- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

I've cooked for presidents and kings, but the cooking I love best is still the comforting food I grew up with.

Nowadays, I make those dishes a little lighter, like a gratin of pasta with lots of fresh vegetable.

I serve Poulet Chasseur, or Hunter's Chicken, stewed with mushroom and tomato with a creamy puree of lime beans, for the dessert, a beautiful tart of white peaches and walnut.

And have a special friend here today to help me prepare it.

Join me for a comforting meal for family and friends, on "Today's Gourmet."

(upbeat jazz music) We have comforting food today, simple food, the type of stuff you do at home, with friend cooking.

And in Lyon, where I come from in France, we always or very often start a meal with a gratin, type of gratin with a mixture of different thing.

And today we're going to do a gratin of ziti, have some ziti here with vegetable.

And as you can see, I just wanted to show you that in our menu we have four ounces of ziti, which is what we have here.

And this is what it looked like cooked.

I have some cooking over there already and I wanted to compare that with four ounces of linguine, which is what it give you cooked.

And those four ounces of linguine, it's like one portion.

So strangely enough, even though a ounce of pasta is a ounce of pasta and the calorie is the same, you seem to get much more out of elbow macaroni or ziti or penne or any of those rather than linguine in term of calories.

So it's a good thing to know.

In any case, with our ziti, we are going to have a big filler.

We are going to have a lot of different type of vegetable in it.

And I'm starting by putting a little bit of olive oil here and some onion, we have at least two or three times the amount of vegetable than the amount of pasta, you know, and it's nice to have that type of filler, you know.

So I have an onion here, about seven eight ounces.

We'll start with this.

Saute the onion, I have with this eggplant, which I have cut already here, that goes in there.

And another type of squash here, which is a, we call that a Patisson in France, which is Pattypan, actually called in English.

And they can get very large.

I like them small like this because they're very firm and they are small.

If you don't have those, you put a regular zucchini, perfectly fine.

So we have those in there.

Here, then we put some beans and a bit of herb de Provence here, a bit of herb, And this has to cook for a while, about 8, 10 minutes to soften.

And I have some which are cooked right here.

And what we have with it now is some olive shaving.

I have some olive there.

I have some corn, which I'm going to put directly in there that we put at the end because it actually cooked very fast.

So we have that, you can, of course, vary your vegetable in that type of thing.

If you don't have one, you use another one.

And tomato for taste as well as for color, you know, so I have the tomato in there, and you have a lot of tomato here.

This will be more than enough.

And basically salt and paper that we have there.

And you have all of your vegetable in there.

So that has to cook for a minute or so.

While it is cooking, I'm going to show you the topping that we put on top of the gratin.

I have a slice of breadcrumb here, a little bit of Parmesan cheese, a dash of olive oil and some chives in it.

All of that is going to go on top of the gratin.

Here we are.

You just rub it gently to have a little bit of the oil on the bread so it create a nice topping.

And finally, our pasta here, which, as I say, our four ounce of penne, which is going to give you that munch pasta.

You can bring all that together and the pasta is going to get thicker even in there.

We bring that into a large gratin dish, so that kind of very earthy fare, you know, and you can see you have a lot in there.

Nice, beautiful color, actually, you could serve it, you could serve it just as is now.

Not necessarily in a gratin dish, you know, and we want put that in the oven now.

I have, of course, another one cooked here.

And as you can see, this would serve a big family.

You know, that type of very earthy, large portion, you know, type of mixture of vegetable and pasta, you know.

(soothing music) The main course today, we're going to do a Poulet Chasseur, the Chicken Chasseur, which mean, or chicken cacciatore in Italian, which is the hunter style chicken.

We're going to do that with thigh, chicken thigh.

And of course, now what we do, we remove the skin, any of the fat really, we get it as clean as possible.

We serve two of those thigh a person.

And be sure to wash your hand after you handle your chicken.

And what we have, I have some which are browning already here for a little while.

So they are nicely browned on each side.

I have a tablespoon of olive oil in it and I have a very sturdy pan and equal heat here to give me the proper crystallization.

So that would brown on each side.

And the next step in it, we're going to put some onion that I have here, some garlic.

And the garlic, I'm just going to crush it and use it as such directly with my onion and some leek.

Leek is also from the family of the onion.

And we'll do a little bit of the same job.

You know, I think I have probably too much or more than enough right here of what I have.

So I'll get rid of the rest.

And now this should probably cook a bit longer.

But basically, that should be brown, another couple of minutes on this side.

And this is what you want and what you want also you can see, in the part, the crystallization of the juice.

That's what create the saute, that's what you need.

Good equal eat and good part, you know.

So we put the onion, the leek, the garlic.

We want to saute this a little bit and stir it.

Stir it with a flat spatula, especially in wood.

Wood or metal is better.

And what we want to do is singe it, what we call singe it.

Put a little bit of flour.

I have about a tablespoon of flour that I'm going to put in there.

Stir it, that's going to give up the thickening agent of those type of country stew, you know, type of things.

In this, I'm putting like a cup of a dry white wine.

You know, a dry, fruity white wine is going to go well with it.

Tomato, tomato in their own juice right here.

So I'm creating the sauce there as you can see.

And in this now, I'm going to put a branch of rosemary.

You know, I can put the rosemary directly in there.

And thyme leaves, all of those herbs from Provence, in the style that I say of the hunter, you know, what you will get, so thyme leaves too.

So I have beautiful color.

We put back the chicken in it, you know, a little bit of salt, a little bit of pepper, for color, sometime I put a dash of of soy in it.

And in addition to that, I want to put mushroom.

And the mushroom that I have here are tiny mushroom as you see.

And I always say you have to wash your mushroom, but wash it as you are using it.

See the idea is not that you should wash mushroom, the idea that you do it when you need them so that they don't discolor and get all mushy and so forth.

But if they need washing, of course you wash them.

And you can see from the color of that water, they do need washing.

So we put this in there and that's about all we have for, all we have in our dish here.

We want now to cover it.

And this should cook for a good 20 minutes, I would say, after it come to a boil, and with this, we are going to serve a Lima beans dish today.

And I have here about three quarter of a cup of small Lima beans and two cup of stock and putting a little bit of the herb de Provence in there.

Again, that mixture of different type of herb, a little bit similar to what I have.

Rosemary, thyme, I even have, I even have those tiny lavender flowers in there, blue.

And you want to put a dash of salt in there, you cover it, bring it to a boil, cook it about 45 minutes to get what we have here, which is the lime beans finished, you know, and all we want to do, we want to keep the liquid in it to use it other thickening, other moisturizer rather.

And we want to put this in there with approximately a tablespoon or so of olive oil for richness in there and emulsify that together.

In there, turn it for a minute.

The puree of peas are really one of my favorite things, you know, the puree of beans like that rather, those beans.

Be sure to clean up the knife also on your machine.

Those are nice legumes, are very good for you.

Those type of beans, you know, very high in soluble fiber, quite rich.

And as you can see here, should take probably more time to clean up the processor here.

It's nice and smooth.

If you feel that it's a bit thick, it's okay because we are going to serve that with the chicken and we're going to have a lot of nice sauce from the chicken with that.

So we put that in there.

And let's see our chicken, it is boiling as you can see nicely now beautifully, but it does take longer to cook.

So I have one which is ready here.

So I'm going to put right here and we're gonna serve that on this.

I have a bit of tarragon here.

We always finish the Chicken Chasseur with chopped tarragon, which I have right there.

And now we're ready to serve.

I have, as I explained before, two of those thigh per person, you know, which is quite generous.

But it is a type of stew, you know, that you do at home or you serve directly on the table like that, you know, when you have the family, you see I have extra so that I can serve on the side or with my Lima beans, serving that this is a beautiful type of family stew, maybe with a spring of rosemary, which we add on top to serve directly with the Lima beans.

(soothing music) I have a special friend today who's going to come and help me to do the dessert.

And Jean-Claude Szurdak, very dear friend.

38 years ago we worked together in Paris for the French president.

- That's right.

- He was the pastry chef.

I was the chef and we had a great time together.

He lived in New York now, he has a great catering business and we're going to cook together during the dessert.

- That sounds good.

- First I'm gonna give him a glass of wine or water.

I know he is not going to work.

- Oh, I don't.

- Give him wine, you know.

- This is a lie.

- So we have a Viognier here, remember the Viognier from (speaks French), in the north part of Cotes du Rhone.

So I think we're going to start, always start in the kitchen with a glass of wines.

- Okay, cheers.

- (speaks French) Do we have to speak French?

You're English?

- Well, you can speak both.

- Both?

Okay.

Now I think we'll speak English.

- Okay.

- I'm going to do a dough here.

And I know you probably don't do the dough in the food processor.

- [Jean-Claude] No, I never do.

- Yeah, (speaks French).

Well, I'll make you work anyway.

That's three table spoon of butter and a little bit of sugar, a dash of salt.

It goes very well with those machine, it's terrific, especially in small quantities, of course, in large quantity, you know.

- This is where I am lost, you see.

- That's where I put a little bit of water in it just to finish it up.

Just enough to get together.

Yeah, it should be together enough.

And we're going to use the same dough here.

When you do a dough directly, you know it's good to let it rest.

Otherwise sometime it's difficult to roll, So it's probably going to, so yeah, you are going to roll it right?

- Okay.

- It's too soft.

- No, no, I'm just not used to this quick machine, you know.

- It's too soft, it's okay, so you roll it.

If you mess it up, it's your fault.

- Okay, we try.

- Oh, you put a lot of flour on top.

- [Jean-Claude] Not really because it's soft, you know.

- [Jacques] I put too much water, all right.

- [Jean-Claude] That's what happened.

- [Jacques] Roll it, don't go too fast so we have time to see.

- At least you have me, you roll it.

You had it a little too wet.

- See, it's good if you do it fast like this and the gluten doesn't have time to develop, you know?

What do you think?

- Yeah, I think.

- All right.

- [Jean-Claude] Yeah, no, no, it's perfect after roll.

- So I have a nine inch, you know, one of those flan ring here.

That's fine for that.

- That's perfect.

Yeah, that's the.

- It's a bit more than what I have in the recipe, but I know you have, you are a good appetite, you know, and so you unroll it on your things.

= Yeah, I could do that.

- I don't do it.

This you mess up here because you were supposed to be, - Don't not mention, we on TV.

- Right?

Okay.

- Okay.

- [Jacques] So if you have hole in it, you know, I don't do hole when I do mine.

- No, but when I make my dough, I don't have any hole either.

- Yes.

- So I don't want to blame you.

- But you do.

Okay, fine, you know I need some of the trimming here.

So what do you do?

You pressing this inside?

- Yeah, in order, in order.

- To, yeah, - In order to.

- No hole inside?

- No, no, no.

- If we have a couple of hole, it's okay.

So I need those trimming here.

- Okay.

So I gonna.

- You wanna cut it off?

- Yeah, I cut it off.

- Okay.

- 1, 2, 3.

What you gonna, what are you going to do with those trimming?

- Well give me the rest of the trimming.

I'm putting it back in the food processor.

And you know what I'm going to do with it?

I'm going to do base for the bottom.

Actually, you show me how to do that when you do tart.

Remember when you do tart, you put back in there?

- Yeah, I mix some sugar and flour.

- [Jacques] Some flour.

- [Jean-Claude] So actually it's almost the same thing.

- [Jacques] Some nuts, yeah, you told me to do that.

Especially in the fruit where you have a lot of liquid, right?

The fruit which have a lot of liquid.

Don't you start cutting the peach with that.

- [Jean-Claude] Okay, all right.

- Those are beautiful white peach huh?

- Oh yeah, those are the white peach.

Just like what I have in my garden right now.

- I know you have that tree in your garden you bought next to my house, huh?

- Yeah.

- So what we'll do, we put a little bit of that in the bottom like this.

Should I start arranging that?

- [Jean-Claude] Yeah, you do, and I continue to cut.

- Yeah, so we put that all around.

We leave the skin and everything here.

You don't go fast enough, I think I'm going to have to help you.

- Well you are going too fast, that's another thing.

- No, but I mean, you know, we are in a hurry here.

- Oh, when?

- The kitchen, we are always in a hurry, right?

Well I tell you, your daughter, your two daughter I've cooked with and they like pastry probably because you are a pastry chef, right?

- Well, they are better in pastry than in cooking?

Definitely - Not clothing, my daughter like.

You wanna put another piece here?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

There.

I think that's it.

We have like three, four peach here.

- Yeah, that's a good idea just to mix.

- We put a little bit of that stuff on top.

And what I'm going to do now, you see it doesn't need anything else?

- No, it looks good, looks very interesting, yeah.

- You want a little more wine?

- Yeah, I will have some more.

Right after that.

- So, you know, we put that in the oven.

You can do that ahead.

You wanna slide it on top to mess it up?

- Put it on.

- I put that at 400 degree, like 45 minute to an hour.

So I'm gonna put it in the oven now.

- That sounds good.

- And have it right there.

Another one which has been done here.

- Oh, you have it?

Yeah, you already have it ready?

- Looks pretty good, what do you say?

- Yeah, yeah, it's ready.

- It's soft.

- Yeah, it's ready, ready, ready.

So we are going to glaze it, we are going to glaze it.

- We can use a brush with that or you can use a?

- Oh, we could do it just simply like this.

This is apricot glaze, right?

You can use peach or apricot, just a preserve that you strain, you know?

- [Jean-Claude] Yeah, like this, it make it shiny.

Look at that, it's beautiful.

- You will spread it out here a little bit.

Put more, for God sake.

Put some in the middle.

- Yeah, but let me, give me a chance.

- Okay.

- You already push it to there, aren't you?

- Yes.

Okay, you know, in the kitchen when we worked together for the president, Claude was the pastry chef on that, and I was the chef, but I end up doing the pastry.

He end up doing the rest of it so that we could train one another.

So I've learned from him, not very often, but I've learned a few things.

- [Jean-Claude] Oh, come on, not very often.

Maybe you're right.

- So what do we do now?

To take it out?

- Yeah, take it out, maybe you unmold it.

- Yeah, you wanna unmold it?

- No.

- You slide it.

- Okay, I will slide it, just unmold it.

- So you put that, that would slide up.

Boy we are lucky, watch out.

You wanna burn yourself?

- [Jean-Claude] No, no, it's okay.

I have good hand.

- A strong finger.

What you putting out of this?

- Yeah.

- I leave it on top.

So when you cut it, you don't mess up your stuff.

If it's in silver, yeah.

- But when you serve, it's ugly, then you know so.

- You're right, you're right.

- Okay, okay.

- All right.

So what do we do?

You want to cut a little piece of this here?

- Yeah.

- Don't you get, you look at those peach, you know, they're beautiful.

- Absolutely, and maybe we.

- You wanna put a piece of that?

- Yeah, maybe we can put a little piece of green.

What do you think?

- This is from the peach tree?

- [Jean-Claude] Yeah, that's the leaf of the peach tree.

- So why don't you, you want to cut a piece?

- Okay.

- Test it.

- Okay.

- I'll help you with my glass.

- Yeah, you have finished your glass.

I just want to let you know, and I haven't even started yet.

You put me to work today.

- [Jacques] It's a small portion you're giving me there.

- There, that's for you.

I take the rest, you know.

- Let me see your dough.

Hey, it's pretty brown.

- No, it's pretty well, it's very well cooked, isn't it?

Good too?

- You wanna test it?

- Yeah, sure.

- That's good, yeah, but you know, I serve bigger portion.

I mean I think you need at least a piece like this to.

- Yeah, but not now, you know.

- Not now, - No, later on.

- Well I think we'll finish up in the dining room later.

- Okay.

- Thank you Claude.

- Okay, thank you.

(soothing music) It is really terrific to be cooking with a good friend like Claude.

It's often we come to Connecticut to my house and we cook together.

I like to give him a hard time.

I tease you all the time, but.

- You do that very well.

- Yes.

- But you cook cook very well too.

- Right.

Well we have a great menu that we did today.

You know, we have that gratin of ziti and the vegetable, remember there is a little bit of pasta and a lot of vegetable in there, very high in carbohydrate type of comfort food.

Then we have the Poulet Chasseur, or the chicken hunting style with all the herb from Provence, you know, we have thyme in it, we have mushroom, we have white wine, we have rosemary, tarragon and so forth with that kind of very flavorful sauce with a puree of Lima beans.

That's, again, is very good in soluble fiber.

It's great tasting and we have a nice salad with it.

And of course the great white peach, walnut on top that Claude rolled the dough and basically made all of the work for it.

And I was there giving him a hard time.

And we have a special bonus today.

I have a whole tray of cheese because you're here.

- Oh, you really do?

- Yes.

- See they look like in France.

- Yes.

- Where do you get these cheese from?

- [Jacques] Those are from the Sonoma Valley.

And they're really terrific.

- See you even have the little Coutin Sauvignon there.

- We have the Coutin, the (speaks French) and all that.

And I think that in the US now I've had some from Vermont, I have some from Maine.

But in the Napa Valley, goat cheese are really terrific.

And they have them also preserved with some herb and olive oil and all this, you know?

- Yeah, they look pretty good.

I can't wait.

- Yes.

- To test those.

- It is good to sit at the table, right?

- Yeah, of course, I mean sitting, having a good dinner like this, you change with that.

You know, we always eat so fast, an sandwich and at least, you know, that reminds me like my family for lunch, we used to spend like two hours no matter what.

We close the store if you have a store.

But here, it's kind of different.

- What about the kid, eat with you?

I mean your two daughter, well they are in college now, but.

- Yeah, but we try to do like we used to do, you know?

- Yes, with your wife and you.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- And you see the type of cooking that I've learnt that is kind of lighter than we used to do, right?

- Oh, definitely, definitely.

- What happened with your customer now?

- Well they want to have something, something lighter also and also a little less in in salt content.

And so I try to please them too.

You know, you have to change, otherwise you lose your customer.

- Yes, less fat too, but still full of flavor, right?

- Ah, well that's the main thing.

And that's why you are a chef and you try to put those things together.

- Yes.

- You know?

- And I think we're going to have a Merlot from the Pays d'Oc here.

The south of France here.

That's going to go very well with the rest of our menu tonight, I think, a nice little glass of wine we had while in the kitchen.

But a couple, while you are reading, especially red wine is great, right?

I know you love red wine, especially with your cheese.

- Absolutely.

- Well it was great for you to come and help me, I love to have you here.

- Well, thank you, thank you for being here.

- Well.

- Thank you Jacques.

- Thank you.

And happy cooking.

- Yeah, happy cooking.