(gentle music) - Hi, I'm Jacques Pépin.

- And I'm Claudine Pépin.

Today, we're cooking modern American cuisine.

- To me, that means combining flavors and ideas from all over the world, in a way that's casual, free-spirited and fun.

- We're starting out with a broiled sea bass, served over a bed of bitter broccoli and potatoes.

- [Jacques] And a spicy chicken breast, and a smooth celeriac puree with a celery flavor.

- A refreshing cucumber yogurt relish, and a light elegant cantaloupe sorbet as an easy do ahead dessert.

It all sounds wonderful.

Join us next for modern American cuisine on "Jacques Pépin's Kitchen."

- "Encore with Claudine."

(upbeat music continues) Today, it is modern American cuisine, a mixture of different interesting dish that we often do in our kitchen.

And here is Claudine bringing me what?

- [Claudine] I have all kinds of spices for the spice rub for the chicken.

- Oh, we're doing a spice rub.

That's good.

- So pick some stuff.

- I'm going to put coriander here.

- Good.

I like coriander.

- And the coriander in seed that you have here is quite different than the, you know, the green parsley that we get coriander seed.

This is mustard seed, the black mustard seed, it's quite spicy, very good.

- Very small.

- This is black peppercorn.

It's very good.

- [Claudine] Always a must.

- I think four, five is going to be more than enough.

Well, this is- - Is it juniper?

- Juniper berry, yes.

- Ooh.

- We put that in the sauerkraut remember in Alsace?

- Oh yeah.

Right.

- I think that's fine.

- Cool.

- So let's me put this.

(grinder whirring) That's a neat little machine, you know?

(grinder whirring) It's actually a coffee grinder.

It goes much faster than a food processor and you need something like this.

- Oh, definitely.

- Here we go.

Here we have it here.

And I give you that.

- Thank you.

You're so nice.

- Yes.

And now, we're going to bone our chicken.

- Okay.

- So here we are.

- All righty.

- I'm going to bone mine, you're going to bone yours.

Who goes first?

- Yeah.

(laughs) - Well, am I taking the skin off?

- So the first thing, yeah, we're going to remove the skin, so that should be able to do.

And then we're going to remove the wishbone here.

Check on each side, you see here, you run your knife this way and this way.

And here, there is that triangle.

So you see what I do here with my two finger?

I move up and then I put some in the back of it to lift it up, you see that?

- [Claudine] Okay.

- [Jacques] Did you look at it?

- I did.

I did.

But you go really fast, so I go here.

- Right.

- If I'm making a mess, just- - [Jacques] No, that's fine.

- Be kind.

All right.

And here, that's what you did.

Do I cut all the way through here?

- No, that's it, that's it.

You go this way now.

- Okay.

- Yeah, and you get with your thumb in the back of it when you go.

- [Claudine] Oh.

(Jacques laughs) - It's not that hard.

It's just a little chicken.

- I got it.

I got the whole thing.

- Yeah, good.

- Okay.

Hey, this is exciting.

- Yeah.

- We'll get this out of here.

- So here we are.

- Okay.

- This is the breast of the chicken.

On one side, you know, I cut on one side of that bone and on the other side of the bone.

Can you see that here?

- [Claudine] Find the bone.

Yeah.

- Okay.

And now I'm going to cut on this side and just pull it out.

- Wait, I missed the cut on this side.

- No, that's fine.

You're doing very good.

- [Claudine] Do I just go here and just pull?

- Wait, no, no.

First, let me get mine out here.

Here it is.

Now the bone, so here, what you have done here is perfectly fine.

Grab the meat right there, see, you cut the end of it.

And now hold it with your knife and pull out like this, you see?

Okay.

- Groovy.

- So I have a little bit of oil here.

We're going to put oil in there, a little bit of olive oil, and we can put that mixture on top of it.

Let's get some salt here.

- Okay.

- Got to put salt on top of it on each side.

- And pepper?

Well, actually- - No, no.

We have the peppercorn right in there.

Okay, the mixture right there.

- Oh, I'm glad you didn't let me do it.

I would've put it on top of the oil.

That would've been really- - Here, here, here and there.

Then you put it on each side and that frankly, you could do that ahead, you know?

To let it marinate.

It would get more taste.

Here we are.

You want to pat them a little bit.

And this in turn now when you have them all over, we want to roll that a little bit in oil.

And that's all we have because I have a very hot pan and we put it directly in the pan here.

- Okay.

- So we're going to cut it here.

If the pan is really hot, this is a thick, heavy standard steel pan with a bottom in aluminum actually, and that will retain a lot of heat.

So when it's really hot, nothing will stick to it if you do it properly.

Okay, here we are.

We can get rid of this.

- [Claudine] I'm going to get rid of this cutting board.

- Yes.

You know what?

I think I'm going to go wash my hand because- - I think I'm going to go with you.

- I have the chicken too.

Just a little bit.

That's my water.

(Claudine laughs) Okay.

- I can use it.

- Paper, here.

- I have this.

Okay.

- Okay, this is cooking now.

You see?

Nicely.

So I think I'm going to- - [Claudine] It smells really good.

- Cook it to start with without the lid until it brown nicely.

- Okay.

- And let's do the next dish now.

We're going to do fish.

And we start with broccoli di rape.

You know that, we have it at the house.

- [Claudine] I love this, I just- - And this is a bitter broccoli, similar to the Chinese broccoli.

Broccoli is very good for you.

You want to cut that?

And you know how to do this.

- Yeah.

- You do that at the house.

- I had to call you on the phone to actually find out how to do this because I thought it was- - So what you want to do, the stem of it, as you can see, you remove that very fibrous skin.

If you don't do it, frankly, it's not really edible because this is really tough.

Okay, continue.

And cut that in half.

I'm going to put a little bit of oil in there and we're going to saute some garlic in there.

I'll peel it for you if you want.

Shall I peel it for you?

- Yes, please.

- All right.

So we have more garlic.

I could crush it, it would go faster.

But you can do your garlic very thin by slicing it (knife thudding) with the knife that I'm doing.

Okay, we put them in the hot oil.

I'm ready for your garlic.

- [Claudine] Here you go.

- Okay.

Here it is.

Look at this.

You want to see the color when it start getting blonde in color, you see that?

You don't want it to brown.

- Right, because then it gets bitter, right?

- You see?

- Yeah.

- Just about now.

Then you put your thing, which is still a bit wet from the wash.

(oil sizzling) Right in it.

- [Claudine] Oh.

- Put the rest of it in there.

Okay, here.

I like to saute it so that the garlic, see the garlic is now on top, so it doesn't- - [Claudine] Oh, it looks really good.

- Yes, and we could put that on top.

There is enough water, so that is going to cook down with this.

- Do we cook it on high heat, medium heat?

- I put a little bit.

Oh, I always cook on high heat.

This.

Pepper.

Okay.

- All right.

- Now, the fish.

- Let's go.

- Look at that.

I remember many years ago in Long Island, when I first came to this country, used to go to Long Island, I used to go fishing with Pierre Fournier and we used to go for bass, you know?

Striped bass like this.

- Yeah.

- Then we couldn't get it, it was against the law.

- Why?

- Oh, because there was almost none, you know?

- Oh.

- And now, in the last few years, you put your knife flat on top of it here to do one filet.

See, this is beautiful fish.

No, those are rare.

You can't sell.

Actually, you cannot even sell the wild one.

You have to cut the bone here.

- [Claudine] Oh wow.

- And I have a nice little filet, you see?

I do one.

- That's beautiful.

- So give me the other filet.

- Okay, here you go.

- And what we are going to do is we call (speaks French).

(Claudine speaks French) - That is the top, the top of the thing you can do one, actually, run your knife on top of it just to cut through the skin a little bit like this so the heat goes through.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- Okay, good.

So give me the tray now.

- Okay.

- We're going to put some salt, a bit of salt on top of it, a little bit of pepper.

And I'm going to use anchovies here.

So let's put a bit of the anchovies oil right there.

- [Claudine] Oh, what a good idea.

- [Jacques] Let me put that on top.

- [Claudine] That is going to be really good.

- [Jacques] This way.

Maybe the tail here.

See, you change it this way, this way.

Okay.

- Are you happy now?

- Yes.

(Claudine laughs) It takes less space, you know, like that.

And the rest of the oil, just rub that oil on top of it.

Okay.

Now you put that under the broiler and pretty close to it, okay?

- Okay.

- Let me check on the, (pan sizzling) we check on my chicken here, it needs to be turned.

I can smell it.

Oh, this is Cajun chicken we're doing today.

- Oh, I thought that's the way it was supposed to be.

- Blackened chicken.

- Yeah.

That's going to be awesome.

- But you what?

I like the seasoning dark like this.

- [Claudine] Yeah.

- Alright, so let's lower the heat now.

Let's lower the heat because we're going really a bit fast.

And you can cover it, yes.

But it'd be fine.

Back to us here.

Oh, that's awesome.

This really doesn't need that much more cooking, you know, a few more minutes.

I'm going to lower the heat on this.

And you know what we're going to do with that?

We're going to do the potato here.

You know, those potato, we can do it with or without the skin?

- With the skin.

- I like it without.

- Well then, why did you ask?

- Because you like it with.

(Claudine laughs) So you cut your potato with the skin and I cut mine without.

- I don't cut my potatoes with the skin.

- Okay, we got to cut that- - This way, or do I have to cut them this way?

- The long way like that because see, you want to cut those potato in pieces like this, they are of course already cooked, as you can see.

We cooked those potato about 20, 25 minute.

And what we want to do to peel them, and when your broccoli are ready and the broccoli are basically ready, just put the potato on top of it to keep them warm.

So lift that up.

I'll just put my potato here.

Other way of reheating my potato, you know?

- Mm.

That's a good idea.

- Okay.

Now let's do the garnish for the fish.

You know, we're going to put filet of anchovies on top.

And what you could do is to wrap this around like this to put it on top of the filet, you know?

- [Claudine] Oh.

- Some of the filet, you could put it with a little tomato if you want.

And now, like that.

- [Claudine] Oh, that's going to be very nice.

- To put on top.

I think my fish is ready now, so I'm going to go get it.

Alright.

- Okay.

I'll keep working on this.

- Good.

I need space here.

- Okay.

- Yep.

Good.

(oil sizzling) See, the filet is pretty thin.

And as you can see like this, it will need to leave that time.

See, put your finger there.

So this is cooked.

- Oh wow.

- Just cooked.

All right, so we can stop the broccoli di rape.

You want to give me a plate for that?

- Sure.

- Okay, I need a spatula for this.

And the potato, usually, you see what happen with this, we put the potato underneath so I could put a little bit of the broccoli, this is really hot, around and spread it, my potato in the middle.

- Mm.

- And your filet of fish on top.

This is a good natural way.

Which one do you like?

This one?

- That one, absolutely.

Careful, your fingers.

- Whoa, it is hot.

Okay.

And a little bit of decoration.

No, no, this is just to put one on top.

- [Claudine] I like them all around.

I did that many.

- [Jacques] Okay.

- [Claudine] That's funky.

- That's too many.

Okay.

- All right.

- And this is our broiled striped bass with bitter broccoli and anchovies.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- And the other one then, let's see our chicken now.

See my chicken now.

Ooh.

See, right there, a lot of juice.

I'm going to put a a dash of white wine in there just to get my natural juice.

And you know, this is off.

I leave it off now.

And what happen, the heat of the pan itself will continue cooking the chicken.

But what I want to do first is to do our vegetable here.

And what I have is, do you know what that is?

- [Claudine] The world's ugliest vegetable.

- [Jacques] Celery.

- [Claudine] It's ugly.

- Celery roots.

Celeriac, you know, that you- - Oh.

- You can put that in stock, but it's pretty strong.

It does take a good knife to peel that, I tell you.

This is not, as you may think, the root part of a regular celery, it's not.

- [Claudine] It looks like it.

- Yeah, but it's a different type of thing.

Cut it in half and you can see the center of it.

Look at that.

- [Claudine] Wow.

- This is very cottony here.

So you take that piece, which is like cotton, you know?

And then we cut it into the, how much water do you have there, a couple of cup of water?

- Yeah, two cups.

- Okay.

So basically, you know, we cut it into pieces like this.

We don't have to do the whole thing.

A bit of salt.

A cover.

You put it there and you cook it 20, 25 minute until it's cooked.

And I have some, which is cooked here, I hope.

Yep.

As you can see, and that's all we have here, you see?

- Oh okay, so it's like a- - Yeah, this is very tender here.

- Soft like potato.

- Yeah, right.

- Okay.

- So we're going to thicken it a little bit.

And I know you've been looking at that cream of wheat here.

- Yeah.

- That's what we're going to use to thicken it, you know?

- Oh wow, that's a good idea.

- I'll put that on the side and in the place where there is the water here, I'll put the cream of wheat to give me the thickening agent.

That's it.

- Looks good.

- And at that point, we have to cook that a couple of minutes for the cream of wheat to really cook.

Okay, let's cover it, and let's cook it one or two, three minutes.

It's going to go very fast.

During that time, we're doing cucumber.

- Cucumber.

- All right.

- Cucumber relish.

- So what you have to do is to mix the mixture itself.

- Okay.

- I want you to put yogurt, you know, in there.

A little bit, you have like a cup of yogurt.

Put your yogurt in there.

Put like a teaspoon of curry powder, a quarter teaspoon of curry powder.

- [Claudine] Dash of Tabasco.

- A little bit of sugar.

And you see that, I cut in half, you want to take the center out.

Don't try to go this way because it breaks, just use the edge of the knife, the edge of the spoon.

- Ooh.

That's very good.

- You want to try?

- No.

(Claudine laughs) - Good, good, good student.

- Vinegar, right?

- [Jacques] A little bit of vinegar.

- [Claudine] I'm busy, I have to do this.

- [Jacques] You have to put salt.

- Okay, garlic, which you're going to chop.

- I'm going to chop the garlic here.

I have about three, four cup of cucumber rather.

(knife thudding) Okay.

- And mint.

- Yeah, I have to do a chiffonade of mint.

So either you do the chiffonade of mint or you do the garlic.

- I'll do the mint.

- Okay, so I'll do that here.

(knife thudding) Just a clove of garlic, you know?

Not much, but in a puree.

- [Claudine] I know I'm supposed to like make a little ball.

Give me this.

- Okay.

Hey, you're doing pretty good there.

(spoon thuds) - Yeah.

- You're going really fast.

Okay, I'm mixing.

- Okay, I'm chiffoning.

- So let's put this in there.

That kind of relish, it could be great at the first course, you know?

- [Claudine] Yeah.

- Okay.

Can serve that there.

And let's check our cream of wheat now.

Yeah, I think it's thick enough.

Let me check it out there.

Yeah, see?

- Messy.

- Yeah, it's getting quite thick.

In fact, I'm going to put it here and we want to blend it a little bit.

- Okay.

I have my machine.

- Okay.

(spoon thudding) You can start.

On this, you know, you're going to have to push down like a plunger, you know, a couple of times.

(blender whirring) That's it.

Let me give you a piece of butter.

Okay, why don't you do it on your table.

Here, I'm going to cut my chicken.

(blender whirring) So the chicken is, now of course, rested enough.

But you can see, at that point that it does render, I put a dash of wine, but it render a great amount of liquid.

- [Claudine] Mm.

I think I missed one.

- So I need a little bit of juice around here, maybe like this.

- [Claudine] Ooh.

Oh, that's nice.

- This is pretty spicy, you know, I mean, all the spice we put in there.

And one breast.

Can you move my plate a little bit?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Right there.

I can do it here.

And I don't like to thin that out, but what I would do is just to cut it in half this way to present it, just one half.

- It cooks pretty fast, I'm surprised.

- Do the other half, and that's it.

And right there, you have a puree of celeriac and a spicy chicken breast.

- [Claudine] And here's the cucumber yogurt relish.

Now, it's time for dessert.

- Now, it's time for dessert.

So what do we have for the dessert there?

- Cantaloupe sorbet.

- Cantaloupe sorbet.

But first, we start with the cantaloupe.

Look at that peel.

Okay.

Now what we want to do with this is to cut slice of this.

And now, you see, cutting a slice, I'm going to empty the- - The seeds?

- The seed.

Now, I need four slice.

Four nice slice from the center here.

Thin.

Three for four people.

And what I want to do with this is to put it in there and to marinate it here.

This one here, we're going to do the sorbet with it.

So we cut it into pieces.

- [Claudine] I'm going to do some cleaning up now.

- And that goes into the food processor.

Just sugar in it and some lemon juice.

And all of the sugar.

- We have like a cup?

- No, no, about two third of a cup.

- Okay.

- And in this here, you're going to process this.

(blender whirring) - Yeah.

Is that enough?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- Let me see.

Yeah, it's beautiful.

- Perfecto.

- A bit thinner, but that's fine.

This, you want to put in your ice cream machine here.

- Okay.

- Yes.

It's one of the easy ice cream machine.

- I like the ice cream machine.

- You put that in the freezer and you go along and you do this.

So you know what, you can turn it and then put it in the freezer when it's out, then we have another one, which is ready, so you can get it.

That's it.

- Okay, so you just turn?

- That's what you do.

You can turn.

Yeah, that's it.

- Okay.

I'll go get the other one.

- And during that time, I put a little bit of grenadine.

This is beautiful color here.

And the port wine is not beautiful color, but it's beautiful taste.

Okay.

And this should marinate for a while.

You want to serve it with it.

You can cover it and keep it in your refrigerator.

On this.

- I have- - You can put maybe some scrape of, get the scrape of lime.

Okay.

- Here you go.

- Here it is, huh?

- Yeah.

- So just let's imagine that it has been marinating for a while.

So what you would want to do there is to get a slice of this.

- Oh.

- With some of the sauce here.

Seems today that I'm doing a lot of work.

- I'm doing a lot of learning.

- I think I'm going to need a glass of wine pretty soon, you know?

(Claudine laughs) And your sorbet in the middle here.

Did you test that sorbet?

- No, not yet.

- And maybe a little bit of those skin of lime here.

- Oh, that looks so pretty.

- And that's about it.

And this is finally the cantaloupe sorbet for our modern American cuisine.

Today, we're doing a real menu for the modern American cook.

There's a certain amount of casualness to it, you know, with different combination, interesting ingredient.

- I love the cucumber salad.

That is really, really great.

And it's easy to make.

And the sorbet is really beautiful.

- It goes with your chicken because the spiciness- - [Claudine] Yeah, the spice rub.

- Of the chicken is going to be good with that.

- And the celeriac puree is funky.

It's kind of interesting.

People think it's mashed potatoes and then get a big surprise, so I like that.

That's going to be really good.

It's also very healthy.

- Cuisine surprise, right?

- [Claudine] Cuisine surprise.

- Right.

Well, I like my fish here.

Striped bass is terrific.

And I wouldn't have put as many of those around, but actually, it looked terrific and I think you were right.

- Thank you.

- And this is our grand finale, the cantaloupe sorbet.

And with that, we're going to have, what are we going to have here?

- I'm going to have one of my favorite wines.

I love Gewürztraminer, and this one is from the Anderson Valley.

And I always love the one from Alsace, but this one happens to be really, really good.

So I'm very excited.

- That's great.

- [Claudine] What are you having?

- Well, I'm going to drink both wine.

- [Claudine] Okay.

(laughs) - I'm going to have the Côtes du Rhne, and Côtes du Rhne is deep red violet with a taste of blackberry.

And this is the type of wine that I can drink with anything that I'm cooking.

Well, I've always loved to have you with me in the kitchen, Claudine.

(Claudine laughs) (glasses clinking) Happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.

(upbeat music)