- Hi, I'm Jacques Pépin.

- And I'm Claudine Pépin.

- You know, a lot of people still think of French cooking as rich, heavy, complicated.

- Well, you have to admit, Papa, a lot of it used to be.

- Yes, but most French cooking is really wonderfully simple, light, elegant, full of clean, bright flavor, like elegant trout filet poached in vegetable broth, or rabbit cooked two ways.

- [Claudine] Slabs of potato raclette are a classic winter dish in France.

- [Jacques] And poached pear and chocolate sauce end the meal on a light note.

- Yum, that sounds like the food you cook at home.

Join us for a taste of contemporary French cooking next on Jacque Pépin's Kitchen.

- Encore With Claudine.

Today we're doing contemporary French cooking.

Light food, a poached trout in a vegetable broth.

You know, this is kind of modern and so forth, and a rabbit.

- I love rabbit.

- You love rabbit, yes.

So, what do we start with?

- We start with the fish, the trout.

- With the fish, that's a good idea.

And those trout are going to be poached into a very flavorful vegetable stock, which I have different type of vegetable here.

And Claudine, what are you doing?

- I am scraping an already boiled potato that's gonna go underneath the trout.

- That's a good idea.

- You're showing off.

That's what you're doing.

- Yes, that's what I'm doing.

I could peel the potato also.

- No, it's just- - And you could fry the onion.

Okay.

- [Claudine] Either way.

- Onion.

(water hisses) Chateau sink water.

And here we have a Sémillon, you know, which is a dry, but Sémillon can be dry.

And this one is dry, but still with a mellowness and a bit of a sweetness, which will go well with it.

So, we're going to do the stock with this.

And scallion.

You're still peeling the same potato?

- I'm still scraping.

Actually no, I've done three or four.

You just don't see them there.

- I don't see them, okay.

So, you can add different type of vegetable, but you would not want to put like turnips or cabbage or something which would be too strong.

You know, in those taste, in that vegetable stock.

Here we do a couple of bay leaf.

A nice piece of fresh thyme, carrot.

(knife chopping rapidly) What else do we put in there?

- I don't know, I'm busy.

- You're busy.

All right, so I have my stock here, and I'm going to put maybe a couple of sprig, a couple of strip of lime here in there.

Give you just a bit of a citrus taste in there.

Here that's a beautiful stock.

And in this we're going to put some salt, of course.

And a mignonette.

And mignonette is black pepper corn or white pepper corn.

But the pepper corn are cracked.

Are cracked in there.

And this is a pepper crusher.

You put it flat like this.

(pepper crunching) This is what you do when you do a steak aux poivres.

You see, this is all cracked now, and you dip your steak aux poivres in it.

- What's the difference between doing that and using a pepper mill?

- The pepper mill doesn't do that.

This is the way it's done.

- Okay.

- This is called a mignonette, and we put it in there.

Now the stock is cooking.

Cook a couple of minutes.

Let's see the trout now.

- Oh, I love trout.

- Yes.

Remember when you were a kid.

- We used to go fishing.

- [Jacques] Not me.

- No, Mom.

- Yes, your mother.

- You're not patient enough to fish.

- So, here we can do filet of trout as it's done very often.

Just poaching the trout, and the bone comes out much easier after.

Cut the head, and you see, you go under the gill here if you want to cut this way, and then cut it about here with the scissor if you want.

- Here?

- Yeah, you want to cut a piece like this.

- [Claudine] My scissors are not working.

- [Jacques] Okay.

- I did it.

- You did it.

Okay, this is about cooked.

You see the stock now, Claudine.

- [Claudine] Oh, wow.

- It has to be highly seasoned because the trout are going to taste in it.

- Oh, that's highly seasoned.

- It is seasoned, so you put that in there.

One this way, one that way.

And that's going to take about four, five minute to poach like this.

And during that time we're going to do the dessert, right?

- I love dessert, okay.

- Okay.

I have a wet towel here because pear and trout don't mix together too well.

- No, I'll have to agree with you.

- You didn't touch, oh, you touched the trout.

- Yeah, I cleaned it up a little bit.

- Okay, so what we have here, I have pear which are cooked, cut in segments, in quarter here.

And as you can see, they are tender.

And you want them very tender.

- How long did you cook them?

- Oh, these- - How long the pears?

- Cook about 12, 12-15 minute.

And when they finish cooking, what we did here, we removed the juice that they cooked in and we reduced it.

We have to put water, lemon juice, a bit of vanilla and some sugar.

And this is now reduced to like half a cup at the most.

And this is going to be our chocolate sauce.

- Oh, yay.

- So, let's put the chocolate in it now.

- Yes.

- This is for me, no.

So we have a couple of ounce of chocolate I put in there here, and a little bit of unsweetened cocoa powder.

- [Claudine] Mm.

- This is a bitter chocolate.

Okay, here is my sauce.

You see it melt very fast.

- Yeah.

- And, of course, this should cool off.

So here I have some ice.

Let me put it in there.

And occasionally, you can stir it.

- Okay.

- You don't want to stir it, build it too much, because you don't want to put air in it.

Okay, shall we finish it?

- So, now what's to do?

- What did that look like?

- This looks good.

- Yes, as you can see, the bottom of that pan is getting thick.

Wanna put your finger in it?

- Mm, that is really good.

I'll get you a plate, hang on.

- Okay, here we are.

As we said, this is four pear.

Gotta have the green.

- Oh, that looks really nice.

- Down on top of it.

And this is, that's it.

Our poached pear with chocolate.

(gentle instrumental music) - That looks awesome.

So, let's finish the fish?

- During that time, better check my trout.

And we're going to take the skin out of the trout, and the bone also out of the trout.

(fish sizzles) It is hot.

- [Claudine] Mhm.

- Do you wanna burn your finger?

- Sure, love to.

- No, let me give it to you there.

All right.

- Oh, it smells really good.

- Yeah, see the stock now is reduced, stronger.

And we're going to finish that with a little bit of olive oil and butter.

You see what happened here from the inside, if I pick up the skin like this, it just come out very easily.

- [Claudine] Wow, wow.

- But I have to go all around like this.

Turn now, turn the one on the other side, you see?

You scrape it.

- Oh, that is just awesome.

I didn't think it would be that easy, actually.

- You think it that easy?

- Or, it looks easy when you do it.

- Oh, okay.

And that, now, out of that trout, we have to slide the top off.

And you see what happened is this, if I cut in the center here, I can slide this off the bone.

You see the way it slide off the bone?

- So, that's much easier than taking them off.

- And it slide off the bone on this side if I hold it a little bit here, you see?

Now, I have half a filet here.

Now, all you have to do now is to pick up your bone here, and lift it up this way.

And the whole thing is boned out.

- [Claudine] Wow.

- So, if you want to bring your, I mean there may be a couple of little bone in there, but- - Yeah, but it's fish, I mean.

- Okay, so I put this, one filet like this, another filet like this.

Half of a filet there.

So your trout is this way.

Now my stock here, I'm going to emulsify a little bit of olive oil in there, and put a tablespoon of butter here, Claudine.

And you want to bring it to a strong boil so, it can emulsify together.

- [Claudine] Oh, that looks so beautiful.

- You can decorate it with a little spring if you want.

- I have this.

Okay.

- And this is our poached trout in a vegetable broth.

Well, we're gonna do a braised rabbit with morel, pearl onion, and the saddle of rabbit, we're going to do it in a different way.

The saddle, you know what the saddle is?

- No, where you put the saddle, but... - Where you go sit down when you go horseback riding, yeah, from here to here, this is the saddle.

This is a beautiful rabbit.

You see that?

How white, the meat here, the fat.

It is very high in protein, low in fat.

You know this is excellent.

So, let's cut it.

And you know what?

I have a cleaver here.

I'm cutting it with a cleaver because the bone of the rabbit is really tough.

You know, we go this way.

This is our saddle, you know, we're going to cook it separate, you know, because this dry out a little more.

Now this is the shoulder, you know.

You wanna separate the shoulder here underneath.

You see?

You see the way it's separates very nice?

Do you wanna do the other one?

- Would you like me to do the other one?

- Sure.

You can start right here and cut.

Here, you see where you have the, that's it.

- The sinewy stuff?

- Yeah, keep cutting.

And you see where it separate?

See, I help you.

No, no don't cut into the meat, cut- - [Claudine] Here?

- Yeah, keep pulling on it.

Take the piece out, that's it.

- Keep going?

- Yeah, you know, you see it separate by itself.

That's it.

That wasn't easy, but this is- - That's why I'm learning.

- All right, this is the neck, and the part of it all that is going to be our stew.

You know, that's nice.

So, let's start with the saddle.

So, I'll put that in there.

You wanna put salt and pepper on top of that?

And a little bit of herbes de Provence, you know, you want to put there.

Okay, I'll put a little piece of butter.

Okay, that's it.

- [Claudine] Can I put it in?

- Yeah, we put it there.

Start browning it.

Well, see, this should be folded underneath.

This is the flap.

So, start either browning it this way or the other way.

And then the onion all around.

See, the beginning of the saddle here.

And this really has to brown for about 10 minutes now.

(oil sizzling) Well, that looks pretty good.

What do you think?

- [Claudine] That looks very nice.

- It's brown all around.

So, here is your saddle.

All brown around.

I'm gonna put the onion, put that on the side.

- Okay.

- Leave that for the onion.

And I'm going to put my onion on the side here.

And in that skillet, in the same skillet, actually, we are going to brown this.

- Oh.

- Yeah, to brown that.

Add a bit of salt, of course.

Pepper.

I'm putting some herbes de Provence, also, in there.

(oil sizzling) And this is going to brown.

- Okay, and I'm gonna start making the coating for the saddle.

- Yes, that's true.

So, here is what we have here.

You know what that is?

- I know it's horseradish 'cause I can kind of feel it.

- Can smell it, you know.

You don't really need as much as this, Titi.

- Well.

- You know, a little piece like this, it's really very strong.

- [Claudine] I was just hoping you could cut it for me.

- It's very strong.

And you have a piece of bread there?

- I have a piece of bread.

- About one inch of bread.

- Yeah.

- And we doing a crust with some horseradish here and bread.

So, I'll give it to you this way.

Whoop, here we go, I have a piece right there.

- [Claudine] And that little piece.

- Process it for a few second.

(processor whirring) - I'm gonna put some oil.

- Beautiful.

- I'm gonna put some olive oil.

- You can put oil right there.

- Oh yeah.

(processor whirring) - [Jacques] Okay.

- [Claudine] I think that'll be good.

- This is just to moisten your bread a little bit.

You could have taken it out, and just moisten it with a little bit of oil.

All right, so you wanna brush your saddle with mustard, and then we put that on top.

- I remember- - Meanwhile, I'm going to start turning my rabbit here.

- I remember mustard and this on rabbit since forever.

- When you were a kid, yeah.

- This is home, definitely.

- All right, this is browning nicely here.

Well, watch you put that on top, you put it nicely, I mean not like, you don't want really too press it because you don't want to do it gooey, but you want to do a nice coating, okay.

And that has to the oven now for, well, about 15 minutes, you know, at 400 degree.

You wanna put it into the oven?

- Yep.

- Okay.

And then, we have beautiful mushroom, wild mushroom here.

This is morel, those are very expensive.

Those are a black morel.

And you know, one ounce of morel, one ounce of dry morel is about one pound of fresh one.

This has to go in water.

We put them in water.

When you put it in water like this, we put a little plate on top of it to keep them under the water.

And after they've been there for a while, see those have been cut.

They look this way.

And very often you want to cut the center, because the center is hollow.

See, the center is all hollow, and sometime there is dirt inside.

- [Claudine] Oh, oh, okay.

- And that's why those one we cut in half.

What we're going to do here, gimme a little bowl.

I press this out.

- Okay.

- I press this out again, because we'll cook that at the end of the cooking, won't take more than 15 minutes.

Okay, and during that time, maybe we can continue with the rabbit.

What I will do here is to put a little bit of flour, what we call "singer", about a tablespoon of flour is going to go on top.

And I need some shallot.

In fact, I should have put the shallot first, but I forget, you didn't tell me.

- Oh, the shallots won't know.

- The shallot won't know, the rabbit will know.

(Claudine laughs) - Okay, about two or three tablespoon of chopped shallot here.

Seem to me I'm working a lot, you're not doing much here today.

- I'm learning.

- Okay.

- I'm learning experience.

- And you want to stir your rabbit, or saute it like this so the flour goes all over, and putting some white wine in there.

(wine sizzling) At least a table spoon, Claudine, right?

And the juice of the morel, and again, I mean look at the bottom of this, we already strain it once.

You always pour it slowly because you see that.

- [Claudine] Wow.

- Some residue, you know.

So, you always watch for this.

Bring that to a boil.

Let me look at it, taste it.

We need salt in there, pepper.

And all I have to do, now, I have to cover this and cook that for about 45 minute.

After 45 minute, you put your onion that we have here and your mushroom, cook that about 10, 15 minute.

And at that point, at the end, you can add your liver and your kidney to cook a couple of minute more.

That's about it.

So, this is for the end.

And during that time, let's do our potato.

- That sounds good.

- Okay.

- All right, time for raclette.

- So, we are two potato.

We're going to do what here?

- We're gonna scrape 'em off - And do what?

- And make raclette.

- Raclette, what does raclette means in France?

- To scrape.

- To scrape.

So, this is not really because of the potato, it's because of the cheese, which is called raclette.

There is a special cheese, usually from Switzerland, the best one is from Switzerland, called raclette, and in winter, especially at the ski area, you boil those potato, you have them lukewarm, and you put a big lump of cheese in front of the fireplace, and the thing melt on the side, you grab the melted cheese, put it on your potato and eat it.

- And it's so good!

- With those sour pickle, the little cornichon like this.

- And white wine.

- And you drink a lot of white wine.

- Gotta have white wine.

- Le Fendant du Valais, you know, the white wine from Switzerland there.

So, this, we are going to cut it into three piece.

Yeah, you do like large slab like this, you know?

How is yours?

- I'm fine.

- You're doing very good.

You want me to cut it?

- Yes.

- You start cutting the cheese.

Maybe you can use the- - Oh, okay, cool.

- Okay, here we are.

We can do this.

You cover it with as much cheese, of course, as you want.

- [Claudine] Can.

- Okay, and then we'll put a little bit of ground pepper here.

You wanna put some paprika here, Titi?

- Lemme just do it over this.

- And there do that like this, hop.

And you wanna put that under the broiler.

Not too close to the broiler.

Especially, if your potato have been cooled off now, you want them to have a chance to get hot.

Usually, you do that with one potato.

So, you wanna put that under the broiler.

- All right.

- Okay.

- And you're gonna finish the rabbit?

- Yes.

At that point, you know, of course, my rabbit is still cooking.

It will still need quite a while for me to put this.

But as I said, after 45 minutes, that's what you would want to do.

Continue cooking for another 15 minute, and in the last five minute, three minute, that's where you would want to put this.

Give you an idea.

Okay.

Here I have one which is, of course, totally cooked.

You could actually, you know, in a beautiful pan like that, serve it directly there.

But this is type of stew.

We used to do some dumpling in there also.

Bread dumpling, which go in there.

I mean, your rabbit has to be quite tender here.

You want a bit of green on top of this?

- Okay, I'll get you some greens.

What do you wanna do with it?

- Oh, chive, we put it this way.

And this is a rabbit stew for contemporary French cooking.

(gentle instrumental music) Okay, Claudine, let's check out the saddle.

- Sounds good.

- And let's see your potato there.

- Need to get the potatoes?

- Mm, they need a while still.

- Okay.

- Quite a while, yeah.

- You get the saddle.

- Okay, we have another one here.

- Okay, we have another saddle which is ready there.

Looks nice, small.

- [Claudine] That looks beautiful.

- So, let me take it out this way.

You know, I could serve it directly in this, or in a small oval thing.

And at that point- - I'll get you a... - One, two, four, and you will serve serve.

- Now I know you, you're gonna want some green on everything.

- Yes, but let me first put it in there, you know, arranging my saddle right there.

- With maybe some of the natural juice?

- Of course.

I'm not going to throw that out.

(Claudine laughs) - Ah, that looks so good.

- And maybe a little bunch of water cress at the end there.

You know, that would be a nice, actually it would be considered this a more elegant dish than the stew, you know, so that would be great.

- Absolutely.

- So, you wanna check the potato again?

You know what?

- That looks good.

- Yes, you think they're enough?

- [Claudine] I think so.

- Okay, will we take them out?

Ooh, they are hot.

- Yeah.

Be careful, don't burn your fingers.

- I know you like this.

- I love this.

- This, you like the potato, right there, you know, when the cheese, it's just is nice and gooey, you know?

- Yep.

- Mm, this is good.

And this is the saddle of rabbit with a horseradish crust and the potato raclette.

So, today, here we are, we have a beautiful meal, contemporary French cooking, including the trout poached with a strong vegetable broth, you know, and the rabbit two ways with the potato raclette.

I know you're going to like that one, right?

- [Claudine] Oh, yeah.

- And the other saddle?

- I love the saddle because it's home cooking for me, with the mustard and the horseradish.

So, I'm really excited about that.

- And the pear?

- Yes, I will definitely- - [Jacques] But you don't like chocolate?

- No, I'll save room for dessert today.

And I set the table nicely just for you, with the fish forks and fish knives.

- Oh, that's right.

You have the fish fork and knife, that's beautiful, Claudine.

- So let's have some wine.

- [Jacques] Yes.

- I have a Sancerre.

That is from upper Burgundy.

And that's what I'm gonna have.

What are you gonna have?

- I'm going to have a pinot noir from the Russian River Valley.

And this is a really deep type of pinot, you know, which I love.

And I really going to enjoy it with my rabbit, and I'm going to enjoy that almost as much as I enjoy cooking with you.

- Thank you very much.

- It was great.

And until next time, happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.

(gentle instrumental music)