- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

- And I'm Claudine Pepin.

Papa, you know that little stand in Madison by the beach where we go get fried clams?

- Do I know it?

I went there last Tuesday.

- And you didn't tell me?

I love that place.

It is the taste of summer.

- Well, let's make some and have a nice dinner party on the porch.

We'll do fried clams and deep fried zucchini with a nice and cherry dipping sauce.

- [Claudine] And I've been craving your rabbit blanquette with pearl onions and mushroom.

- [Jacques] And with those little crunchy golden corn fritters.

- [Claudine] And for dessert, how about a nice fruit salad?

And you can show me how to make one of your famous melon swans.

- Join us for a special dinner party al fresco.

- Next on "Jacques Pepin Celebrates!"

- Do you like to eat al fresco?

- I love to eat al fresco.

- Okay, in the shade or in the cold of the summer.

This is what we are going to do today, and we're gonna start with one of your favorite.

You know those?

- [Claudine] Steamers.

- Steamers.

You see the way they shrink like that when touch those things?

And those we call steamer or softshell clams.

- Softshell clams.

- And I have them here cooking and all there is is this, there's nothing in it.

No wine, no liquid.

- No liquid?

- No, just soften them because we're gonna fry them.

So this, I'll put them in there.

And well let them cool off one second here.

Let me do the mixture here.

Give me a fork here.

I have two eggs.

(fork clanking) Give me the flour there.

We have a bit of flour.

Put the flour in there.

Two tablespoon of flour, yeah.

And put a little bit of salt and pepper for me here, Titine.

- [Claudine] Salt.

- So this is our, okay.

- A bit of pepper.

- And then now the rest of the batter, You know I have fresh bread crumb here.

- Mm-hmm.

- Okay, I have a cup of- - Cornmeal?

- Cornmeal.

A little bit of cayenne.

Mix it together.

- [Claudine] Okay, all the dry stuff together.

- Yeah.

- So, all right, this goes in here and then I have the, well, that's a fair amount of cayenne, but there.

- That's it.

Just mix it.

Now you see those?

Now we peel them.

Often, you know, when people eat those things, they leave that black neck here.

Now you pull them out like this 'cause you have like a shell.

And this is what you use.

You use the whole thing.

I mean, the neck is really good.

So again, you take that shell out of it.

Another one here.

You wanna do one?

Okay.

Come burn your finger with me.

- Okay.

- Okay.

Here it is here.

The juice, of course you can use the juice to do steak, you can freeze it or you can even make cocktail with it.

- Make cocktails?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- Okay, now I'll show you how to do some of those here.

Now you put them into that first mixture, you know?

- Mm-hmm.

- And then from then it goes into the breadcrumb.

- Oh, okay.

And what do you just kind of give them a shake?

- Well, you have to dip them in there on each side.

Did you mix that?

- I did.

- Okay.

And you see, I'm gonna put that into the fryer to do, I want you to cut those zucchini in the same way here.

Because we're going to do strip of zucchini.

So this is going to go (oil sizzling) into the oil here.

Now of course you don't have to have steamers.

You can do them with regular clam.

Of course you can do them with Manila clam.

You can do them with oyster.

You could do that with scallop or shrimp or stuff in the same way, you know?

Same idea with the same sauce.

We're gonna do a sauce with it.

Are we doing okay?

- Yep.

Now do you want me to put the zucchini?

- You put that in there.

- Do the same thing?

- Yep.

You can do one or the other.

You can do different vegetable like this.

Or you can do the mixture as we are doing here.

- [Claudine] You could do peppers.

- [Jacques] You don't want them too thick, huh?

- The zucchini strips?

- [Jacques] Yeah.

You want them the equal size.

If you do mine, which is really thick and one which is really thin, what will happen?

- One will cook maybe a little bit faster than the other?

- [Jacques] (chuckles) Yes.

(oil sizzling) Okay, Claudine.

- So you wouldn't do the clams and the zucchini in the same oil.

Even though you did it in the same batter or does it matter?

- You could, but usually, you know, if I was in a restaurant, I have one oil, which is less strong, you know.

oysters and fish and all that would be in another one.

You know, they are practically ready.

During that time, I want you to make the sauce over it there.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- In that little mixture, I have a can of anchovy, two big clove of garlic- - Garlic.

- A few almond, a few- - Almonds.

- This is, what do you call it?

- Anise?

- Anise seed.

A little bit of it.

Put that all together.

A bit of Tabasco.

- The anchovies go in too?

- The anchovies.

- Go ahead.

Go ahead, yes.

- Okay.

- Yeah, we're making a puree here.

A bit of vinegar.

Put the oil after.

Turn it on now.

And then the oil, you can turn it right through.

(food processor whirring) Take your hand off.

Now, go ahead.

Put the oil like this.

Go ahead and keep adding more oil.

Let it turn.

(food processor whirring) - Can I get rid of this?

- Yes, but I wanted to do a drink for you with that.

- Gonna make me drink.

That's a good idea.

- This a bull shot.

You know Craig LaBan?

Remember Craig used to do that when we were in East Hampton?

A little piece of lime in there.

A little bit of this.

Okay.

And a shot of a vodka on top of it.

And you have that warm like this at the end of Long Island.

But what we had before lunch.

- No wonder you used to love going down.

- That's good.

Yeah.

It's really a very special taste that I remember from that time.

You wanna taste it?

Are you afraid?

- Oh, it's good.

Okay, I was afraid.

I admit it.

I was a little afraid.

- Okay, you wanna give me- - Well, I have the sauce.

- ...the plate to serve that.

- [Claudine] There's a pretty plate.

- Okay, and as you see, it's better to dry that out directly on the wire rack than directly on paper towel because it gets soft underneath.

- Do you want more oil in here or is this good like this?

- More oil.

- Okay.

(food processor whirring) I put a little bit more oil in.

- This is a great sauce to have with any type of fish.

From poached fish to fried fish, you know?

This turn out this way.

Put in there.

Maybe a little bit of anise in there.

And here we have (gentle music) the deep-fried softshell clam and the deep-fried zucchini.

So I have a rabbit here.

This one is frying.

- Ooh, rabbit.

- You want turn this?

- Yes, I do.

- If they are ready?

- You know I only have- - Those are young rabbits, you know, like three months.

You cut the back into two large piece like that.

Here we're just going to have the two back leg, yeah?

Likewise, the two front shoulder.

You know that came out very easily.

You see there is a separation here.

You just pull on it, and that will separate.

For me, the best part of the whole rabbit here is the front leg like this.

Now part of the neck, very often that part is roasted whole, you know?

But this is the back.

We cut that into three piece, you know?

So basically rabbit like that, eight piece plus the liver.

- Mm.

- You take this, you brown it in there as you are been doing here for, like, 20, a good 15 minutes and it should be nice and brown.

Now we add the onion.

Do you wanna add some flour too?

Well first you saute the onion a little bit in there, you know?

Now here is your garlic.

And now to give me the creaminess, you know, we're going to have in the sauce, a little bit of flour.

Like a tablespoon of flour or so here.

Remember what we call that?

- [Claudine] (speaking in French) It's to singe?

- [Jacques] To singe, yes.

(speaking in French) That is to give a little bit of the flour on top.

- Now I mix, right?

- And why don't you turn this with that?

All right, you turn it into pieces, into the flour.

All right.

So you see, you want your flour to have disappeared and then sprinkle around, you know?

this is nice and brown.

Okay, what we need to put here, cracked pepper, salt.

Get me some salt over there, Claudine.

A sprig of thyme.

Nice sprig of thyme or two.

Maybe a little sprig of oregano.

Marjoram, oregano, that type of thing.

You can have the dry one too, you know, a little's good.

- [Claudine] Smells good.

- White wine.

- White wine.

- One tablespoon at least - Tablespoon and a half.

- Yeah, that's about three-quarter of a cup to a cup.

Water.

- Water.

- Chateau sink, right?

What you call chateau sink.

- Chateau sink, yes.

- Okay.

And basically here is a base of your stew.

Any stew like that, you can do that way ahead, even a couple of days ahead 'cause this is the base.

Now you cover it, bring it to a boil, and this of course has to, you have a lid for it?

- Cover it.

- Good.

Bring it to a boil, lower it to very low, and at that point it has to boil very gently for a good hour and a quarter, hour and a half.

You see my rabbit now is about cooked enough, in fact, it's going a bit fast.

Okay, you see here, oyster mushroom.

- [Claudine] Mm-hmm.

Do you want these to be cut?

- I'm gonna put my onion in it.

- A little bit?

- No, no, in pieces like this.

- Just like this?

Okay.

- Because you wanna put, because that it'll take about 10 minutes, 10, 12 minutes, and then we finish it with a little bit of cream, okay?

- So this'll take another 10 minutes?

- Yeah, you wanna cook that about 10 minutes for your onion, your mushroom to be cooked.

We finish it with a little bit of cream.

- Mm, sounds good.

- During that time, I wanna show you how to make the corn fritter, which we'll serve with the rabbit stew.

So you wanna bring that to me here.

- Here you go.

Here's this.

- Very simple.

- Here's corn.

- Corn, very good too.

(Claudine laughs) Flour, cup of flour, you can put it in there.

Okay.

A little bit of baking powder.

You can put it in there.

- [Claudine] Baking powder.

An egg.

- An egg.

That's it.

Very good.

- There you go.

- Water, about half of it.

I wanted to mix it.

Okay, if I put all of the water together, it tend to form lump because if there is too much water, it's too liquid and the thread of the whisk doesn't do what the thread of the whisk is doing here.

You see the thread of the whisk here, it's thick, it goes between, it really liquefy the whole thing.

So now I can look at it.

Now it's smooth.

I know there is no lump.

So put the rest of the water.

- Now you can put the water.

- That's all right.

So you see the consistency of my mixture here?

- Mm-hmm.

- We do something like that with beer also, which is very good, but you see this one is nice.

(whisk tapping) - [Claudine] Do you want me to put the corn in?

- We can put the corn right in.

I need about two things of corn, so I wanted to show you how to do the other one.

- All righty.

- Okay, when you take a knife like this, you know you cut this way for the corn.

You see gently the way it cut nicely?

- Mm-hmm.

- [Jacques] Often people don't work because they put the knife here and do, - That was Yeah, that looks like me.

- [Jacques] Because what happen here, you use one inch from the center of the knife, so eh, eh, eh, it saw, it's dangerous.

If start with this, you do this, you start here and you finish here.

This is what happen.

- Oh, you're cutting, - You are slicing, really.

And of course I'm doing it in that direction.

You can do it in that direction.

- [Claudine] I would probably do it in the other direction.

Just safety.

- Okay.

You see, you put that directly to cook here.

- [Claudine] Wow.

They seize pretty quickly.

- They seize, they don't flow.

So here, this is going to cook a couple of minutes on each side.

During that time, I have to finish the rabbit here to make it a bit more elegant.

We put about a third of a cup of cream, you know?

But now you have really a blanquette.

You know, blanquette mean in France (speaking in French) is white.

- White.

- So a blanquette is some type of stew, which is whitish, like that color.

All right.

- Mm.

Perfect.

- So actually, you know, this would probably be better if you do it a little bit ahead and if you don't serve it right away, the type of stew.

In fact, you could put the cream at the end, but the rest of it do it a little bit ahead.

Okay, I think they are nice and crusty and ready now.

- There's a spatula to take them out with if you like.

Here, I'll help you out.

- Okay, that's good.

Okay, now be sure to put a little bit of salt on top of that, Claudine.

- [Claudine] Mm-hmm.

- Now the rabbit.

I mean this is really a country style of things, you know?

- [Claudine] That is just looking so good.

- Oh.

- Oh.

- [Jacques] You know what, grab my bay leaf, then we put it back right on top at the end.

It will look good.

- [Claudine] Okay.

Gonna grab the thyme.

- The thyme leaf, rather.

You want maybe to have a little bit of green here.

- [Claudine] Got some oregano and some thyme over here.

- Okay.

(gentle music) And here we have the rabbit blanquette with the corn fritter.

Okay, our menu is almost finished now.

- Dessert.

- The dessert.

- All right, let's go.

- Let's go.

I'm gonna show you a very nice, very simple dessert.

- Ooh, nice fruit salad.

(knife slicing) There's lemon juice, honey.

So you have everything.

No, what you need in there is, if you want a little bit of alcohol in that, we use kirshwasser.

- Kirshwasser.

- Kirshwasser is actually a brandy of cherries, you know?

And the dry fruit are what does it.

I mean, this is not your regular fruit salad that you have, the cocktail salad before you eat.

This is another type of fruit salad.

This is really a dessert fruit salad, you know?

I wanna show you another tip with that.

You can of course serve your fruit salad like that.

It's absolutely beautiful and it's fine.

If you want to do something a bit special, you wanna present that in a carved melon, and I wanna show you how to carve that melon here.

And I wanna do a swan with it.

So you know what you do with a point of a knife or something.

You can go into it.

It's relatively simple.

You want to have a pointed knife like this.

I do a shape like this.

This is just a round thing.

Okay.

You know, that piece comes out, you know?

Okay, I just have done that.

This is not much.

Now I'm doing, this is the neck of the swan, you know?

So it's gonna come like this.

I'm doing a bit of a head here and the head is here, you know?

I'm continuing the neck of the swan.

And we starting with the body of, once I go back up here, you're going to understand after.

- Sure.

(laughs) - Getting complicated, Titine?

- [Claudine] I'm still trying to figure out what pieces are gonna come out and what pieces aren't.

- I put that here, huh?

And then in the back of it.

Look, it doesn't really matter.

There is so many bird in nature, if your bird doesn't look like mine.

I'll pull this out.

And that basically it, you see?

- Whoa.

- You see the shape of it already, all right.

You know what I have to do?

I have to cut the bottom so that that thing straight.

- [Claudine] Oh, so it stays flat?

- Right.

So you can see there is a swan here.

So now what I have to do first, remove the flesh from the inside to have more of the shell, you know?

- [Claudine] Oh, because you're using it more as a receptacle, so... - Exactly.

- A kind of a vase.

You may want to do a little bowl of this to add to your fruit salad.

- Oh, that would be nice.

- [Jacques] So you keep doing this.

- Very nice.

- And then actually you start cutting.

I'm cutting this material there and here, so that you want to empty it.

You are following me, Titine?

- Oh yeah.

- It's not really that complicated, you know?

If you look at it.

- Can I freeze this one and keep it?

(laughs) - You can freeze this one and keep it.

I'm taking your spoon there because I need it to empty that thing here.

(melon crunching) - I can even make eyes.

- Well, we should, we're going to make an eye here.

We have to make a mouth.

Hold it this way.

So I have to make a mouth here, you know, and I have to do a little hole for an eye.

An eye for an eye, right?

Let me take a little piece of- - Prune?

- Prune, whatever it is.

So you want a prune eye?

- Absolutely.

- Or you put a, you know, which is probably easier.

Just put a paper cone, you know?

- Oh yeah.

- This.

Now let's do some feather.

- [Claudine] Oh.

- [Jacques] We can cut pieces like this.

Make kind of a... (knife slicing) That make feather?

- Yeah.

- All right.

Very stylized feather.

- Very.

Very Manhattan feathers.

Well, this kind of adds a very elegant touch to a dinner al fresco.

- Yes, but you know, sometime this is what make the difference, one thing or another, you know?

To bring a little bit of a... I think that's it, you know?

So what do you think?

- I think it's beautiful.

Here we go.

- Put it on your, okay, we want to fill it up.

- And then all of these that are more easily bruised.

- No, no, no, no, no.

You can put some of those now.

- [Claudine] The raspberry and the kiwi?

- Raspberry maybe we put on top.

What do you think?

All right, the kiwi there.

The sauce.

You know, this served with a pound cake makes a great dessert.

Okay.

I put some of your berry around, yes?

- It's kind of nice.

- And some of those around.

We can put some... - [Claudine] And if I, you know, if we have it, we might as well use it.

- Yeah, that's fine, Titine.

And here we are.

here we have our fruit salad ambrosia.

(gentle music) Just look.

A beautiful spread, Titine.

- This is wonderful.

- See, did you do those things here?

- Yes, I did.

I just took herbs from the garden and I put them in something low with some freesias.

This way you can talk over your little bouquets.

And also if we were outside, they wouldn't blow over.

- But we're in Connecticut, it's raining outside.

So our dinner alfredo is going to be, al fresco rather is going to be inside, right?

- Absolutely.

- Anyway, during the summer we do a little more frying, and those softshell clam with the zucchini are really great crispy and all that.

And your anchovy sauce is great.

- I can't wait to taste.

- Then rabbit and the corn bring us again to the summer.

And with that you wanna explain how dessert- - And this beautiful, beautiful fruit salad, ambrosia in a swan.

- But you gave us some good wine today.

So we have a vintage champagne here.

- Well, vintage champagne just denotes some kind of really interesting or exceptional year, so they put a vintage on it.

We also have a beautiful pinot noir from California.

It's Sonoma.

- I want some.

- And this you're gonna love with your rabbit.

This is gonna be perfect with the rabbit.

I'm very, very excited and I'm gonna have some as well.

And we are gonna have a wonderful, wonderful dinner.

- Yes.

- And I'm excited.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you, Titine.

(glasses clinking) It was great cooking with you.

- Happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.