- I'm always looking for new way to use leftover cheese, and I have always leftover cheese.

Blue cheese, some goat cheese, some Swiss cheese, some caramel there.

Any of those, and I put some dry cranberry or dried cherries in it.

(bright music) A piece of apple or a piece of pear, you know, you can put it right in there.

And you put that in your food processor and turn it long enough, you know, to do a nice smudge out of it, which get thick enough like it is here.

So you can grab little ball out of it and roll it.

And you put pinoli nut in the oven or almond, and you roll it in your pinoli nut to do a little cheese ball and pinoli.

Making this fast and easy recipe will build up your confidence.

I am Jacques Pepin, this is "Fast Food My Way."

Happy cooking.

(bright music) (knives clinking) Well, I'm doing an interesting menu today.

It's actually not a menu.

I'm going to start with creek, what my mother used to call creek, which are potato pancake that she used to serve with a salad and all that.

And we always do that at home.

Sometime we do them at order with a little bit of smoked salmon on top, sour cream, sometime caviar, if you really want to splurge.

So it can be very elegant or very, very simple, served with a salad.

And then after that we are going to do a chili con carne.

And the chili con carne of course is- I'm going to serve it with lettuce and cheese and cilantro, but I wanted to show you how to use it to do it in a pressure cooker, will save a great deal of time.

Then we're going to do a kale, a crunchy kale.

A way that my French uncle told me to do the kale, which are very crunchy and very easy to do.

And then a dessert with canned pear that I'm going to cook with apricot and some butter.

So it's a kind of eclectic menu but it's fun.

So I'm going to start with the chili con carne and with the pressure cooker.

You see, when you cook at sea level, the pressure is such that if the atmospheric pressure is such, that the water get to 212 degree to crack open and start boiling.

It needs 212 degree.

As you go higher and higher, you lose like- I forget exactly, two or three degree per 1,000 feet of elevation.

And sometime it boil for hours, and the cellulose, certain fiber in the meat or beans or whatever you have, don't really cook.

So it cooks sometimes three, four, five, six hours much longer than it would be at sea level.

So the pressure cooker does the opposite.

It apply pressure on the food itself, so that it need to go to a temperature much higher than 212, before it start boiling the pressure of one.

'Cause at that point the fiber in beans or meat is broken very fast and it's a great way of cooking and a great way of keeping all the taste together and all that.

And usually you know, a stew in 20, 25 minute, things which will take you two hours to do.

So it's great.

So this is the conventional one that you put on top of the stove and cook.

I have another one here, which is an electric one and it's great also.

It's great for different reason.

It will take a bit longer than the other one to reach the pressure, but then you put the timer and it will only start timing when the pressure is on.

So this is great because you can go to work or if you have to go shopping, you wanna do that recipe, you put all your ingredient together I'm going to do, you put it on on your timer and you can go.

When it finish, it will shut up automatically.

So that's great.

So here is what we have here, so you have an insert here in non-stick.

So we have beans.

Chili con carne, we do with beans.

And here for like four people, I'm using like a good half a pound of beans, you know, red beans like this, which of course I'm going to rinse under water there.

(water splashing) So now people- in my case here, I mean, most of the time the recipe tell you to pre-soak the beans and all that.

I don't do any of this to do it this way.

So the type of thing you can do at the last moment, you know, and it's fine.

You know, it works quite well.

So we have the meat in there, I'm going to put a pound of meat, and this is kind of ground meat.

You can cut your meat with a knife into tiny dice if you want, or a kind of very coarse ground, you know, that's fine too.

I have like three cup of water, (water splashing) we put in there for half a pound of beans.

So I have the salt in there that I'm going to put.

And then all kind of seasoning.

I have a can, 15 ounce of tomato.

(can clanking) You know, a couple of tablespoon of tomato paste (spoon clinking) that I have in there.

(food sloshing) Mix it together.

So everything is cold.

(spoon clinking) It's an easy recipe to do.

I'm putting like a tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder here to make it a little bit like a mole, what the Mexican call mole, you know.

That's great.

I'm putting a couple of tablespoon of olive oil in there.

And then seasoning like bay leaf, a couple of bay leaf, a little bit of oregano, I love also Mexican oregano or Greek oregano is really nice.

And then cumin.

Like a tablespoon of cumin powder.

And of course chili powder, about a tablespoon of chili powder as well.

Okay, make sure that you stir it well, and also the meat doesn't get lumpy.

And then with that we are going to add scallion.

Like about three quarter of a cup to a cup of scallion.

I mean, (board tapping) when you do those things, it's not that exact, you know, you can have a bit more, a bit less.

Scallion is fine in there.

Well, certainly it's an easy dish to do.

Then some chopped onion.

(chopping board tapping) And again, it can be very coarsely done as well.

(chopping board tapping) Like a good cup, two cup of it.

I think I'll put the whole onion there.

(chopping board tapping) That's it.

So I have onions, now I want to do garlic.

I'll crush it.

(chopping board tapping) Coarsely.

(chopping board tapping) And we'll put it right like this directly into the beans.

Okay.

Then jalapeno if you want.

Jalapeno it's always- you know, sometime I cut it right all around the ribbon, the seed in the center.

But because the ribbon, the seed, that's where really the big hotness here.

Sometime you want more or less.

But still, I always take a little piece and kind of taste it.

'Cause sometime they taste about like green pepper, and the next time it just blow your mind.

So put as much as you like.

It's purely a question of tolerance.

(chopping board tapping) I like it fairly hot.

Do it very fine like this.

(chopping board tapping) And I think (chopping board tapping) that I put everything that I want to put in there.

Here it is.

Good.

Now I can clean up my mess.

This way.

And cover this.

(pot clinking) So it goes only one way, you know, and close one way.

You have no choice anyway.

And this is where the steam is released, the pressure.

If you want to bend it like this when it's really, really hot, then the pressure will release maybe in a minute.

If you don't do anything, it will release in like 15, 20 minutes.

Easy to use.

Okay.

Next I'm going to do my creek.

Or that is little potato pancake that my mom used to do.

And for that I need a couple of tablespoon of- a couple of cups rather of potato in cube.

And you know what?

We used to sometime I do it- I do this by grating it on the box grater and it's fine.

But sometime I do it just like this.

(chopping board tapping) You know, putting everything in the food processor.

It's another way of doing it.

And (chopping board tapping) notice that I have peeled the potato and I kept them in water.

But after I take them out of the water, I cut them, now I don't want to wash them at that point.

If I wash them at that point, I will remove too much of the starch, you know.

Now here it is, I can measure it.

Yeah, two cup, eat about this.

That's plenty.

Here I have in there.

And two eggs.

(egg crackling) I put everything in there.

Okay.

A little bit of chopped onion, like about half a cup.

(chopping board tapping) Coarsely.

So I have potato, onion, eggs.

I have to put- that's it.

(knife clinking) I'll put a little bit of garlic in there too.

Couple of clove of garlic, just crush it.

(chopping board tapping) That's more than enough.

Then a couple of tablespoon of potato starch.

I could put regular flour but I would've to put a little more of potato starch.

And half a teaspoon of baking powder.

(food processor tapping) I'll have to put a dash of salt in there, of course.

Eggs and- okay, that's it.

(food processor whirring) We do that into a puree.

(food processor whirring) That's it.

I have beautiful puree of it.

Now I'm gonna put that on.

(pan clanking) Some oil in there.

You can put peanut oil or olive oil, any of those.

And I'm going to put a little bit of scallion there.

You know, for color or scallion or you may want to put some shives or another type of herbs.

(chopping board tapping) So here I am.

(chopping board tapping) Okay.

And the oil is hot.

So you put about a good, well, maybe two table spoon like this of the mixture.

(food sizzling) I have a place close to where I live in France, a three star restaurant and they used to do a pancake similar to that.

But usually it was done with cooked potato.

I do it in some book with like a mashed potato, you know.

I cook potato and I add flour in it and eggs and all this.

And it's similar to this.

This is different because everything is raw, undone in it.

So this is frying beautifully.

Now let's see.

(food sizzling) I am going to do the dessert here.

And the dessert are pear in syrup.

Well, I'll take the syrup out.

(syrup sloshing) I should have about usually a cup or three quarter of a cup of syrup.

So I'll use about half.

(syrup sizzling) Half of the syrup should be enough.

Then I'll put couple of tablespoon of apricot, you know, or you can use a peach, you know, jam.

Couple of tablespoon of butter, that's it, in there.

One and a half tablespoon of butter.

(pan clanking) And I'm going to put my pear in it and let it cook.

And the thing is going to reduce into a syrup, and we'll serve that just with the sauce of the syrup on top and maybe a little bit of whipped cream cheese would be very good.

Okay.

Again, a kind of easy dessert which I often do, 'cause I always have that in my pantry.

And when people just show up unexpectedly, here I go, you know.

(food sizzling) So these are done.

They went pretty fast.

(food sizzling) Whoop.

(food sizzling) Look how beautiful those are.

(food sizzling) (pan clanking) (food sizzling) You know, those pancake are quite- how do I say, not only beautiful, but I mean, filling.

So a couple of pancake, often at home if I do that, I serve that on a romaine or frisee lettuce, you know, I serve the pancake with it.

(pan clanking) That's boiling.

Okay, so you have about- well, enough to do about 8, 10 pancake this way.

And you can do them ahead if you want, and then you can reheat them in the regular oven.

What I do, you know, which is pretty important, is that when those pancake are done- this is much smaller as you can see.

When those pancake are done, I put them on a wire rack.

I learned them from the Korean cook.

I used to put them all the time on a paper towel on a plate and realized that the bottom will get all soggy right away, and the moisture get underneath.

So the idea, anything you fry like this, you put it on a wire rack, the air goes underneath and it stay crisp bottom and top the same way.

(pan clanking) So here we are.

(food sizzling) And they are spongy of course enough, because I have a little bit of baking powder in it.

I like them well cooked.

I get that right here.

(food sizzling) They don't really absorb that much oil because I have basically enough oil there to do another batch.

(food sizzling) Two, (food sizzling) three, (food sizzling) four.

Yes, so I probably would do a dozen, a good dozen with that of that size.

Maybe a dash more of oil.

(food sizzling) Okay.

(bottle clinking) (food sizzling) Good.

So this will cook- can reduce the heat here 'cause I don't want it to cook too fast.

(food sizzling) I really want it to cook inside and it's pretty thick.

And I wanted to show you something else now that I do, which is a bit unusual, but I learning from my friend, Jean Claude.

One time I was at his house and he cooks a lot of different salad and all that.

And he was cooking kale and other type of kind of same type of vegetable, you know, which can be tough sometime cook a long time.

So he cooked them in the oven.

And what he did, take the kale like this, remove it from the large rib that you know, you can use it in soup.

And put a little bit of salt in there.

And oil, a little bit of oil.

Maybe a- a tablespoon at the most, you know, just so that you toss it and it get- can put olive oil, of course.

(kale rustling) You toss it and it get just slightly oily.

(kale rustling) And then you put it on the wire rack to cook.

Just like this, you wanna spread it out.

You know, it's interesting.

And you have to cook them at low temperature.

But I kinda figure out the recipe after when we fool around with it, and I cook it at like 400 degree, even 350 too, and it turned black very fast.

So those have to be cooked at 250 degree.

I better turn my potato pancake here.

So getting there.

(pan clanking) (food sizzling) Yeah.

(food sizzling) Whoop, they stick together.

(food sizzling) No problem.

(food sizzling) Okay.

(pan clanking) (food sizzling) Couple of minutes, the pear are doing fine, you see it's reducing.

(pan clanking) I'm getting to have a thick heavy syrup.

I can actually turn the pear into that syrup here.

You don't break them.

Remember those pear are cooked, (food sizzling) but then the butter and the jam and all that will really improve the taste.

(pan clanking) Just a bit thicker to caramelize, you know.

So that goes into the oven.

250 degree, no more.

20, 25 minute no more.

And that's what happened to it, that I have it here.

You know, it shrunk considerably, and this is very crunchy.

(kale rustling) I dunno if you can hear that, but I mean, this is crunchy, (kale rustling) absolutely delicious.

So serve that with the chili, that's great.

And we'll put it on top of this.

(utensils clanking) (kale rustling) Here we are here.

(kale rustling) At least it's unusual.

Great snack.

(kale rustling) I do it with other type of winter green actually, but this one works out the best I think.

Okay.

(bright upbeat music) All right, so let's see.

Now I think that (pan clanking) my pancake are cooked, and I think that this is cooked enough as well, when soup starts cooking.

(pan clanking) So this, we can put it in the refrigerator to cool it off, transfer it, but I can just leave it around.

It's very good at room temperature as well.

So I can leave it around to cool off a bit, and then serve them like that with, usually I put a bit of cream cheese, whipped cream cheese or sour cream or something like that in the middle.

So this, I'm going to have more of those.

Mmh, this is good.

You know, in that pressure cooker here, the chili has been cooked an hour, an hour and a half, but it's fine.

You can always replug it to read it when you need it, but you can really do it ahead.

So we're going to have a little bit of cheese with it, and you can have again, a cheddar cheese or a Monterey Jack.

You know, that's basically what people would want to do with it.

(grater tapping) Oh, here it is.

I love cheese with it.

And the chili should be hot.

Hot both way.

Hot in temperature and hot in taste.

Now, I love to serve it in iceberg lettuce.

Big iceberg lettuce like this, because it's very crunchy, doesn't really have any taste.

So you do that for the texture that it have and the coolness and it's crispy and cool, refreshing.

And then I serve red onion with that.

You could slice them up then, but there they are fine.

Very finely sharp and I just rinse under cold water.

You rinse them under cold water to remove some of the compound of sulfuric acid in it.

This is what make the onion turn color, this is what sting your eyes also.

So if you serve an onion raw, like with caviar or with a carpaccio or carpaccio, or something like this, then wash your onion and a bit of cilantro.

(lid clicking) So here, I add chili now.

Look beautiful.

Boy.

So I'm gonna do probably a good cup like that of chili in the middle of it, middle of each of those.

Mh.

That's it.

We're gonna put cheese on top.

You can always add more of it.

Onion, of course.

And finally, you know, a spring of cilantro, right on top like this.

I love cilantro.

People love or hate cilantro.

I'm one of the lover.

And here it is.

The chili con carne.

That's it.

(bright upbeat music) And now it's time for dessert.

And you can see that those have cooled considerably now.

And one of those, you know, beautiful, you can put it, I mean, hollow side up.

Put maybe a little bit of the- this is a whipped cream cheese in it, which I love with fruit, yeah.

And then of course some of that wonderful sauce here because remember there is a butter in it.

I have butter in it, I have the apricot, here the- this is- with a cookie like this, this is a simple but really delicious dessert.

Here we are.

Two cookie.

(bright music) When I do the potato pancake, I cannot resist but to have that with a little bit of caviar.

This is real caviar, that is sturgeon eggs.

And this is a California caviar.

I have a paddlefish, there is (indistinct) paddlefish, different type of sturgeon as well as (indistinct) sturgeon, which are now raised in California, and other part of the country.

Very good quality.

And that's what people should buy because the one from the Baltic Sea or Russia are practically extant and we shouldn't eat it.

Now with that, (drink sloshing) beautiful Sauvignon Blanc, which is going to be nice.

And this, remember those little potato pancake here with the caviar on top, this is heaven.

I mean, my wife will see that and be really jealous because she adores caviar.

I'll put a little bit of sour cream on top and here it is, the best.

I love that champagne, vodka or a good white wine.

This is worth doing the whole meal, you know.

This was a strange, not really a menu today, with something which can be as elegant as this, and of course the chili con carne, the very crunchy kale, you know, which is great, and I did dessert with pear, which are really delicious.

I hope you enjoy the menu that I did today.

I enjoyed cooking it for you.

Happy cooking.