me.

- Yup.

- Thank you.

And see how munch meat I'm going to get out of this.

As I say, I need about 1/2 a pound of totally clean meat.

Now on top of this, Claudine, I need the topping, you know, with bread.

- Okay, I've got just some basic white bread, (oil sizzling) and I'm gonna put some thyme and mint in there.

(oil sizzling) And a few mint leaves.

(oil sizzling) (food processor whirring) - Put a little bit of oil on top.

(oil sizzling) (food processor whirring) - That's good.

- That's beautiful.

- That's perfect.

And then what I'm actually gonna do is I have some chopped shallots that I'm gonna add to this, but I didn't wanna put 'em in before 'cause it would make like all pasty stuff.

- Well, if the shallot is uncooked, you could, but it's better this way.

Mix that in.

And this is going to be the top, you know, of the rack.

Now I finished cleaning my meat, you see?

And I bet you I have eight ounces here.

You wanna bet with me?

- Nope, I've learned.

I've learned not to bet.

- Okay, so we'll put that in there.

I'm going to put a bit of salt and pepper in this.

And, you know, I have a little bit of shallots actually, a little bit of thyme.

- Oh, good, then I'll just use- - A little bit of mint, mint on top.

- I put the top in there too.

- Put the mint, you see?

You can put all of that in there.

- You already put salt and pepper in there, right?

- Yup.

- Okay, cool.

- And I have breadcrumb.

And let's brown the meat first.

Meat is (indistinct).

(food processor whirring) Good.

That's nice.

Put an egg in there.

Let me see my rack now, where it's at, because I want to brown it all around.

You see?

See the way brown now.

- Ooh.

- So I'm gonna put it on the side like this.

Gonna continue browning underneath.

- Okay, I'm going.

- Okay, go ahead.

(food processor whirring) - Good.

Open it now, and I have breadcrumb.

(food processor whirring) Good.

That's it.

- Why don't we put some wine in here too?

You want to put... Yeah, we can put it there.

- Like a dash.

- Go ahead.

(food processor whirring) Good.

Then I'll put a dash of wine here also.

(Claudine chuckling) I have to taste it.

- Okay, so.

- When you cook, you know?

So now this is a great saver because, remember, that little rack of lamb that you have here, you wouldn't do that much out of it, but now with this, doing the timbale, you kind of extend it by double, you know?

And look at that.

Beautiful.

- Yeah, that's awesome.

- It's like a mousse, you know?

So for timbale like this, (oil sizzling) we put it in there to cook, and we can cook that directly on top of the stove in a double boiler, you know?

Okay, here we are.

(oil sizzling) - That is perfect.

- So this, we actually put that directly in water, like this.

We cover them, and this is going to cook for about 10, 12 minutes.

Now you see my lamb is brown all around.

and that's what I was saying before.

I'm gonna put that here to show you.

You could do that ahead.

If you have a party of 20, 25 people, you need six rack, you prepare all of them ready to go into the oven.

It's raw.

And then you put your breadcrumb and put them in the oven just before the guests come.

So now I put that nice breadcrumb on the top.

- Mm, oh, that's gonna be awesome.

- You wanna put that into the oven?

- Yeah, yeah.

- I'll put it.

You just open the door for me.

- Okay.

Ready?

- 425 degree for about 12, 15 minutes.

Yes.

Okay.

(pan clanking) All right.

- Okay, now how long, 15 minutes?

- Yeah.

You wanna put the timer on?

- All right, put a timer on here.

- Okay, let me see that.

This is starting to boil.

I'm going to lower it a bit.

And while this is cooking.

- Let's make some shrimp.

- Let's make some shrimp.

- Or let's cook some shrimp, I guess.

- Let's cook some shrimp.

We are doing a lot of mousse today.

I'm gonna show you to do another mousse.

Mousse means foam in France.

It indicate a texture more than something.

It can be a chocolate mousse, it can be a shrimp mousse, it can be a lamb mousse, and so forth.

So here we clean some shrimp, you know, and I keep all the shrimp clean.

We cut, you see, the shrimp like that?

I keep only the center of the shrimp and use the tail.

And a couple of extra shrimp.

I've done some already here.

- But I'm first gonna make some breadcrumbs that we're gonna put on top.

- Oh, yeah, that's good idea.

See, this is well thought because first you start with your breadcrumb, 'cause if I start with the shrimp, then you have to clean up the machine.

- [Claudine] And I don't want to clean up the machine.

(food processor whirring) - Putting a little bit of oil in there to get it ready for me.

Maybe a dash of butter.

Good.

Now we do the mousse, huh?

- Mm-hmm.

- I'm giving you this.

- All right.

- That's it.

We put an egg in there.

You put some parsley.

(egg cracking) - Do I wanna keep the... It doesn't matter.

I can put the stems in, right?

- Can put anything you want in there.

That's your shrimp.

(Claudine chuckling) You do what you want with it.

Salt, pepper.

And we are in business.

You turn it, and the mousse is finished.

(food processor whirring) More spatula?

Okay, isn't that nice here?

- Yeah, that's perfect.

- It's beautiful.

Look at that.

Take this out.

Do you wanna put garlic in there?

- [Claudine] If you want.

- Usually you put a bit.

Oh, it's too late.

- Okay, but we can put garlic in it?

- Yes.

- We'll put garlic somewhere else.

- We put garlic in the salad.

We'll put more garlic in the salad, which goes with it.

- [Claudine] (chuckles) Okay, that sounds good.

- So what you want to do now is to take a little bit of that mousse and spread it on top of each of your four shrimp.

It's like a little package, you know?

- [Claudine] I like little packages.

- And then you put the fresh breadcrumb on top.

You press it in it a little bit.

Then you can turn on the other side on your hand or you can put it directly on a plate like this.

See, I'm just showing you one because I've done some ahead.

And, again, you put your shrimp.

Give me the breadcrumb on top of this here.

I put it here.

So gently you pat it into it.

So show it here.

You see that give you a shell, okay?

- [Claudine] And hopefully it'll all stay together.

- It will stay together.

- I know.

- We'll see.

That's fine.

The mousse going there.

So when your skillet is ready, you just slide it into it.

All right, so this is going to cook now for a couple of minute.

And what are we going to serve with?

- We're gonna do a watercress salad actually with it.

- That's good, and then we'll put the garlic we didn't put in this one.

- That sounds perfect.

- So I'll do garlic for you.

- Okay, I'll get some salad.

- Go get your salad.

And I'll slice your garlic thin.

- Good.

- You know, to do it a bit differently instead of chopping it.

- Okay.

(knife tapping) Here's a bowl.

- Very, very fine, I think.

What do you put in your salad?

- Don't look at me.

Look at the garlic.

- What do you put in your salad, Claudine?

- Just some cherry vinegar and olive oil and salt and pepper.

- Then put your seasoning in the bottom.

(Claudine sighs) - But I can do a toss.

- Okay, well, wait a minute.

I'm going to look at my mousse here.

It's going a bit fast at my... See, they are cooking nicely.

So now I'm going to put that on low and continue cooking it five, six minutes.

This is going to do fine.

You see the way they slide nicely?

- [Claudine] Oh, wow.

(utensils clanking) - This is a lot of dressing.

- This is a lot of watercress.

- Okay.

(Claudine chuckling) (spoon tapping) - You know, watercress is very important to do it at the last moment because the acid in the vinegar will get it wilted.

I mean, there is certain type of salad like spinach and particularly watercress, you mix it and you serve it.

Otherwise, it kind of collapse on you.

So, you know what?

I'm going to turn this.

This I think is ready to be turned.

- Ooh.

- They're beautiful, yeah.

- [Claudine] Oh, that looks really, really nice.

- That's gonna take a couple of minutes again on this side, you know?

About two minutes on each side, so during that time, you know, the rack is still in the oven, right?

You know what we gonna serve with that rack?

- Spinach, which I love.

- Spinach, so first with the spinach, I'm going to to do a crouton, you know?

And I have some crouton here.

You know, just of the bread.

- Mm-hmm.

- We have pignoli nuts.

I have a chopped up cooked eggs.

- Garlic.

- And garlic.

So I'll slice the garlic- - Okay.

(laughs) - For you because we only do sliced garlic here.

- Oh.

- And a lot of it.

I mean, when you crush your garlic, (knife tapping) if you crush your garlic, it get very, very strong.

On the other hand, when you serve it whole or if you slice very thin, then it's much milder.

Put your bread in it.

- It's hot.

- That's it.

That's it.

We saute that a little bit.

And here I have the pignoli nuts.

You see them here?

- Mm, I love pignoli nuts.

- So the garlic, I'll put that on top.

And when this is cooked, like a minute or so, when this is cooked and start browning a minute or so, then we can put the pignoli nuts in it.

So let's see that again now.

- [Claudine] This looks like it's ready.

- Yeah, you can lower it now.

And now I'll put the pignoli nuts in there, okay?

Pignoli nut and the garlic, and you want to brown it it around a couple of minutes.

Let me see that.

You wanna be sure that your shrimp are cooked.

So I think we should probably wait for a minute or so, you know?

It'd be nice, in fact, if you cover it.

Okay, I think it's about cooked here.

See, look.

Yeah, it's about cooked.

I'm gonna leave it.

I'm going to stop the heat here.

Let's see, those are cooked too.

Let's remove those.

- All right, now I'm gonna put some spinach in there.

- Yeah, put the spinach in.

- In the same- - Yeah, that's it.

Yes, put it in there.

They are wet still?

- Yeah.

(oil sizzling) Love spinach.

I buy a lot of spinach.

- I eat a lot of spinach.

(Claudine laughing) Thank you, (speaking in foreign language).

Welcome.

- A dash of oil on top.

Put some salt, pepper, and let's see this.

This is cooked now, so I'm gonna stop it too.

- Okay, and I'm put some salt and pepper on there.

- And you can cover it.

(oil sizzling) There's another lid there.

All right, so now we can serve this.

- Okay, let me get you a plate.

- Get a plate ready for your watercress.

And which one you like, this one?

- The one we made.

Oh.

- Just wanna show you, you know, if you cut it like this, you see?

It's just barely cooked in the center, you see?

- Ooh.

I like it cut like that.

That looks pretty.

- This here, and this one like this.

- I can do this.

- And this is the shrimp pane on watercress.

(delightful music) - Let's do dessert, and then we'll do the spinach.

- Okay.

And the dessert, we wanna show you a very, very nice recipe.

You have a cup of red wine we put in there.

It's a berry rafraichies, we call.

So put your red wine in there, a cup.

(wine burbling) That's about it.

About 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of a good berry, you know, jam berry, a bit of sugar.

- Mm.

- And then in this, you put a bunch of mint again.

You bring that to a boil.

It come to a strong boil.

As soon as it boil, you add strawberry, raspberry.

- And blueberries.

- Blueberries.

That come to a boil.

It's going to go down.

You let it boil like one minute by itself, and that's it.

And after that, what does it look like?

Like this, Claudine.

- It looks like this.

- That's it.

- Here.

- Yeah, bring this one here.

That's what it looks like.

It's cooked.

In fact, we can remove the mint now.

We don't need it.

And this is your berry rafraichies.

You know, this is a very delightful summer dessert.

Now if you have some leftover of this or if more than... Even if you don't have some leftover, if you wanna do more, what you do, you put that in the oven, about 200, 180, 200 degree for two, three, four hours on a slow oven, and it's going to reduce and do a jam.

Let's see what we have here.

- And it will look like this.

- Yeah.

so this is, as you can see, this is pretty liquid.

This is much thicker.

(timer ringing) You know, like a jam.

Ah.

- Lamb's done.

So you know what?

- Ah.

- You wanna taste that jam?

- Mm.

Very good.

- So I have a jar there.

Why don't you fill that up?

I'm going to take the lamb out of the oven.

Ah, just right, (speaking in foreign language).

- [Claudine] I'm not surprised.

- But then the lamb should rest now, you know, to relax a little bit.

Let's check on the spinach.

We're working in our own corner here.

The spinach are about just perfect.

So I'm going to stop the spinach right there, and I'll go give you a hand.

- [Claudine] You're gonna give me a hand?

All right.

- Right.

- I'm gonna get a bowl.

- So let's say you have a jar here of jam.

- I already did it.

I am speedy.

- [Jacques] That looks good.

- Three berry jam.

- Three berry jam.

So this would be our dessert here.

Give me a spoon there.

- And we could serve it with this.

- I love those type of dessert in summer, you know, those berry.

- Yeah, me too.

- You have some sour cream?

- Yup.

My friend Vincent made all the cookies, so I'm sure they're gonna be good.

- Like that, and you want a little spring of something in the center of it?

- Always.

- There we go.

- Okay.

- Look at that.

- That looks very nice.

- And now this is the berry rafraichies.

(delightful music) Let's go see the lamb.

Let's see that.

Don't touch it.

It just come out of the oven.

- Yeah, I just- - You just touch it?

It should really rest a little longer, but during that time, let's finish the spinach, you know?

Look at those spinach.

Now they are nice.

You can serve that by itself or we can serve it with the lamb.

Do you wanna serve it by itself?

- Let's serve it with the lamb.

- With the lamb?

It's okay?

Okay, we have all the garnish to put in it, you know, but you know what?

That spinach has render an enormous amount of liquid, but you know what I'm going to do with that liquid?

I'm going to put it in the dripping of the lamb.

- Oh, that'll be good.

- Okay, let's make like a sauce, you know, with this.

(liquid sizzling) All right, so you can leave it on the side for the time being because we have to unmold the- - Oh, the timbale.

- The timbale.

Here you have your crouton until, which goes in your spinach here.

At that point, maybe we have.

We can put the rest on the side.

And we have a hot cooked eggs here that we put on top of the spinach also.

Now let's see this now.

- [Claudine] Oh!

- You know, because- - Oh.

- It's like a little timbale, so we can arrange them here.

- Oh, this is a beautiful platter.

- Okay, see, you would want to cut for four people, how you're gonna cut, but you see the way?

- [Claudine] Oh, it's beautiful, pink and perfect.

- Just about the way it should be.

Right?

So you can put those here.

And here we are.

Okay, - Well, that looks beautiful.

- Now if we have a little bit of dripping juice, you know, I can always put it there.

There is the crumb and so forth, which are there, but it's fine.

And here we are, (speaking in foreign language), the rack of lamb with the lamb timbale and the spinach.

- Spinach.

(bright music) And here we are at the dining room table.

This is a beautiful meal today.

- Yes, it is.

- It's fit for a king, to graduate, to celebrate, to do anything.

- Absolutely.

I'm very excited.

- And we're starting with what here?

- Well, we have the shrimp pane with the bread and the mousse.

And I think we did a lot of different kind of bread and mousse techniques, so I've learned a lot actually.

And this is a really inventive and creative- - And tasty, right?

- Kind of thing.

Yeah, it's really good.

- And a rack of lamb.

The rack of lamb, as you know here, is extended with the mousse, so it makes it much less expensive actually.

And then we have a wonderful spinach saute with slivered garlic, with crouton, and our chopped egg sprinkle on top.

And finally.

- And we have the berries, three berries for dessert.

- Yeah, that's a very light, summery, delightful dessert.

So we are ready to celebrate.

- Okay, I'm gonna open champagne.

- We celebrate by opening champagne.

That's it.

I wanna see whether you've learned through those years on how to open- - I have.

- Yes, I know you have.

Yes.

Oh, we have a beautiful rose brut here from the Santa Maria Valley.

And this is a beautiful sparkling wine.

And after this, we are going to have a semillon chardonnay from the Hunter Valley, and this is in Australia.

And eventually we are going to have a legacy.

This is a Meritage-type of wine.

That's good, (speaking in foreign language).

What are you doing?

- [Claudine] I'm turning the bottle and not the cork.

- [Jacques] That's it.

That the right thing.

- Here it goes.

- Here it goes.

Here it goes!

- Okay.

- Here it goes.

(cork pops) - Ta da!

- I'm ready with the glass.

- That actually worked very well.

- I think you did very good.

And we are going to celebrate.

Look, there is nothing like the pop of a bottle of champagne.

- Especially a quiet one.

I know I've done well.

- Especially it's a quiet one.

You've done very well.

So this is a very special meal for a very special day.

All celebration end up at the table in our family.

Great occasion.

I already had a reason to cook great food and have a wonderful wine.

I hope you'll do the same thing with your family.

I do it with you.

Thank you very much, (speaking in foreign language).

- Thank you.

- And happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.

(Jacques hums) (bright music)