- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

- And I'm Claudine Pepin.

Papa, I wanna invite my boss over for dinner and it really needs to be special, and you're not my father for nothing.

Will you come over and cook it for me?

- No, but I will show you how you can do it.

We'll prepare a menu that is testy, elegant, and impressive.

- I'm not sure I'm really ready to tackle something so complex.

- Don't worry, it's not that hard.

It just takes some planning and a bit of extra time.

So we'll be cooking for your boss.

- Next on "Jacques Pepin's Kitchen."

- "Cooking with Claudine."

- Hi, Papa.

- Hi.

- I have to cook dinner for my boss next week.

- Oh yeah.

- And I really, well I told you that, but I really wanna make something nice.

- I know.

I know.

- So what have you been practicing with?

What are we gonna make?

- I've been practicing, 'cause I want you to get a raise, you know?

I need you to get a raise.

So you know, we're going to do a nice menu.

I'm gonna show you here.

We're going to do a polenta gateau, you know, a kind of polenta cake, all layered with different type of vegetables here.

Just put some of those snow peas here.

- Mm, I love those.

- Like this.

And we're gonna cook a little bit of carrot, and we just cut the carrot into strip like this.

- [Claudine] In the same water?

- Yes, you can go this way, yeah.

Try that vegetable peeler.

It's really great to do that.

And we cook that a couple of minutes.

See that?

That's it.

You can cook it.

No, keep in the same place.

Don't turn around, so that make them wider.

Okay.

That's it.

- Okay.

- I have plenty.

So this is going to cook for about a minute, minute and a half.

Here.

- Thank you.

- And those snow peas cook for about a minute, minute and a half, two.

Just take them out.

I did not even refresh them.

I feel that they get a bit more of a taste this way.

A dash of salt.

Put a little bit of olive oil in there.

And we can stir this, you know, to season them.

Right.

We have this cooking.

And what we are going to do, we're going to cook the polenta directly in the water of those vegetables here.

So it will be already a flavored water.

And we cook some spinach.

The spinach, I just wash them, put them into a hot pan, a dash of salt, a little bit of olive oil.

And then they are cooked, still lukewarm.

So we're going to do a sauce there.

And for the sauce, we need a little bit of onion.

So I'll chop the onion.

Or you chop the onion?

- You can chop the onion.

Is there anything else that I could do?

I don't like chopping onion.

- Yeah.

You don't like to chop onion, huh?

Before we do that, I'm going to remove those carrots.

I think those carrots are cooked enough here as long as they are soft like this.

And in the same way we are going to season those carrot with a little bit of a, again, you know, a dash of salt to season everything.

Just a trickle, a little bit of oil.

And that's it.

I want to start on my polenta too.

I have 3/4 of a cup of polenta and then I add three cup of water there.

You know, with polenta?

So you just bring it down gently like this, mix it with a whisk, you know, so it doesn't stick together.

Bring it to a boil, and that cook pretty fast.

I mean this is, you know what polenta is?

- No, but you're gonna tell me.

- Well, it's corn, you know.

You know it's corn.

- Yeah.

- Corn mush polenta.

And you have the yellow corn, the white corn, and those, you can buy different type on the market.

But those cook pretty fast.

Five, six minutes.

But it is going to get thick.

You see the way it's lean now, liquid.

- Is it the same as grits or anything else?

- Well, grits is white.

White hominy, you know, but it is the same basically.

Yes, it's all, it's all corn.

So we put a little bit of onion there.

That's it.

So a little bit of onion.

I'm gonna put in that oil to saute.

Now look, stir it occasionally, starting to thicken, pretty much, you see?

In fact, you know, even though if you do it ahead, it may get a little too thick.

So at that point, what you do?

Add a little bit of water.

- Okay.

- We have pignoli nuts here.

That's a little expensive, but it's nice, you know.

So here we want to saute that with the onion.

And on top of this, we are going to add the tomato that you are doing here.

- Okay.

- But you see, look at my polenta.

- Wow.

- Getting thick now.

Okay, it's practically ready.

You want to put?

Yeah, go ahead.

- Put it in?

- Yeah.

So this, we want to cook that a couple of minutes until the tomato gets soft, you know?

Yeah.

- It's a great pasta sauce, too.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Just like that.

- You know what, we could cover that also.

It'd be nice.

I don't know whether we can find me a lid here.

- Sure.

- And I'm going to, oh, you know I have a skillet here.

- I was just gonna do that.

- Put the skillet right on top of it.

Okay, that will cook a little faster.

And now I think we can do a polenta.

We can put it together.

You see the way it is it?

The texture that it has now, how thick it is?

- Did you put salt, pepper, or anything in there?

- I forgot.

- Okay.

- No, you're right.

I need to put a little bit of salt.

I didn't put salt in the vegetable water.

So salt and pepper here.

- Okay.

- That's it.

Okay.

So you have that little bowl here, about four cup.

Why don't you oil it a little bit?

You want put that into a bowl that you can unmold, you know.

That's it, just, and go at it with your hand, eh?

- My hands are clean.

- I hope so.

- Well, yeah.

- Work in the kitchen.

Your hand should be clean.

Okay, so we put this in the bottom.

Why don't you put the spinach on top there?

- Okay.

- You know, like this.

We want to put the spinach, you want to press them into it a little bit.

Okay, let me give you a little more.

And now you put the carrot.

- The same way?

It doesn't have to be perfectly ordered?

- No, no.

Just put them.

- Okay.

- Press them into it.

You want to have a layer, but you want to see it from the side.

It's nice.

- Oh, I get it.

- Okay.

Then I'll give you a little more polenta here.

And then you want put the snow peas on top of it.

- Mm.

Snow peas are good.

- Good, good.

And we put that on top.

And if you do it ahead, you want to keep that into a double boiler, you know, like for an hour.

- Really?

- An hour.

Yes, absolutely.

Like we have one here.

You want me to get it?

It's heavy.

But you put it in water like this, you see?

And I have it in.

Okay, we can get rid of that.

In the hot water, it can keep it hot for an hour.

See the tomato are just falling apart now.

And that's what I want, you know, just falling like this.

That's great.

Into a bit of a puree like this.

Salt, pepper.

Okay, we're ready to unmold it.

Now you want to get me the... Don't forget to remove your plastic.

And then you put that this way to turn it upside down.

You want to have a little bit of, you see the little bit of air going?

You know, maybe you have to push it the side up to let a little bit of the air going into it.

And then we put a little bit of the tomato sauce.

We can put some.

- Ah, this is great.

- All around like this.

And you can actually serve a little bit on the side more if you want.

You think you're going to like this?

- Oh, definitely.

- You think your boss is going to like that?

- Oh, yeah.

- It's beautiful, huh?

- It is.

- I think this is a great first course to impress your boss.

So let's do the main course now.

- All right.

- So the main course, we're going to do a couple of different dish, I thought, you know.

I wanted a carrot crepe.

And a carrot crepe is done very easily.

What I have here is just cooked carrot, you know?

- Oh.

- I cooked the carrot.

So we're going to do that in the food processor.

So you have a food processor there, put your carrots in it.

And the way I cook the carrot, I put about a cup of water in it so that at the end of the cooking time I have a couple of tablespoon of water left and that's it.

So we put that in there.

Two tablespoon of flour.

One tablespoon of corn starch.

Why don't you start turning it a little bit so I see what it looks like.

- All right, there we go.

- That's it.

Good.

So we put- - Keep going?

- Put two eggs.

I'm putting an egg now.

Go ahead.

Putting the second egg.

Very simple recipe.

A little dash of sugar for the carrot.

Then a little dash of salt and pepper and milk.

Okay, I have 1/4 of a cup of of milk here.

- Is that good?

- That's good, Claudine.

So now you can take it out and put it in there.

In the meantime, what I'm going to do is to put a little bit of the green scallion in it.

So this is an easy thing to do.

You can do that with peas, you know?

A puree of peas like that, then it's green, or a puree of carrot, it's red.

So you can do different type of vegetable done in this manner into little type of pancake, you know, that you can saute in a skillet, as we're going to do right there.

So I'm going to put a dash of oil in there.

Just a dash of oil.

Okay, so here is what we do, you see?

Put a tablespoon in there.

Well, barely a tablespoon, you know.

Put another one here.

And after I have done it, you know, I bang it a little bit like that to flatten them out.

- Oh, okay.

- You know?

- What is this?

- So let's cook that for a couple of minutes.

I have some warm in the oven, you know, that I've done ahead.

And with that, we are going to do the veal.

So I have that nice beautiful piece of veal here.

Look at that.

- Wow.

- And this would be the top round, you know, the part of the back leg, the larger muscle.

This is totally lean, totally clean, and all that.

A beautiful Provimi veal.

And we can cut, you know, large scallopini.

You know, this way you will have a scallopini, like you do for a Wiener schnitzel type of thing.

- Looks really good.

- Yes.

Veal is expensive, but it's worth, you know, when you have good quality.

We have this one here, and we're going to season it, and we're going to saute that with, again, a tiny bit of olive oil, and a dash of butter here.

I put one in.

Okay, so why don't you put a little bit of salt and pepper on each side here.

You know, you could pound this out also, you could pound it with a meat pounder.

- What does that actually do except for make it flat?

- Just to make it equal size all over so it cook in the same way.

It looks a little better, too.

Okay, so this is hot now.

You want to put that, you wanna put them to cook.

And remember the way I showed them to you, don't put a scallopini this way so it splatter toward you.

Put it down and away from you, you know?

Okay.

You can put the other one in.

That's it.

All right.

- I have one more but I don't have room.

- Yes, you have room.

You have plenty of room.

Oh, okay.

We use that to turn it.

This is very good.

You don't make hole in it.

You see the way those slide here?

- Wow.

- Let's see whether they are ready.

We turn them this way.

See that?

- [Claudine] Oh, they look great.

- [Jacques] Look how beautiful they are, you know?

- It's easy but it's very elegant.

- It is very elegant.

Yes.

And we cook them a little bit on the other side too.

It's good when you do them at the last moment, but frankly, you know, if you wanted to do them ahead, I have some in the oven, as I told you.

You put them and you reheat them, you know, in a hot oven or under the broiler.

You don't want to cook them at too high temperature, you know?

Because that coloring is nice, but you don't want them to get dark, you know?

- Okay.

- On the other hand, the veal should cook at high temperature.

So what we have in our veal, we have some mushroom, and the mushroom can be cut in half, into quarter, or left whole if they are really tiny mushroom.

We are going to put a dash of cream in it, some lemon juice, and some shallot.

You see the shallot here?

- Lemon juice, won't that coagulate the cream?

- We put it just as the seasoning at the end.

- Okay.

- You're right.

If you put too much and boil it together- - I've done that.

- It may, you know.

Especially with milk more, even.

- With milk more than with cream?

- Yes.

- Oh.

- Okay, so let's cut the shallot.

Fine.

You want me to cut it?

- Yes.

(laughs) - You make me do all the work, right?

All right.

- Oh, it smells good.

- The veal, you don't really want your veal to be too cooked.

About 45 seconds to a minute on each side for scallopini.

So why don't you remove it?

Put it on that plate here.

- Okay.

- Because you want to let it rest.

If you have a big party, you want to have a couple of different skillets to saute them in, you know?

Okay.

- Big party.

This is a big party that I'm doing.

- Right, it is a big party.

- And I leave this just like this?

- Yeah, you leave that just like that, because in the dripping, now we're gonna put the shallots, you know, to cook a little bit with the mushroom.

I think we'll put the mushroom, too, now.

What do you think?

- [Claudine] I think that's a good idea.

- You know a little bit of the moisture of the mushroom should come out.

So if I cover it for a second, the moisture will come out, and that's what you want to do.

Do you want to get the other one in the oven of those here?

I think I put them in a small oven there.

You want to season it with lemon also, but you want to put that at the end.

Let's see what those look like.

As you can see, those are a bit thinner, maybe, than the other.

- Mm.

- You know?

They're nice.

- Oh, wow.

- Wanna taste it?

- Yes.

- Nice taste of carrot, huh?

- Mm-hmm.

Oh, this is great.

- I think your mother would like that.

She doesn't like cooked carrot.

I can warm them up, you know, put them here and keep them warm like this.

You know?

Actually, I could put them right there in a warm oven, you know?

Now let's see.

You see our mushroom now our sizzling.

- Oh, man.

- And I have, you see what you want to have, Claudine, here.

The crystallization of the juice in the bottom, you know?

So we're going to put a little bit of cognac in it.

- Oh.

- You want to flambe it?

Pyrotechnic cooking?

- (laughs) Woo!

- Now when you do that, don't put your nose.

- No, I would try not to do that.

- And with these, by then the alcohol is gone, basically.

See, the alcohol will rise in the form of vapor as it get to a certain temperature.

And if you happen to put a match, you see it go.

If you don't put a match, it'll go anyway, you know?

So it end up being the same thing.

So likewise- - That smells good.

- Likewise with the white wine, you know.

So I want to cook that white wine a minute or so also to eliminate the acidity in the white wine, you know?

And then we'll add our cream.

And we can garnish the whole plate together.

You think you know how to do those now?

- I think so.

- Yeah.

- I'd like to take a couple of practice runs before I actually cook for my boss.

I hope you like them, 'cause I'm gonna make 'em for the next two days.

- Oh good.

You're gonna practice?

Now in that case here, you know, I would use two tablespoon of cream per person at the most.

So it's not a big deal.

- That's, yeah.

- Because you reduce it just to put at the end.

Should probably reduce a little more.

You see, it's important to have a good pot and a thick pot so that you get nice crystallization.

What I'm telling you is that if you have a thin pot in stainless steel and it burned, so you have burnt stuff in the bottom, and the juice is already bitter.

- Can I borrow the pot?

- You can borrow the pot.

You have pot at home.

I'm giving you pot.

All right.

Bring them to a boil.

And a little bit of the lemon juice at the end.

You know, we could even put a little bit of a lemon garnish on top.

- Okay.

- Can cut that in half like this as we've done that.

- All right.

- You know.

- [Claudine] Could you do it again?

- You've seen it once.

That's enough.

Okay.

Get me a large spoon for that.

I wanna season that with, again, a dash of salt and pepper.

And the plate.

The plate in the back.

Yes.

So we're gonna put two nice scallopini there.

You always have, when the meat cook, you have reduction, which come, you put it back in there.

- Oh.

- And... Put a little bit of chive on top, you know.

But first.

- Do you want them cut or do you want them long?

- Cut it the way you think it would look nice.

You know, you can cut a couple of piece on top.

This would look good.

You think it's big enough?

- Gonna make fun of my decorations now?

- And I think that you're gonna get a raise with the veal scallopini in cream and mushroom sauce with a carrot crepe.

- I think food can create a lot of different moods.

And one of them is elegance and refinery.

I mean, there are different ways you can present yourself through the food that you make.

- Well, I think we better do a dessert for your boss.

Because on a nice dinner, you should have a nice dessert, right?

- Definitely.

- So we're going to do a strawberry clafouti.

- What's a clafouti?

- Well, a clafouti usually is done with cherries, you know, conventionally.

And you can do it with cherries or other fruit.

It's cherries with a custard on top of it.

So what we want to do is just to cut the top of this so you can keep that for decoration and cut it in there.

You know, we have about two cup of strawberry in there.

So we want do the custard.

Oh, you're working here?

- Yeah.

I'm helping.

- Okay, so there, let me give you 1/4 of a cup of sugar here.

And two eggs.

Why don't you mix it?

Okay.

You think it's easy to make this way?

- I don't know.

I just grabbed it like a pencil 'cause- - Yeah, that's good.

- I'm more used to a pencil.

- Otherwise, you know, this way, but otherwise this way, when it's harder, because you need that strength here.

Okay.

And I'm giving you a tablespoon of corn starch in there.

That's it.

Mix it good.

A little bit of vanilla.

You know, if you want to avoid there, the corn starch may not mix exactly well.

You could have mixed it with the sugar.

- Oh, the corn starch?

Oh, okay.

- Okay.

That's mixed.

And I've got a cup and a half of milk, you know?

That's it.

- That's it?

- That's about it.

Yeah.

So it's pretty easy to do.

And as I say, again, you can do it with cherry or other type of fruit.

So why don't you, we put it right on top of this.

Should fill up the mold.

That's right.

- Okay.

- Then put it on that tray.

All the time, put it on that tray, because when you put it into the oven, if it goes above or if a little bit spill over, it goes on your tray.

So I'm gonna put that in the oven.

There it is.

I have one which is cooked over there.

And by the time it's cooked, as you can see, it's set, you know?

- [Claudine] Yeah.

- See the thing set like this?

We can put a bit of powdered sugar on top of it if you want.

You are gonna do this.

Good.

- It's good 'cause it makes noise.

- It makes noise.

Do you want to decorate with this?

- Yeah.

Oh, this looks really nice.

- Looks good?

Okay, very simple dessert.

You can serve that with a cookie and maybe a glass of champagne or something.

Well, I'm really happy you invite me to taste the menu you're going to do for your boss.

Looks terrific.

- Well, I couldn't have done it without your help, that's for sure.

- Well, you know, we have that beautiful polenta gateau.

- How many people do you think that'll serve?

- Well, in a menu, within the context of a menu, that could be a main course, but in a menu that could serve easy four, six people, you know?

- Okay.

- And maybe just the two of us if that all we eat, we probably can eat the whole thing.

And then you have the scallopini, small scallopini veal like that, saute.

A bit of cognac.

- You forgot the lemon juice.

- Well, I forget the lemon juice in it.

You're absolutely right.

Yes.

But it's okay.

You're not crazy about lemon.

- I know.

So I didn't say anything.

- Then we have those little carrot crepe.

You can see, beautiful.

This is very, very delicate.

And they'll be good with fish as well as with meat or poultry.

And finally, we are a little clafouti here.

It's very nice.

And as you can see, the color of the sugar on top of it is going to disappear because it melts as it goes.

So at the last moment, you may put back a little bit of sugar if you want to.

- Why does it melt?

- It melt because it's wet on top.

You know, the custard is wet.

- Oh, okay.

- And it may render a lot of juice also.

So with that, I figure we'll have two good wine today.

- Okay.

- We have a Gavi here from Italy.

Of course, it's 100% Cortese, which is the grapes used there.

And one of my favorite, a great wine from Hermitage from the Rhone Valley here, and Hermitage La Chapelle, that's really very good.

And it's really actually not quite ready yet.

That thing is good after like 10 years or so.

But it's a very, very powerful wine.

Scent is very dense and rich.

And I'm sure this is going to go great with our meal.

I hope you enjoy our cooking for your boss today.

I hope you're going to get home and cook for your family as well as for your boss.

We love doing it for you.

Happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.

(upbeat music)