- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

- And I'm Claudine Pepin.

Some of my favorite meals are the ones that remind me of my childhood, and others are from my travels, especially in Europe.

- I think you have always liked my food.

And even when you were a little girl, you ate everything in sight.

- So today I'd like you to give me some pointers on preparing mussels, duck, and something intensely chocolate.

- Okay.

I hope you'll join us as we prepare Claudine's favorites.

- Next on "Jacques Pepin's Kitchen: - Cooking with Claudine."

(train horn blaring) Well today this is Claudine's favorite food.

So since we're cooking what you like the best, I think you should do a lot of the cooking yourself.

- I'm gonna cook, okay.

- Okay, you have what?

You have the milk in there.

We want do a cremeux chocolate here.

You know, memory when she was a child.

Cremeux chocolate.

So why don't you put coffee in there?

- Okay.

- And you mix it there.

Okay, that's good.

- Mmm, okay that's good.

I can have it just like that.

- Don't let that boil over.

I'm gonna give you eggs in there.

You can mix it.

I have two tablespoon of flour and a bit of sugar.

We mix the flour and the sugar together maybe.

And then I'll add it to this.

That's it.

Just mix it well.

And what you want to do now is to mix that in there, about half of it, like that.

Mix it and that's it.

Mix it good.

Be sure you get the bottom.

And then you wanna put everything back in there.

- Okay.

- Okay.

That's it.

Now the flour is going to thicken it, so we put it on this, and put it on higher and put your chocolate in it.

- All of it?

- Yeah, see you have sweet chocolate there.

And then you have bitter chocolate.

This is bitter chocolate.

- This is bitter?

- Yes, just put it in.

And you have to go right away with your whisk.

Just put it in because it'll have a tendency.

You can put the chocolate later also.

But see the flour is thickening there in the corner.

So you see?

- Oh, okay.

- You see it thickening?

- Yep.

- Up.

- Oh wow.

- In the corner, as it come to a boil.

That's all you want to do.

Bring it to a boil.

Be sure, also, you see with that here going to the corner like that?

- Mm-hmm.

- And I do driving the top of it.

Try it so that... That's it, so it doesn't stick in the corner.

And that's basically it.

You have a basic cremeux chocolate here.

You can use it to stuff a cake with it.

But basically you use it just the way you like it, which is... - Just like this.

- By itself.

Okay.

(Claudine chuckles) All right, so all we have to do is to cool it off.

You pour it in there.

That's it, beautiful.

- I love chocolate.

- Yeah, I love chocolate too.

So what you would want to do here is to cover it with a piece of plastic wrap on top so it doesn't form a skin.

And then you cool it off this way.

And that's about it.

So you have one which is cold there.

You want to bring it?

- Yep, here you have this.

- Okay.

- [Claudine] Let me get this.

- I'll help you prepare it.

So see it get slightly thicker there.

Just the right consistency.

Do you think you're going to like it?

- Oh yeah.

- Yes.

(Claudine laughing) Okay, so this is the cremeux chocolate, and it's quite rich.

So you would wanna serve probably about that much.

You know, we have it for four, so do know?

- So this is for you and this would be for me.

- Right, okay.

- Okay.

- Do you want to decorate the top a little bit?

Those are toasted almond on top.

A little bit of a decoration.

And this is your favorite dessert or your favorite meal.

So you're going to enjoy it, right?

- Oh, yes.

Thank you.

There's potatoes for baking, for frying, for boiling.

- That's true.

Sometimes it's too exaggerated, also you know?

It's more important for frying than anything else.

That is, if you have a boiling potato, you fry, pommes souffle, whatever, it fall apart.

But the reverse is not true.

This is Kennebec.

You know, she's like a big eyed potato.

And this is a good frying potato.

But if you were to boil it, it'd be perfectly fine too.

But it wouldn't be the reverse.

For example, with those, the red potato here.

Those are really good boiling potato.

If you want, do pommes souffles with it or french fry, they don't work as well, you know?

Now look at those purple potato.

A beautiful color they are.

- [Claudine] Oh wow.

Does it stay this way when it's cooked?

- Yeah, it stay this way.

It get slightly lighter.

But basically it stay this way.

You see, look at this one how rough the top here.

This is the russet potato, you know?

And the russet potato is very good for frying too.

Surely you can boil also.

- [Claudine] My favorite are the Yukon Gold.

- Here they are.

- I always feel like I can't go wrong with Yukon Gold.

- [Jacques] Okay, this is the Yukon Gold and this is the big Yukon Gold.

- [Claudine] Oh, I've never seen the little ones.

- No, the little ones are not as common.

But you see the beautiful golden color inside?

Yukon Gold, that's why they call it.

So this is good for dieting because you fool people.

You tell them you put butter in it, and there is no butter in there.

(gentle piano music) - Mussels and french fries are the national dish of Belgium.

And I spent nine months there.

And I ate so many mussels.

Everywhere you go, there's mussels.

Everybody does the best mussels here, and the best mussels there.

I don't even know what the American equivalent would be, but kind of... Chili.

Everybody has their own style of doing chili.

(gentle music) I love mussels.

And I want you to help me do the, ew.

I want you to help me do the recipe with the mussels and the potatoes.

- Oh yeah, yeah, we did that one.

You see the mussel, when you get those here, I mean they can be full of whatever we call that.

You know, that thing- - Is it like algae?

- that's attached to it.

So you have to break this attachment, you see?

- [Claudine] Mm-hmm.

- And you have to rub them under water, you know?

And if they are really broken like this, well, I would discard them, you know, so you don't take any chances at all.

So we break this, rub them one against the other.

I know you know how to do that.

- Yep.

- And we add them to this.

Now you see those here?

- Mm-hmm.

- Some are open.

Take two like this, which are open.

Okay, bang them to... And you see they're open there.

Bang them together a little bit and see what happen.

- This one's closing.

- See, this one is closing.

Bang the other one again.

(mussels banging) - [Claudine] Oh, it's going.

- It's closing too?

- Yep.

- So if they are closing, they're just, you know, going for air and so forth.

So they're alive.

- They're sleeping.

- They are alive.

(Claudine chuckles) Well, they're alive because if they don't close, you know, you would want to remove them, you know, to discard them because they may be dangerous.

So those are clean now.

- Those are clean.

- Got three pound of those?

- Yep.

- So first we're going to cook them directly in there.

And we put half a cup of water there.

(water sizzling) My pot is really hot.

Half a pot of wine.

Good.

You want it hot to start.

Good.

This is going to come to a boil pretty fast.

And we want all of them to open so we can take the inside out.

And during that time, we're going to do the potato salad.

Now look, I have potato here.

I cooked the potato.

And those are the one you like.

Those are golden... - Yukon Gold.

- Yukon Gold, yeah.

And with the water on top, you cook them when they are cooked, we pour out the water.

I put them back on the stove so that they dry in their own air.

You don't leave them in water like that, you know?

They are going to be very full.

You know, they don't get watery.

So it's important.

So what I want to do, you can help me here.

You can take this.

I'm going to peel them.

- Okay.

- Okay.

So, but look, I want to show you how to peel it.

You see what happened?

I peel that one and cut it like this.

Why don't you take a knife bigger than that?

- I like this knife.

- Here, take that small knife here.

Gosh.

You see the way you peel potato?

- Yes.

- Well, when you peel potato, otherwise sometime you know, you do this, and that work too.

But the best way for peeled potato is really to scrape it.

- Oh, because they're cooked?

- [Jacques] Yeah, because they are cooked.

- Okay.

- Okay.

See those are a beautiful golden color of Yukon Gold.

There is so many different potato on the market now.

And you want a potato which is kind of moist, mealy, more of a boiling potato here.

Although it doesn't, really any potato with work here.

So we have our potato, and I like them when they are lukewarm like that.

Okay, put that here.

And inside we're going to put some scallion, you know?

So here I'm shopping the scallion.

You want to give me, well, garlic, we're going to put in there.

There is two clove of garlic here?

- Yep.

- Okay.

Shall I chop the garlic or do you wanna do it?

- No.

- All right.

(hand banging) Make me work again, huh?

I mean, this is your favorite meal, so... - Yeah, but it's also my favorite because you make it for me.

- Oh, okay.

- [Claudine] It's part of why it's my favorite.

- All right.

So we have the potato, the garlic, and the scallion.

Now we want to do a mustard vinegar.

Yes, you can do right here.

I'm going to help you.

But before that, you know what?

I see this is smoking.

So I'm going to... You see the way here?

- Oh wow.

(mussels clanging) - Lot of juice.

- Oh, they're all open.

- So that basically ready.

So I'm going to shut it off here and I let it just rest one minute.

- Okay.

- So we finish the vinegarette.

All right, I'm going to give you... - Cracked pepper.

- Cracked pepper.

I could have put the... See if I put the garlic in there, then I have a vinegarette with garlic like that, which we do very often at home, you know?

- Red wine vinegar?

- Red wine vinegar.

Probably what I would like the best here.

- And olive oil.

- Olive oil, eh?

Okay.

Taste it.

Yeah, I like it.

Give you the other side of the spoon.

- Mm, that's good.

- Okay.

So you can add that to this.

That's it.

And of course you have a recipe right there.

You have a beautiful potato salad.

- Mm.

Oh, that's good.

- Okay, leave that here.

In the meantime, what we are going to do is to drain this out.

Ah, you see?

Now you see what we have.

Why don't you go get me some... I have some which are cold in the back because it would take forever to do this.

So you can serve them like this.

- [Claudine] Mm-hmm?

- Or take them out.

This is what we are doing here.

So do you want to take one out?

- Do you know we used to do in Brussels?

- No.

- You take this, and open this.

Your first one, right?

- Right.

- [Claudine] And then you take all your others out like this.

- Ah.

- You use this.

- You ate a lot of mussels in your- - In Brussels, yes.

- Yeah.

You know, another thing that you do sometime when something very fancy, you do the outside here, which is the panne, a bit tougher.

And you grab it right here, pull.

And you see you have that long thing which comes out.

This is a bit tougher.

- You're telling me you would take that off of every single one of these?

- Yeah, yes, yeah.

- Wow.

- Okay, so we have enough here.

Okay.

- Okay, give me this.

- Have some over there.

And now I'm going to finish this salad here.

Here, bring it there.

That's it.

And I'm going to mix now my mussel directly with the potato.

It is a great salad.

And I like it like lukewarm, you know?

- Yes, oh it's so good.

- Okay.

And then you want to bring me that plate?

You can arrange it on top.

Hmm, you have nice salad here.

- Yes.

- Oh, this is oakleaf, right?

- I like the color.

- Let's arrange that all around.

We don't have quite enough.

So you know what you do?

We put one of those... We put one of those here, different color.

One of those here, different color.

One of those here and one here.

So you have four, you have different type of... Looks good?

- Mm-hmm.

- Okay, I'm going to put that on top.

And you know... Ready to be... I tell you this is... Maybe that's your favorite, but I think... Oh yeah, that's a good idea, you know?

We could decorate the thing all around with that.

- You just messed up my decoration.

- Oh, I'm sorry.

- You do know that, right?

- I'm sorry, no.

- Okay.

- Okay, you were right.

We could have left it this way.

Okay.

So this is a great mussel and potato salad.

So let's do the soup now.

- Okay, here's the liquid.

- Give me the liquid.

And see, you don't want to shake it too much because you want to let it rest, you know, a little bit.

Because you want the sediment to go to the bottom and people say, "Well, maybe you can strain it."

You can strain it through paper towel.

But basically you really don't have to.

If you let it rest for a few minutes like this, you know, when you pour it, if there is any sediment, it will stay in the bottom.

You can see it here.

- Oh yeah, look at the sand.

- Yeah, so you know, you stop at the right moment.

It's like when you do wine, you see that?

So you have sediment here and I can feel grainy stuff here.

So that we discard.

And depending on the mussel, sometime you have a lot of liquid out of it.

Sometime less.

So I add water.

In that recipe, I need four cup.

And this is pretty strong in taste.

So you know, I add whatever water I need to, yeah?

(liquid sizzling) I had a hot pan there.

Bring that to a boil.

The juice of the mussel.

You can put some ground pepper in it.

Salt, you would want to taste it, you know?

Taste it for salt.

Because depending on... See that's enough.

Because sometimes the mussel juice have a lot of salt.

I have a can, 14 ounce, a can of tomato.

We want to add this to this.

And it's very simple.

You know, you bring that to a boil at the last moment.

And then we put little pasta.

Put your favorite here.

- Alphabet.

- Alphabet noodle, yeah.

- You have to spell my name.

- Yeah, exactly.

So you know when it come to a boil.

But now, this is not quite boiling.

You bring it to a boil.

This boil a couple of minutes, which is what I have here.

You see?

And to this, we want to put maybe a little bit of scallion, fresh scallion at the last moment in it.

- This looks like kind of a very lean soup too.

- Well it is lean.

There is absolutely no fat in there because it's just the juice of the mussel, a bit of the wine, so okay.

This will cook like one second into this.

And this is a bonus, you know?

When we do mussel, for example, you do your mussel if you want.

You don't have to do that the same day.

You can take the stock and freeze the stock, and you can use that another day.

You know?

- [Claudine] Oh, that smells so good.

- Yes.

And you can do couscous, you can do other type of, you know, you don't really have to do alphabet noodle, you know?

But I know you like it.

And this is a great bonus when you do mussel.

(gentle music) - Skillet duck is great 'cause I think duck and I think, "Oh my god, I have to roast it for 10 hours.

And then this and that and the other thing."

And this is great.

It's easy and it's wonderful.

- You remember when I first did that duck for you?

- That was my first apartment in Boston for Easter.

You did this.

- For Easter?

- For Easter.

- No, I know, I remember.

And we do duck in so many different way.

But this is very simple and I know you've done it at home.

- Yeah.

- And the best way of doing it.

The only little problem that you have is to cut it, right?

- Right, well, I'll buy it and I'll have somebody else cut it.

I'm smart that way.

- No, no, no, no.

You cut it in four.

This is a like five, five and a half pound Long Island duck.

And we cut it this way, you see?

What I did there, I cut the head like this.

This is how you cut.

Now you want to cut on each side of that central bone.

And see, I have a good knife here.

- Well, yeah.

- It's sharp, you know?

And that's very important, you know?

So I have the half duck here.

Remember in that particular recipe, we use everything.

'Cause you see the neck, the bone here from the back.

And that's it.

And we cut this there.

- But, Papa, I could still have the butcher do this for me, right?

- You can have the butcher do it, but it's not a big deal.

I mean, you know, doing it this way.

Here, you want to cut that one?

See here, you're going to cut here.

Now cut right through the skin.

That's it, keep cutting.

Yeah, yeah.

Now there is a piece of carcass in the back you cut.

Don't go too much this way.

Cut right there.

Bang it here.

(hand banging) Yeah, or leave your knife.

You know.

(knife banging) No, I'm not going to touch you.

That's it, you know?

- Mm-hmm.

- So here we leave everything in there bone and all.

And you know, you put that into a skillet like this to cook it, it's going to shrink a lot when it cooked.

And of course you wanna put salt pepper on top.

This, this.

Okay, put pepper.

And you know, I tell you it's like a confit, a bit of a confit we do in the southwest of France.

Very easy to do and really terrific taste.

So all you have to do is this.

You know, you don't even have to cook it now.

You could cook it later on.

You know, you can do that a few hours ahead.

I have one here, which has been cooking for about 15, 20 minutes now.

(oil sizzling) I can hear it sizzling.

And you see what happened now?

An enormous amount of fat that it rendered.

- Yes.

- And it's fine, you know?

You say you cook it in the fat and it gets very, very dry.

The idea is to really dry it out at the end.

Now you cook it only in the skin.

You see the skin here?

- Oh wow.

It looks great.

- And at that point, when it been browning nicely and the skin is kind of crisp and shrink a lot, you cover it again very tight.

See, you wanna cover it tight to develop some steam with it.

Then you lower the heat.

There is a very low heat.

Now you cook it for like 30 minutes.

- Oh, okay.

- And I have one here, which is done just like this.

And this one, as you can see, has been cooking a long time.

So I can look at that here and go right through the bone.

- [Claudine] Mm.

- [Jacques] You know, I know that this is really cooked.

You see?

There is all the bone and everything in it.

- Oh, wow, that looks so good.

- Yeah, this is very good, this one.

So what I'm going to do is to remove it.

You see?

Drain it out.

You've removed basically as much fat that you can drain out from this.

It's not low calorie, but it's no more calorie than chicken.

The meat itself is about the same than chicken.

- Really?

- If you remove the skin.

I put the liver at the end.

I know you like liver.

Do you want a little piece of this?

- Yes, please.

- Mmm, that's good.

- Mmm.

- And the heart.

The gizzard.

Now you see.

I'm gonna put all of the fat that we have out of that duck.

And I tell you, in the southwest of France, that's where people live the longest in France, according to the French paradox and all that.

And most of the dieting that they have is based on poultry fat, duck fat, goose fat instead of butter.

And that mostly monounsaturated.

I have crystallization of the juice here.

And I want to do a natural juice with those crystallized juice.

I put a little bit of water there.

You want a wooden spoon, that's good.

And you want to go against to get that crystallized here.

And fat, you know?

- You can fry potatoes in this and it's really, really good.

- Oh, you know why it's good?

Because it burn at very, very high temperature.

So the potato get really very, very crisp, you know?

- Oh, I didn't know that.

- So goose fat, duck fat.

So with that, we have a salad, you know, a bit acidic with vinegar and all that.

It'll cut all this.

One of the greatest meal that you can do this way.

This is your favorite meal, so you do your vinegarette.

- This is it, okay.

- Okay, a bit of a... Woo, woo, woo, my God, this is- - I like it.

- Okay.

That's a lot of vinegar, eh?

I mean, usually.

- I'm gonna make it for mom.

She loves vinegar.

- I know.

Okay, and you know what I would want to do here?

With the oil, I'll add a little bit of- - Oh yeah.

- The duck fat.

Just to give the taste, which is going to go with it, yeah?

You know, to blend the taste together.

Taste it.

Mm, that's good, yeah.

- Oh.

- Oh, you were right.

That's more so.

So you can put the green in it.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- That's a lot, but.

- Let's see.

- This is a nice mixture of different type of green, which you would of course toss at the last moment because the tiny green like that will get wilted pretty fast.

- That's probably good.

- I think plenty there, yes.

- Okay, and that one.

- And I think you have a very fancy thing to make that.

- Yes, I love these.

- Why don't you mix it in there.

I'm going have that here.

Is it good to mix with?

- Yeah, do you wanna try it?

- Those are really fancy.

What do you call that finger?

- It's salad hands or salad feet or something.

- Salad thing, yeah.

Okay, so you could serve that of course as a main course on a dish, I mean a meal in itself.

A big salad like that with a piece of duck.

Okay, so now you can give me a nice portion of this here.

And you wanna spread it out a little bit.

- You want little bit more?

- Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Okay.

- Yes, oh yeah.

At least as much as there.

That's great, okay.

- Okay.

- And we want, okay, I'm putting the... Okay, the leg like this.

And what we want to do is a little bit of the juice here.

Gimme a spoon there.

I have one here.

You see we put a bit of the fat and a little bit just of the natural juice on that, and a little bit on the salad.

- Oh wow.

- That's all.

And you're going to have that as a main course, and you'll be in Heaven.

So how do you like your favorite?

- I love my favorites.

They're my favorites.

But thank you so much for teaching me how to make them.

- Uh-huh.

- I love the mussel salad with Yukon Gold potatoes because I love Yukon Gold potatoes.

The duck is awesome.

It is so good.

- Mm-hmm.

- I'm so excited.

And with a great piece of bread.

And the soup is like a bonus.

I mean it's, I didn't know that I could do this with the juice of the mussels and stuff.

And of course chocolate is as chocolate does.

Chocolate is great.

So I'm very excited.

- Well, I'm glad you enjoy.

I love cooking it for you.

And I thought that maybe with our duck, we would have a Merlot.

We have a Merlot from California, and kind of very spicy and very deep, you know, and that will go well with it.

But first, I think we are going to have that Alsace wine, that Pinot Gris.

You choose it.

- I love Alsace wine.

- I know you like that one.

So we are going to start with that as an aperitif.

And that would go actually very well with our mussel.

- Oh yeah.

- You know?

So I'm going to toast you because after all it is your favorite.

- Thank you.

- I hope you cook for your family.

You try to find out the favorite food they like.

You will get a great deal of gratification cooking them for the people you love.

I know I did.

Happy cooking.

(gentle music) - Happy eating.

(gentle violin music)