- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

- And I'm Claudine Pepin.

- You know the thing, when the weather turn cold, I get inspired to make comfort food, poached ray in brown butter, a succulent fish that's easy to prepare.

A shell roast of beef in a rich cabernet sauvignon sauce and creamy onion custard with tomato coulis, a simple berry sauce transforms wintertime oranges into a satisfying dessert.

Join us for little cold snap comfort food.

- Next, on "Jacques Pepin Celebrates!"

- Today's cold.

- Today's cold.

- We're gonna do a cold snap comfort type of food right?

- Sure.

- Okay, so.

- Hardy.

- Hardy.

- Yummy.

- Hardy.

Good.

And I have that fish that I want you all to use.

This is skate or Ray.

You know it's called.

- The one that looks like this?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- The one we looked like that, there is different type that I can show you.

I wanna put two piece to cook because that takes a while.

I have boiling water here.

Give me some vinegar.

We put vinegar in the water.

A dash of salt.

And this is not the type of fish that you do kind of rare in the center, that has to cook for about 10 minutes.

So I put it in there, it's gonna curl up a little bit like that.

Come back to a boil.

And we're going to boil it for about 10 minutes.

Very, very gently.

You can see here in the tin, look at that one.

This is a smaller one.

They come, there is all kind of different.

There is at least eight or 10 different by.

(meat slapping) Basically, you want to cut the end of it here, which is the fin.

- [Claudine] It's got all these prickly things.

- [Jacques] Yeah, here on top, especially this one.

- Yeah.

- And then you cut it into slice this way.

- And you just go right through the bone.

And just leave the bone.

- You go right through the bone, there is a tiny bone in the center, which is like a cartilage.

You're gonna see later on I'm gonna show it to you.

Now if you want to do it differently, you can remove the skin right here.

This is the black skin.

As well as the white skin on both side.

This is when you saute and you have no chance of cleaning it up after.

(knife tapping) And I go right to the center.

You see there is that flat bone.

- Yeah.

- Which is like a cartilage.

You see this is a pure piece of meat.

It's really delicious meat.

(knife tapping) See that cartilage here?

Now here I haven't removed the skin, but I can show you taking it like this.

I go right on that cartilage and now we do it.

(knife banging) So this is that piece of cartilage.

- Oh, wow.

- But in the small one, in the small ray, especially when I was a kid, we would serve it all the time with that bone in the center.

In fact, that bone, some people eat it, otherwise we know we put the two piece together like that.

You poach it.

That's more.

- That's very elegant - On the way of doing it.

Now you can see it boiling now.

Gently, I'm gonna put a piece of butter in there.

We're going to do a classic garnish of some crouton.

You dice a radish, (knife tapping) Little dice of lemon.

That's a nice garnish that you can use with any type of fish.

That you want to poach fish.

- It can be filled with that same type of garnish.

We're gonna need a little bit of parsley with that.

- Okay.

- This is the flat parsley, which is really nice with that.

Although, I use a lot of the curly parsley (knife tapping) from my garden when it's small and very tight.

- Smells good.

(knife tapping) - That would be fine.

- Put it in the bowl?

- No.

- No.

- Maybe now this (metal tinging) you can hear it.

- Yeah, it's making nice little sizzling noises.

- This is too big see we can eat it.

- Okay, that's good.

- I put it there.

Okay?

(pan dinging) Now let me check if my fish is cooked here.

- Do you want a plate or a?

- No, I'm gonna put it on the table directly.

- Okay.

- You see the white skin and the black skin comes up.

- It looks like fat almost.

- Very easily.

Well, no, because it's very, very gelatinous.

The one on the other side, so it slide off and then after, let's see if it cooked at the bone.

See it's almost.

- Almost.

- Slightly.

It's still slightly rare at the bone.

- Yep.

- As I told you before, we can serve that with the bone or without the bone.

- This is hot.

I put it back one second here.

So we're going to do a black butter with this.

And the black butter is just a butter that you cook until it come to an Hazelnut color.

(butter sizzling) So if you don't want the butter to burn too much, you can always add just a drop of oil like this.

- But that won't prevent it from being brown.

- No, it won't.

- Okay.

(butter sizzling) - Oh, okay.

Have this drain out, nicely here.

Present it this way.

My butter is about ready.

The other piece.

- This is pretty fast.

- No, it cooked.

It cooked quite, quite fast.

Here now the garnish.

So we want to have those dice of things you want to put.

- You want some capers on top, too?

- Yeah, put some capers.

You want the dice of radishes?

Okay, your caper are beautiful.

- Thank you.

- Now you see that (pan scraping) Hazelnut color here?

This is that black butter.

And we add vinegar to it.

- Oh, stand away.

- Splash a little bit.

(liquid sizzling) That will to do it.

(pan scraping) You emulsifying it, you see you emulsify it together, you put it on top.

(liquid pouring) - Whew.

You can smell that.

- It's beautiful.

- Okay, - Put that beautiful cracked paper on top.

- Perfect.

(gentle music) - And this is our poached ray with brown butter.

Well, I have a beautiful piece of meat here.

- Beef.

- Beef.

But this is the whole strip.

We call it a strip or we call it a shell sometime.

I'm going to cut a piece like that.

Like that large roll steer, which I'm going to clean up completely.

Ultimately though, you have a layer of fat you see on top of it, which I can remove by doing this.

You see, this is very thick, sinewy.

- [Claudine] So you just take that right off.

- Grab a piece like that and you hold it scraping against it.

You see you have, this is not fat, you see it's really.

- Oh, it's tough.

- But that would be very good in stock.

It's very, very gelatinous.

Now a lot of people don't remove that.

I like to clean it up almost completely.

So I'm going to continue cleaning and we wanna brown that all over before we put it in the oven.

By the way, in winter, we ground the fat like that.

You put it in a bag outside and hang it in the tree for the bird, that's what John Claude does.

- I know about.

(hand slapping) - Okay, so pepper.

On each side.

I could even clean (hand hitting) the outside a little more.

And we're gonna start browning that about four or five minutes before you put it in the oven you want it to be nice and brown.

- Okay.

- Okay.

(burner rattling) (lid clinking) Now what I have here is about three four cup of onion.

We're going to do a custard with it.

And those onion, we put about three quarter of a cup of water, a bit of garlic, a dash of oil.

This has been cooking now until it's basically (burner rattling) a puree of onion.

I'm going to put a little bit of a cream in there.

(machine whirring) We want a nice puree.

(machine whirring) Give you a little more liquid here.

Rinse my.

(glass clinking) There.

(machine whirring) I'm gonna give you salt.

- And pepper I hope.

- Pepper in it and the egg.

(machine humming) One.

(machine humming) One second.

That's it.

I put it in there.

Then you can.

- The third one.

All right.

- Okay.

- Okay, I'm going.

(machine whirring) - Good.

That's nice.

(burner rattling) I think that I'm gonna turn my meat here.

It should be brown on the other side.

(meat sizzling) And cook nicely brown on this side.

It stop caramelizing the top and will give you a good crust in the oven and the taste of what you want in the sauce because that's kind of crystallization, so it's good.

You wanna bring that here?

- Okay, they've just been buttered.

That's it.

(liquid pouring) - So this, (food sizzling) you wanna pour your thing in there.

(food sizzling) This will have to put water.

We put that in the oven and that can be done ahead quite a long time ahead actually, because you can reheat them in the hot water to unmold them.

Oh, okay.

- I've been to restaurant where they do it the day ahead.

So let's do the crouton over there.

- Okay.

- And you can cut those right.

To another one here.

Then the best way to do the crouton is to do that.

You use a minimum amount of oil there.

Put a little bit like that and put it and no, you have to dip the other side too.

- I did.

- Oh, you did.

You went faster than me.

That's ready to go to the oven and that ready to go into the oven.

(meat sizzling) But it's nicely brown on the other side also.

(meat sizzling) (rack rattling) I got the other, Claudine.

- Okay, so the croutons on top and the custard in the bottom.

- See, it's easier to put the water when it's in the oven.

Now we're gonna continue with tomato coulis.

Very simple.

We just cut the tomato.

Those are nice rip tomato.

Now I want two, three clove of garlic here.

- Okay.

(hand banging) - Just crush it like that here, now put it in there.

So that goes, I put my tomato.

(food sizzling) And you need a bit of water anyway.

- Okay.

- Half a cup of water.

(food sizzling) Good.

- There's a tomato paste and the sugar.

- Okay, here, that's yours.

- Okay.

- And during that time, I'm gonna start the sauce here for the beef.

(knife tapping) So there I have a bunch of shallots here.

Dash of olive oil.

You want to saute that in there.

(food sizzling) Okay.

This cook pretty fast, eight, 10 minutes it's soft we push it right through the food mill.

So I have shallots in there.

Claudine for you.

This is crushed.

- Bay leaf - Bay leaf.

So you can put that in the there.

I'm gonna give you some garlic.

A little bit of garlic.

- And garlic.

(hand banging) - Just to crush it this way.

Also, again, we are going to reduce it.

(burner rattling) I'm gonna put that bit of cracked paper in there.

That's it.

Yeah, this is good with that.

You use the back of your pan like that and roll it on top of it.

(pan crushing) - Now this is different (pan clanking) than if you.

- It's cracked, go ahead, crack like that applying pressure.

This is what you do for a steak au poivre or something like this.

See it's harder when you use the whole thing.

If you use more of this, that's it.

- [Claudine] It's harder when you're five two.

- That's fine.

Look, it's all cracked when it doesn't make any more noise, than it's cracked.

The pepper like this has more flavor when it's freshly cracked.

Anchovy filet (knife tapping) about two or three.

This is the bay now for my red wine sauce, I call that shell roast snapper because we're going to put a couple of glass of wine.

- Two cups of Sonoma wine in it.

(laughing) It's Sonoma?

- Yes.

Well it's Sonoma, I have to taste it.

I picked Sonoma, it's all right.

This now is gonna come to a good boil and gently boil to about half a cup to three quarter of a cup of reduction.

And then we will add that to the dripping in the roast.

(burner rattling) You see the way it's reduced now?

Cup of wine, it's about.

- Wow.

- Half a cup or whatever, that's what I need.

This is cooked plenty.

- Oh, that would be so good over pasta.

- Right and this, see, feel it like this, that has rested in the oven quite a while.

So now lift that up.

Yeah, lift it up like that.

- Okay, you're gonna take.

- You won't burn yourself.

It has rested, so it's not that hot.

Now you see I put the reduction of red wine in there, in the dripping.

And this.

- That's hot.

- It's alright.

I'm going to bring that to a boil.

(pan scraping) And then to this, we add some demi glace.

The demi glace is a reduced brown stock, it reduced to this until it's slightly syrupy.

And putting some demi glace in there.

It has to cook a few minutes with this.

(Jacques slurping) It should have a strong intensity of the wine.

- Okay.

Oh, you know what you did once when we went out?

Somebody made a sauce like this and you added raw wine right at the end.

- Right.

Oh yes.

A dash of raw wine.

That's a good idea.

I'm gonna do that.

- Okay.

- But first let's do the this.

We have to strain that.

Okay.

(handle cranking) Push this one down.

(handle cranking) Go back, yeah, a couple of times this way, couple of times this way.

(handle cranking) You do that because remember here we have the shell of the garlic, the skin of the tomato and all of this.

So that's good.

And we have what we call a coulis of tomato here.

Dark, rich Sonoma Napa sauce.

(Claudine laughing) Okay, I press a little bit of my shallots here, all that stuff.

Okay, so that have a nice rich sauce.

(spoon tapping) That sauce can be thickened a little bit, if you want it slightly thicker.

You see the consistency of this?

- It's nice.

- Some people finish it with butter, too.

I think we'll put a little bit of potato starch in it.

- Okay.

- To finish it.

So there we can put the red wine that you wanted to give me.

- All righty.

- Because I need very little, you have to dilute any type of starch at the end.

When you do a roux, you actually dilute the starch with the butter, you see.

When you do a pure starch like this it has to be diluted.

If you put hot starch in that, it seized.

- And you're gonna have dumplings.

- Nice little dumpling all over.

So as soon as this touch, it's thicken on contact.

So you don't have to worry much.

What you do you pour a little bit and you stir it, and then you look and you say it thick enough?

- Nice.

- Maybe a dah more.

See I add half a teaspoon.

And now that is more oily, that basically the way.

(slurping) - Now did it change the taste?

- That's good.

The taste, no, the viscosity the feel in the mouth is different and cook it down a little bit.

- Okay.

- Now let's unmold a couple of those thing there.

Your crouton layer.

(knife tapping) Should fit right on top of it here.

You turn it.

- Oh, I didn't know.

- Upside down.

What you have to have is a little bit of air for this to come out.

And sometimes they don't want to come out, you gotta move this in and move it around for the air to come.

- Oh.

- You see?

You understand what I did here?

I turned my knife around.

Turn it, shake it.

If it doesn't come out.

I heard it.

- Right away.

You heard it.

- I did.

I heard it come out.

- That's it.

Well, we'll do three.

All right, so I'm gonna cut my meat.

That you can put there, start arranging those things around.

Maybe you can put a bit of the coulis on top.

Okay, and look at my meat here.

Should be just about great.

I would serve my roast here.

I would serve the meat.

All sliced here.

Am I doing a mess here?

- Yeah, you're doing a mess.

There we go.

- You want to serve your sauce separate anyway, but still a little bit of the sauce.

You can put maybe a sprig of thyme.

- That looks nice.

- And here we are, the shell roast snapper with the onion custard and the coulis of tomato.

(elegant music) - You know, papa, that was a pretty rich meal.

So maybe we could finish with something a little lighter.

- Yes.

- Okay.

- We're going to do a very light fruit dessert.

So there, the first thing we going to take the skin of those orange to do a julienne.

You see, you only take that part of the skin because otherwise it'd get too bitter.

So there we do a julienne with this (knife tapping) and just do into a very fine straight like this.

That's it.

That goes into boiling water here.

And we wanna blanche it so that it doesn't get too bitter.

I mean, you can see the color of the water here.

It's orange.

- And that's it?

The blanche is done?

- Yes, blanche for a few seconds, that's it.

Now here what we have to do is to peel that orange.

You see I move my knife around like this.

That orange has to be entirely nude.

(Claudine laughing) Now this is nice, you see.

To cut this, you cut the first one between the membrane here.

You have one like that.

Maybe you gimme the plate.

Here I have some done already.

As you can see, that one already get right through a pit.

This is not a seedless orange.

The second one, you cut this way, you twist your knife around and it come back next to the membrane.

You see that what I did here?

Cut it next to the membrane.

And again, twist it and it come here.

I have that pit here, which is in the way.

Hey, you're doing pretty good there.

So while you're finishing that up, I'll let you work.

- Okay.

- I'm going to do a little bit of poundcake to serve with that.

We can cut it this way or we can cut it into pieces or little dice.

- [Claudine] That'll be nice.

I like that.

- Then we need to do the sauce with it.

So what do you have here?

Blackberry?

- Blackberry.

- You can see though, they are frozen defrosted.

And it's fine to do a sauce or to do a coulis.

- And blackberry jam.

- Blackberry jam.

Or you could have raspberry jam.

It doesn't really matter, but you try to stay with the same fruit.

- And just right through the food mill.

- Right through the food mill.

(handle clanking) That's it.

- Okay.

- This of course, in there you could put a little bit of, (speaking in foreign language) for example, (speaking in foreign language) is an alcohol of cherries.

Put that in the bottom.

(spoon tapping) A beautiful sauce.

You see where I put it?

Always in the center, not on the side because it'll spread out by itself.

You wanna spread it out.

You spread it out after this way.

You try to arrange it on the side, you make a mess very often.

So here, very simply, I'm going to put a pinwheel of this, fresh the dessert like that for me after a meal.

I mean, it's one of the best thing you can do.

I'm putting a little bit of the.

- Oh, the blanched rind.

- The rind.

- Yeah.

- Because it goes with it.

And I'm gonna use those, or maybe this way.

This way to piece, well that's enough.

So this is our orange and blackberry sauce.

Well this is a feast we have today, Claudine.

- Absolutely.

Nice cold comfort food.

- Yes.

We have that beautiful roast beef here.

- With the onion custard and the beautiful sauce.

And of course the ray.

- The ray or the skate like this.

- Beautiful.

- [Jacques] With the crouton and all that.

And the sweet dessert.

- That's beautiful.

- Acidic and sweet.

- Yes.

- So what are you going to?

- I'm gonna talk to you a little bit before we pour the wine about different wine glasses.

So champagne flutes, why is it shaped this way?

To keep the bubbles in 'cause if you use the big coupe.

Then all the bubbles leave.

So you always wanna have this shape of glass.

- When I was a kid the coupe were the way we serve champagne, now it's.

- Well maybe you had more bubbles.

(laughing) - Yes.

- This is a traditional white wine glass.

This is a traditional burgundy or pinot noir.

You use these because of the way the wine breathes.

That's why you take a different shape of glass.

Then you have the traditional Alsation glass.

This is actually a reproduction of 17th century Alsation glass.

They're coming back into style.

- Okay.

- And then you have a water glass and I'm showing you this.

- Water, I don't drink water at the.

- I know, I know.

But basically what you wanna think about when you're choosing a glass, is not so much the shape, but how thin the crystal is.

And we use nice water glasses to have a glass of wine.

There's nothing wrong with it.

(glass chiming) There you go.

As long as as the wine gets from the bottle into your glass and into your mouth, ultimately that's the most fun.

So for you, I'm gonna pour you a South Australian chardonnay, which you're gonna love.

- South Australian Chardonnay.

Good.

- Yeah, you're really gonna love this.

- That could be a all purpose glass, right?

I can't drink champagne in there.

I can't drink anything.

- You can drink anything you want, but there is a rhyme and a reason for this.

- Yes, okay.

- So it's important.

- That's good.

- And I'm gonna pour myself a beautiful Zinfandel from Mendocino.

(liquid pouring) - Oh the zin.

And it was nice doing that beef, that fish, that dessert with you, Claudine.

Thank you for helping.

- No problem.

- And happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.

(bright music)