(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

- And I'm Claudine Pepin.

You know, one of the best reasons to spend time in the kitchen is to cook for the one you love.

Food and love just go together.

- I feel very fortunate to have grown up with so much of both.

- Thank you.

- Sometimes you just feel like cooking a special meal for a very special person, maybe a bit of wine, some flowers, you know.

- I think I'm gonna like this menu, you never know when something like this might come in handy.

- A special touch can go a long way.

Today we'll cook Cuisine D'amour.

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

We have a great menu for you.

We call it "Cuisine D'amour" love cooking.

Because when you cook, you always cook for the other, it's always giving.

Whether you cook for your friend or your lover, or your mom, your dad, it is Cuisine D'amour.

So we are going to do a classic meal for you, we're starting with a blanquette de veau.

And it's done with a piece of veal, I have a piece of the shoulder here, and actually this is going to be very tender.

And I have a lot of veal here, because our recipe's for four.

I think here I have a pound and a half, and this is what I need.

But that, you could do a very nice roast with that.

- Yeah.

- Terrific roast.

It would be quite tender, you know?

So we're going to cut that into pieces.

Approximately an inch and a half to two inch.

See, I don't like stew when it's cut into very tiny pieces.

I like it in large pieces, - Yeah.

- Like this, right?

- It gives it a more country kind of- - Yeah, more filling.

So here I have- - More substance.

- 3/4 of a cup of water.

And we put 1/2 a cup of white wine here.

And we're doing a dash of salt in there, a little bit of pepper, and the first part is right there.

So now we are going to put herbs in there, what we call a bouquet garni.

Okay, and we put that with our veal, right in there to give flavor.

And, of course, when that starts boiling, I'm gonna cover it.

You can skim a little bit of the scum if it come to the top.

So the rest that we are going to do now, the garnish for it, we're going to do onion.

And you have onion right there.

- Um-hm.

- So those are tiny onions.

- [Claudine] Yeah, these are pearl onions.

- Okay, so what we are going to do is to put that, because you wanna cook that about 10 minutes with the veal.

And the veal, of course, is just barely coming to a boil now.

And after 10 minutes, we put the small onion in it.

And the second garnish that we're going have is mushroom.

And, again, here we have the fairly small mushroom, right?

- [Claudine] Yeah, I love these kind.

- Yes.

So what we wanna do, let's imagine that this has been cooking for five minutes, maybe, the onion, so you can put your mushroom in there.

And you can see here, it doesn't seem to have that much liquid, but the veal is going to render out a great deal of liquid.

And that has to cook for, as I say, another five minutes with the mushroom in it now.

I think we're going to do the vegetable.

- Sounds good.

- Do you know what we do with vegetable?

- We're doing potatoes with apples puree.

- Yes.

- [Claudine] Which is gonna be really, really nice.

- So we have about a pound, pound and 1/4 of this.

Okay, so what I'm going to put here is a little bit of salt, and then we have a cup and 1/2 of water there.

So I'm gonna put that to cook here.

And I have another one, which is cooked right there.

After it comes to a boil, you cook that for 30 minutes, you know?

And we have it here, so you know we can do a puree out of it.

- Can I do it?

- Wanna do it with that?

- Yes.

I love this.

- Okay.

(blender whirring) That's it.

(blender whirring) That's it, that's the idea, you're exactly right, you're pushing it.

And I give you a tablespoon of butter with that.

(blender whirring) - Is that enough or more?

- Mm, good, and yeah, just add a dash of the salt more, Go ahead.

(blender whirring) Okay, that's fine now, beautiful.

So now we are ready to remove the mushroom and the onion.

So what we'll do there, we'll leave the bouquet garni here for the time being, for a minute.

And I'm going to put the veal...whoop.

Put those piece of veal right there, and my mushroom and onion.

So here it is.

- It smells good already.

- It smells good, huh?

So now what we do, I put back my bouquet garni and the meat back into the stock here.

And then that has now cook for an hour and 1/4, about, on low heat until it's nice and tender.

And what I have here, we have one, and it has been cooking for that amount of time.

So, you know, the only thing that we have to discard now is this.

(pot clangs) So what we are going to do now is to thicken it a little bit with a sludge.

And we're going to do that, we have a tablespoon of flour here.

And we can put a little bit of water- - Have some water.

- Like a tablespoon of water also in there, yes.

You wanna mix that together.

So all of that here, I don't have that much, I'm gonna put right here, Claudine.

You see that?

You see where there is a bit of liquid?

- Uh-huh.

- I put a little bit of that and stir it very fast so that it doesn't take right away, you know?

Put it again.

- So it doesn't make a really thick, thick sauce.

It just kind of- - No, no, no, no.

It's going to be just slightly oily, you know what we want.

But now that you've done this, you wanna cook that for like a few minutes, you know?

And we can cover that.

Wanna bring back this here, we're going to put lemon in it, lemon juice.

And then we are going to put those tiny, little pickle.

- Oh, cornichon.

- That, the cornichon.

This has to be cut (knife clatters) like this, you wanna slide this.

Actually, watch out for your finger again.

Okay.

And this is quite, those are gherkin done in vinegar, some thyme, with a bit of tarragon, so.

And now this has cooked long enough with the roux.

What I want to add to it is the cream.

Now, what I have here is 1/3 of a cup of cream, not too much more than a tablespoon per person, which is fine, and it's going to be quite delightful with this.

So we put back our onion and mushroom in it in the stew, We're ready to serve it now.

So if you wanna- - I'm gonna get a plate.

- Give the plate, yes, a large plate.

You see, this is is going to be a real... oh, and the cornichon.

Where are the cornichon?

- I have them right here.

- All right, well, you can sprinkle them on top.

- Oh, they just go right in?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Oh, okay.

- But the acidity of the cornichon goes so well with it.

You know, I have that here.

- [Claudine] Oh, this looks great.

- Let me put the rest of the sauce in there.

See, I have plenty.

- Yeah.

- And then you wanna put that on top, yes.

Decorate this.

Yes.

- Like that.

- And what we are going to serve, now, that's nice.

And we'll serve that with that mashed potato.

Mix it together.

- I didn't get to taste this.

- And we'll put that.

You didn't get to taste it?

- No, I wanna taste.

- We have plenty like this, you wanna taste it?

Go ahead.

- Mm.

- I brought that lid thing you put on top.

And this is our main course for the Cuisine D'amour, the veal blanquette and the potato-apple puree.

(triumphant music) And now let's do one of our favorite dessert, the caramel custard with a cognac sauce.

- Sounds good.

- Let's do it.

The first things we're going to do is the caramel, and what I have here, 3/4 of a cup of sugar, and we put a little bit of water in it, about 1/3 of a cup of water.

And this now has to come to a boil and cook about six, seven minutes, until it become caramel.

If you can mix it just a little bit for the water to go with the sugar.

But then you don't touch it, you don't shake it, - You don't stir it?

- You don't stir it.

You don't do anything because that will make the sugar crystallize.

Crystallize is when it form a bowl of kind of opaque crystal.

- Oh.

- That crystallization.

(water and sugar burbling) Claudine.

- Yes.

.

Look at this.

You see the size of those bubble here?

- Uh-huh.

- It indicate the caramel is about 300 degree, you know, what we call the crack stage.

And to taste it, I mean, the professional do that, won't ask you to do that, you put your finger in cold water, you grab some of it.

- Oh, my goodness.

- And put it back (Claudine chuckles) into this now.

Now, look, that piece of sugar here, you see?

It's dry, and you can bite into it, bite into it, it should be just crunchy.

- It's crunchy.

- It's crunchy and it break between your teeth, right?

- Uh-huh.

- Sometime you taste the caramel four, five times.

So this is the professional way of doing it.

- You're not gonna ask me to put my fingers in there, are you?

- I won't ask you to put your finger in there.

- Okay, that's good.

- No, I won't ask you.

- No!

- No (laughs) Now, here it is, you see the color of the caramel here, that is slightly yellowish around?

The caramel is indicated by a color much more than by a texture, if you want.

So now it will take maybe another 30 or 40 second, or a minute to cook.

Okay, you see, Claudine?

(pan clatters) I shake it and I have nice, brown color all around.

- Wow!

- Now I have a caramel.

- It smells like caramel.

- And if I wanna cool it off, I put that in cold water very fast.

But then, now what I'm going to give you is a little bit of this.

Now slush it in the bottom, slush all over to cover the bottom.

That's it.

So we have the base of our caramel.

Now with the rest of this here, I put it back on the stove, And what I'm going to do with it is a caramel sauce.

I put a little bit of water in there.

(caramel hisses) Watch out because it splatters - Yeah.

- And stir it with this.

See, I put 1/4 of a cup of water there.

Okay, and now it's not going to cool off and get hard, it will get into a heavy syrup, and that's what we want.

It's fairly liquid now, you know, but put that on ice, put it on ice over there to cool it off.

Occasionally, if you want, you can stir it a little bit and it's going to get thicker.

When you stir it like that, go on the outside, okay?

So during that time, we do our custard.

How much do we have here?

- We have four whole eggs plus one yolk.

- [Jacques] Okay.

So you wanna put the sugar in there for me?

(egg sploshes) Put the whole thing.

- Dump it?

- [Jacques] Yeah, (mumbles).

- Okay.

- How much sugar did we put in?

- I have about 1/3 of a cup of sugar here, and you wanna beat it good, so you don't have any thread of white, you know?

(mixture sploshes) Okay, a bit of vanilla here, about a teaspoon.

That's it.

All right.

And the milk, add three cups of milk.

The milk could be hot or cold, like that is perfectly fine.

- [Claudine] It doesn't-- - Years ago, we used to always have the milk hot, and the reason we brought it to a boil is that sometime the milk will curdle, but now it's so rare that we don't do it.

Okay, you wanna keep that on top, and you wanna strain it in case, just in case you have little pieces of eggs inside.

So we put that in there, and now put it in a double boiler.

You see you have water around?

- Uh-huh.

- You wanna put even a little more water.

The idea is that you want the protein in the eggs to coagulate slowly so that the egg is smooth and nice, I mean the custard.

So you want water, so the heat transfer go through the water.

So let's put that in the oven, you wanna put that about 45 minutes, 350 degree here.

And the water should never boil around, believe me.

So let's put that in the oven.

And I have another one, which is cooked now here.

- It looks beautiful and it smells good.

- Yeah.

Okay, this one is cooked.

And, of course, after it's cooked, you know, this has to cool off for quite a while.

I'm gonna show you how it looks when it's cooked.

Why don't you get the cold one out of the refrigerator?

- Okay.

- What you do in the oven, you put your knife like that, and the knife has to come out clean.

You see?

You go inside and it's clean.

So this is cooked.

So now you remove it from the bath of water and you cool it off for five hours, overnight.

I mean, you can do that even a day ahead, it doesn't really matter that much.

This one is nice and cold, I can see it's hard now.

And we're going to unmold it.

So you see, an important thing for that here, when you put your knife inside, you have to put your knife, be sure you don't incline your knife and cut because you cut into the custard.

You really have to cut your knife.

Do you see the knife on the side?

- Yeah.

- You don't move the knife, just move the bowl.

- Cool.

- You know what I'm doing here?

And you pull it out.

So now it should be loose enough to come out.

- This is always the moment of tension.

Here we go.

- We put it on that, you know?

And you see the caramel that we put underneath.

You lift it up a little bit here.

- Oh, I heard it.

(laughs) - Yeah, you heard it.

- Oh, wow.

- So we have a beautiful caramel custard here.

Do you see the way that sauce is liquid?

- Yeah.

- You know, very liquid.

It's because very often, we pour that sauce out, which I can leave there, and serve this one with it, which is a much thicker sauce.

- Oh, okay.

- It's a separate sauce.

You see the way this one is now very thick?

- [Claudine] Um-hm.

- But this is what a caramel sauce here, so we can dilute it.

You wanna give me a bit of cognac?

- [Claudine] Okay.

- A little bit of lemon juice, we put in there, lemon juice through my finger.

It's fine.

A dash of cognac, And if you don't want to put any alcohol, it's fine, you can put maybe a little bit of vanilla in there or more lemon juice.

We stir it.

That looks good now.

- That looks great.

- And it smells good, right?

- It's such a beautiful color.

- Yeah, well, it's transparent.

(pot clanging) Yeah, I love this, when you serve with it, you can lick the spoon.

- [Claudine] Good.

- And we can put this one in there, you still want to have a thick- - Mm.

- Syrup like that to serve.

Do you wanna put that on top?

- On top, on top?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- I think it will look absolutely terrific.

And this is our caramel custard for our Cuisine D'amour.

(warm music) - I'll cook for my friends, I'll cook for my friends if I have nothing in the house.

I'll make spaghetti, I don't care.

But as a romantic thing, that's a little different.

It means a little bit more.

(thoughtful music) - For the first course in our Cuisine D'amour, what else but a soufflé?

- Sounds great.

- Like soufflé?

soufflé timing is very important in the soufflé.

Today, we're going to do an herb and goat cheese soufflé.

And the first part of the soufflé I wanna show you is really to do the white sauce.

Put a couple of tablespoon of butter, we put it in there, and a little dash of oil.

Probably an oil which doesn't have too much taste.

And into this we are putting four tablespoons of flour.

So this is our base, basically, what you may call the roux, you know, if you want.

So we put that in there you slush it together.

You see what I'm doing here, Claudine?

- [Claudine] It looks like dough.

- Yes, it goes into the corner, and then we put the milk in there.

- Ah.

- So you can put the milk all together in one shot.

(pan hisses) you know, put the whole milk, and mix it fast with the whisk, that's where it diluted.

And you see what we are going to do there?

First, I want you to butter that type of thing here.

So why don't you crush this- - I get to use my fingers.

- A teaspoon of this.

- Yes.

This is, we're going to use cheese in that one.

So we'll coat the butter with cheese, otherwise, you can coat it with breadcrumb, you can coat it with flour.

Usually on the dessert one, with sugar.

So you put that thing in there and you slush it around.

Just move it so that it sticks to the side.

Right.

- On the bottom or all over- - Yeah, but.

- The place.

- Bang it like this.

And you see, you make it turn like this until there is almost nothing.

Okay, so you can put that over there.

Yeah, it's going to be ready on a tray to go into the oven.

You want to have it ready, and we want to put the goat cheese in it now.

So I put the goat cheese, and we're going to let it melt- - Oh.

- Before we stir it.

Let's do the herb during that time.

- Okay.

- So here... You see the herb here?

You know the chive?

- [Claudine] Uh-huh.

- You know the basil here?

This is the parsley.

This is tarragon.

Tarragon's probably the strongest, you know?

- Mm- So we do a mixture, and if you don't have those herb, you can do other type of herb.

We want to have a lot of herb.

Like, this is close to two cup loose herb.

(knife chopping) And I will put it right into that little food processor there.

I have an egg here, a whole egg.

- A whole egg, - That part of the soufflé.

So I put the whole eggs here, and this is four egg yolk because I have the four egg white here, which is going to be part of the soufflé also.

So we put that in there, you have a lid here.

Here is the lid, the stuff.

Go ahead to make a puree out of that.

That's good.

(food processor whirs) More?

- go, yeah, more, more.

You want it nice and pureed.

(food processor whirs) Should be about right.

Okay, so what we have now, that's good.

We put that in there, and I will put it in there, stir that at the same moment when I pour it in there.

You stir it - And the herb smell, the fresh herbs smell wonderful.

- Of course it does.

That's beautiful.

Looks terrific.

So we leave it like that.

Now only we have to do, this is the base of our soufflé we have to beat the egg white now.

And I wanna show you the classic way with the copper bowl to beat the egg white.

You can do it in a stainless steel bowl also, but not aluminum.

Aluminum, it wouldn't work because of the acidity in it.

So the copper is good because the copper tend to acidify the egg white, and when you acidify the egg white, it tend to hold a better texture in terms of holding.

So you see this here, you hold this, this way.

Use the whisk.

(eggs sploshing) So what you do, you go fast (eggs sploshing) to break the egg white.

Now I break the egg white, so now it's liquid.

Now I go slow.

(eggs sploshing) - So I guess- - You can hear it.

- Yeah.

- I'm not touching the bowl.

- Right, because you'd get in trouble if you did (laughs.)

- Get in trouble.

When I was in apprenticeship, the chef used to say, "Don't touch the bowl."

So you see it's almost halfway down, so it goes very fast.

And you see the way I move my wrist?

Could you do this- - Try to get the feel.

- in a food processor, would it?

- In the food processor it wouldn't work.

That's good, that's pretty good.

(whisk rattles) - Well come on, I had to learn something in 28 years.

Okay, I get it, and you know what?

That's going to be finished, so I'm going to give you that here because when I'm ready, I'll give you some in it.

(whisk rattling) So it's almost ready, so what we do, we tighten the white, we call that tightening the egg white until they have about that type of texture, you know, holding a nice peek.

- Ah okay.

- And so I give you a little bit of that and you mix it with the whisk - Do I stir with the whisk?

- [Jacques] With the whisk, fast yes.

- Fast.

- And you know why you do this?

- No.

You're gonna tell me.

- To lighten the mixture.

Very good.

- Thank you.

- And now I'm putting the rest of it in there with this, and now we're using the spatula to fold it.

And you see, - Oh, - The way you fold it here you go back and forth, back and forth and you turn the pan around, you keep your hand practically in the same position, but you turn around and you fold it this way, bring that there.

And you see it's about right, you want it to be close to full, you know, maybe half inch from the the edge.

This is an eight cup soufflé mold, so this is plenty.

And what we wanna put on top of it, while this is ready to go into the oven, now what you want to put a little bit, put a bit of the cheese-- - Just sprinkle it on top?

- On top of it.

Yeah sprinkle it on top, we're ready.

- More?

- A little more, yes.

- More.

- A little dash more.

Okay.

And now we're ready to put it into the oven, 375 degrees, about 25 to 30 minutes.

(bright music) - I love having great food, I love having tons of drinks and flowers and stuff.

(upbeat music) And I can assure you that nobody walks away from my house hungry.

- Wow, something's starting to smell really good.

Can we see-- - Oh yeah.

- If the soufflé is done?

- Good nose, good nose, I think the soufflé is done, I can smell it too.

So let me get it.

Ooh, looks great, look at that.

- Oh wow!

- That's a nice soufflé huh?

- Oh that looks beautiful.

- It looks beautiful.

Rayanne will put it right on top of this, it's how you serve your soufflé.

And remember you wait for the soufflé it doesn't wait for you.

So you cut it into portion like this, is the way you would wanna serve your soufflé.

- [Claudine] Oh it looks gorgeous.

- You know, two or three portion, just slightly wet in the center, just the way it should be.

And this will be really a great beginning for our Cuisine D'amour.

- So mom, what do you think?

- It's absolutely beautiful.

You did such a great job.

- We're a pretty good team.

- Yeah, she did a good job.

- Well he did a good job.

- Who decided on the menu?

- Well so we we together, right?

- Yeah.

- She decided on the menu, I decided on the menu.

We decided on it.

- A team effort.

It's really great.

- You like the soufflé I know you love soufflé.

So this one is great.

- And I know Claudine at the table because I can see the way it's done, that's her style.

- That's true.

- Yeah.

- We have comforting food today, right?

The blanquette de veau with a puree of apple and potato.

You like that?

- I love it, yeah.

- And the caramel custard, of course.

I think with the man course.

Even though with veal sometimes you drink white, I know you like Pomerol.

- Yes.

- We have a nice Pomerol from the Bordeaux area of France.

Mostly Merlot with a little bit of Cabernet la Franc, that we like, right?

- Yeah.

Do you think so?

- Well, I dunno, I'm not gonna get to taste it 'cause I'm leaving.

- You're leaving?

- I'm not having dinner with you guys, I might stay for a glass of white - I am gonna pour an Aperitif, we are going to have-- - Are you coming back to do the dishes?

- [Claudine] Sure.

- Ah, okay.

- We're going to have a bit of Chardonnay to start, you can have a dash with us.

- Thank you.

- And then maybe, are you leaving after?

- Yes, I have a date too.

- Before the dishes?

- Yeah, she'll be back for the dishes.

- I'll be back, I'll come back and do the dishes.

- Well, I hope your meal is as good as ours tonight, which I doubt - We'll save her, we'll save her some.

(Claudine laughs) - I love to cook for the people I love, I really enjoy it, and I hope you enjoy cooking for the people you love too.

Happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.

(bright music)