- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

- And I'm Claudine Pepin.

- You know, Claudine, the best way to learn how to cook is to study the classics.

- Like Plato and Aristotle?

- Yes, but the culinary classics.

Dishes that illustrate the essential principle of cooking.

- I knew that.

- Today, classic menu start with poached cod served with a basil and almond sauce.

- [Claudine] Stuffed quail with a grape sauce is a complete lesson in itself.

- A simple gratin of leeks topped with breadcrumbs and cheese is a lighter version of a classic.

To finish, peaches in red wine and cassis is one of my all-time favorites.

- Sounds good, Papa.

I'm ready to start cooking the classic way.

- Okay, Aristotle, go sharpen your knife.

- Join us for the classic cook next on "Jacque Pepin's Kitchen."

- "Encore with Claudine."

(gentle bright music) (gentle bright music continues) Well, for our classic cook today, we're going to do classic recipe with a lot of technique.

And we're gonna start with a cod in basil and almond sauce, so let's start with that.

This is a beautiful piece of cod, a whole fillet.

And you see I turn it on the other side, the back fillet, that part here, which is really the best, and there is a line of bone in the center, you can remove those bone, teeth grabbing it, and hold your hand like this to pull it out.

But if you don't do this, the flesh, you know, come out, you tear it.

- Okay.

- You wanna try once?

- Yes.

- See, this one is coming out here.

All right.

- So I grab it and then I put my fingers underneath it?

- [Jacques] That's right, so that you don't tear too much flesh out.

- Here we go.

All right.

- That's a nice one.

- That's good.

- So there is one way of doing it too.

Another way is to cut that strip, which we may want to do.

But first, I want to show you how to remove the skin.

And we are removing the skin because we are poaching it.

If we were to do it in a skillet, I would leave the skin on because there is no scale.

You see what I'm doing here?

I'm moving my knife not straight, not vertical, about 45 degree angle, in a jigsaw fashion, doing the opposite with the skin.

Wanna try this?

- Okay.

- Okay.

- All right, so I hold the knife and I pull the skin, too.

- Yeah, that's it, doing... And go, yes, stay close to the thing.

Otherwise, you're gonna cut into the flesh.

That's pretty good.

- It's like you... - You're going up.

You talk to me and you're going up.

- Oh, it's like you- - You see.

- in slow motion.

- Look at that here.

Now look, you see?

(knife scraping) This is the piece.

You have to stay close to that skin, like this.

(knife rasping) (fish squelching) Okay, this, you can't really do anything with it.

Or you could put it in the oven and do crackling actually, but we're not going to do that.

So we have that strip of bone which we were taking there.

You can remove it also by cutting the whole strip here where the bone are and removing it in that way, you know?

'Cause you have all those bone this way.

- I think I like the tweezers better.

- Okay.

- Looks easier.

(chuckles) - Here we have, Titine.

We're gonna put that to cook in boiling water.

All we want to do is to bring that back to a boil.

When it come back to a boil, we cover it, and you let it steep like five minutes.

And what else are we going to do with that?

- So I'm gonna make the puree now.

- Okay.

- All right.

And I have some just basic potatoes in a little bit of water, and I'm going to add just two cloves of garlic, some salt and pepper.

Actually no, I'm not gonna put the pepper in because you said not to, but... - Just put the pepper.

Put your zucchini in it, right?

- Okay.

- Okay, you cut it in there.

- Like a banana.

- That's it.

And it's very important not to put too much water here.

There is just a little bit of water, like a cup.

You can always add more because at the end of the cooking process, you should have basically no water left over because you don't want to drain the water if you don't have to.

I think it's much better if you don't have to because you keep most of your nutrient in it, right?

- Mm-hmm.

- Okay, you take it over.

- Now- - I'm gonna move to this side.

You see, this is coming to a boil now, so I'm covering it, and I'm shutting it off.

That's it.

It just steep in the water, you know.

- Okay, well I have one that was already, that should be cooked by now anyway in here.

- [Jacques] Good, it's just fine the way it is.

- All right, so I'm gonna blend it, and I'm gonna add about two, three tablespoons?

- About three, four tablespoon of cream.

And during that time, I'm going to blanch my basil here.

I have a pot of water.

(immersion blender whirring) And we're going to do a sauce with this.

We're going to do a sauce, and the sauce is going to be made with basil.

Claudine, you don't want it too pureed.

You want... - Right.

I want like chunks so that it's... - Right, that's it.

So I have two cup, I have more than I would need here, but you can keep that in your refrigerator, and I want to blanch the basil.

It's important to blanch it, and the stem can be used in stock.

That goes into boiling water, just the time that it get wilted.

You take it out of your boiling water, cool it off in cold water, cold ice, ice water.

How are we doing, okay?

- This is good.

I put some fresh ground pepper in here.

- Okay, so you don't have to drain it too much because actually you want a little bit of water in it, so that's fine.

So here it is.

I'm putting a little bit of water in it.

I'm putting a bit of Tabasco.

- I love Tabasco.

- Okay.

And then we want to put some salt and a bit of olive oil.

That's it.

And you can process it.

(food processor rumbling) Beautiful.

So now in this, and it's pretty liquid now, that the way we want it, I'm going to add a little bit of Parmesan cheese and we put it in there.

You don't have to if you don't want to.

That's nice.

And a bit of almond.

This is chopped almond, just regular chopped almond.

We're going to put in there to do our sauce.

You can do that on pasta too.

Now, that's beautiful green.

You see, it will stay beautifully green this way because you blanched the basil, put you have a dash of salt in it.

So you can keep it the whole winter this way.

Okay, I think that's about ready, the thing.

Those are poached long enough now.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- And I have your puree here, which look really nice.

You know, maybe, you know what we'll do?

We'll put a bit of the sauce first this way, 'cause you can put it in the middle, then you spread it from the center outside.

All right.

Then your potato there.

And now I'm putting that piece of cod.

Yeah, piece of cod about five ounces is more than enough.

What you want to do is to drain it out on paper towel or your towel so you don't put too much water in it.

Put that on top.

Maybe a little drop of this now, what do you think?

Here.

- A little bit.

- And that on top.

- It bleeds into the cod.

It looks really beautiful.

- A lot of green.

And this is our cod and basil-almond sauce on zucchini-potato bed.

(gentle fanfare music) And now we're going to do our main course, right?

- Yep, we're gonna do a quail stuffed with vegetables, and it's gonna be really good.

And it's, well, you make it look relatively easy.

It's relatively easy.

- But before we stuff the quail, we have to bone it out, the little bird, like this.

So, you know, I cut the neck, all of the bone are going to be used in the stock, the end of the wing, and now we have to bone it out.

See, the first thing we do is to remove that thing we call the wishbone here.

You see here that triangle?

- [Claudine] Mm-hmm.

- I go on one side, I go on the other side, and now I pry it out with my finger, see, this way, and then put my thumb in the back of it.

- [Claudine] Oh.

- [Jacques] See, in the back of it, there you go, and then I pull it out, and you have that little thing you call the wishbone, you know?

- Why do you take the wishbone out first?

- Well, we're gonna bone out the whole thing.

Well, first- - Oh okay.

- because that's in the way.

- Oh, okay.

- Now, see, we have to cut it at the joint of the shoulder.

Here is the joint of the shoulder right here.

You can do any bird this way.

You see the other joint of the shoulder, so... - I practice on a turkey, something a little more substantial.

- Something a little more substantial, huh.

Here it is.

So now you see, you can see here where the joint was.

Now look at, with my thumb, I go inside and I separate that from the central carcass, and that this is the skin of the back.

For this, I'm pushing it with my finger.

You see underneath here?

- [Claudine] Mm-hmm.

- All right, to go, go, go, go.

And now I have done the front, now I can start turning it inside out.

You see the way it is this way inside out?

- Oh wow.

- And I'm trying now to pull it down too.

And you see, those two pieces of meat, that the fillet, I don't worry about the fillet now.

So there I am practically at the end.

You see, the other joint now which is holding the quail to the carcass is the joint of the hip.

Those two bone, those two leg here, there is the leg, I'm breaking the joint right here.

You can see here the bone.

This is the part, you know, in the pelvis.

The other part here, I break it again.

You see how much I use the knife?

- [Claudine] That's what I was just thinking.

You just don't really use the knife at all.

- And then I put it out.

Now, there is that fillet here on each side, I put one finger here.

I rub it this way to get that little filler.

Beautiful.

You wanna do the other one?

And then for me here, I'm going to take the leg of the, I mean, the bone of the thigh bone.

And this is the end of the thighbone here.

It's a bit confusing thing this way.

But I put the thighbone down, and with my finger, I'm pushing down this way, you see, up to the joint of the knee here.

And then I can crack it at the joint.

If I don't want to remove, you wanna just pull it out.

Okay, on this side, the same way, if I can find it.

Do you wanna do that?

You wanna try here at the end?

You push it.

- So I push down.

- That's it.

You see, you could scrape it with a bone, I mean with a knife this way, but it goes just as well this way.

You can do that.

You can even cut it at the joint here.

- I trust you knew my fingers with the knife.

- Yeah, okay.

(Claudine chuckles) So that's about all the bone that we want to do.

We taking it out, we are putting it back, and we are going to stuff it now with the vegetables.

So as you can see, it's all bone out.

The two feet left, we put back inside.

So the vegetable, Titine.

- Okay.

- And wait a minute.

And the bone here, I'm taking all those bone, they go in there.

Those bone have already been browning for like 20 minutes, now I'm putting water.

I think there is no salt or anything.

Instead of salt, I'm putting a bit of soy sauce because it's going to give me a darker color.

This has to cook like 45 minute, then we'll strain it.

Okay, go back to the stuffing.

- Okay, now as for the vegetables, for the stuffing, we have leeks, celery, carrots, and garlic that we put in a food processor and got them all nice and diced up.

Then, put them in a skillet with some oil and some water.

And that's it.

That's the stuffing.

Really simple.

And I'm sure salt and pepper too.

- I'm opening this like this, you see?

- [Claudine] Okay.

- And you have to cook that vegetable stuffing about 10, 15 minute until most of the water disappear.

There is a bit of salt in it and you can put a tablespoon of oil in it or a bit of butter if you want, and then we stuff it, okay.

And it's good to stuff it with, you know, a pastry bag like that and a plain tip.

(puree squelching) You wanna try to do the other?

- Okay.

- You really have to press on this, you .

Then you have to bring that back together to give it, whup, here is the fillet in there, to give it back nice shape.

- Is that enough?

- I think so.

I'm putting it on that plate here, and that plate is going to be, you're gonna bring it back together.

Okay, you see, this is the shape I think, all right, okay, of your little bird.

Bring back the, see that?

- [Claudine] Oh this is gonna be very elegant.

- And you press it this way, very gently.

We press it there.

And what we're going to do is to put it right on the steamer here.

And we are steaming it in a kind of Chinese technique.

First, it's going to be steamed, and then after, finish into the oven.

So for the timing, it's gonna steam about, oh four, five minutes.

Be sure that there is enough water all around.

Maybe if you need a little more water, just put some there.

(steam hissing) You know, you want it to steam really nicely.

(steam hissing) Okay, let me check it out now.

Here, you see- - Oh wow.

- how firm they got?

- Yeah.

- Just steam, and it give a lot of moisture in it.

And this is the system often used by the Chinese.

Actually, it was used in the Middle Age.

You know, in Europe, a lot of the meat were first steam before being roasted, but that was to tenderize it, which is not the case here.

If I have a lot of liquid here, I put that into my stock.

Okay, Claudine, why don't you take that out?

- Let me get one of this.

- Wash your hand- - Yep.

- with the thing.

Let me give this, okay.

And what we are going to do now with this is to put it into a little roasting pan.

And, Claudine, you wanna mix a bit of the, a little bit of honey there and a bit of soy sauce right away to brush this.

That's enough.

Good.

And then now you can start brushing it.

And even if you have a little bit which fall in the bottom of your pan, it's okay because it's going to make a nice juice kind of crystallize in the bottom of your pan.

Notice that we put nothing in the bottom of the pan.

No butter, no oil.

There is enough fat in the quail, you know, to brown.

And that would go in a 425 degree oven, a good 10 minute.

And if it's not quite brown enough, leave it a little bit under the broiler, okay?

- [Claudine] Sounds good.

- Put it into the oven.

Okay.

And during that time, oh you have the other one cooked, right?

- [Claudine] Yep.

- We're going to work on that gratin of leek that I have in front of me.

Maybe I should take a look at that.

Can you bring it here?

- I think it looks very nice.

- Yes, looks beautiful.

Look at that, and we have a lot of the juice.

We'll add that to our stock later on.

For the time being, okay, here is what you do with the leek.

That, you throw out.

Very often, the first layer is tough.

You throw it out, and you see how dirty it is?

- Yeah.

- That's why you really have to clean that up.

Then, little by little, you remove some of the green, but don't remove too much of the green.

You know, you won't leave this.

And then we open it in half, this way and this way and this way.

You see all the dirt here?

- Look at all the... Yeah.

- So this is why you open it, so that you can really wash it under water.

You wash it good under water and then, I'll give you that.

- Give here.

Thank you.

The table is a mess here.

You have a wet towel.

And what you do, we cut them, and we put them in there with a cup, cup and a half in the water.

And this has been cooking until it's tender, like a good 10, 15 minute at least.

Now it's tender, and we want it tender.

So we're gonna do a gratin with this.

Claudine?

- Okay.

There you go.

- And for the top of the gratin, in the food processor.

- [Claudine] I'm just putting some ordinary bread.

- [Jacques] Couple of slice, right.

- Couple of slices of bread.

Couple... - I'm putting two big clove of garlic.

Oh, let say three.

- [Claudine] Okay.

And here, cut me piece of cheese.

- Piece of Swiss cheese.

You could use Parmesan cheese also, but Swiss cheese would be fine.

Okay.

- Put it in here.

- And then you wanna process this.

During that time, I'll get the leek here.

Here we are.

(food processor rumbling) If you have any liquid left over, here I have about two, three tablespoon, just put it in your stock.

Don't throw out anything.

Here we are.

That's good it in.

You know what I want to do here is to add a little bit of oil on my leek here, a bit of crack pepper.

You could serve that with a vinegarette.

You can join it with a vinegarette.

- Yeah, but I'm just gonna do this.

- That's it.

Just pour it in.

So it's a fair layer of, and then we'll spread it all around nicely here.

And we wanna put that under the broiler.

You see, if Claudine had not put the oil in it, the bread will have a tendency to burn.

There, it's going to brown nicely.

You wanna put that?

No, maybe I'll put that under... - I'll open the oven door.

- Okay, under the broiler.

Not too high.

Remember that if your leek are cold, you have to put it in the oven to get it hot fairly before you brown the top.

During that time, let's finish the sauce here.

Oh, beautiful.

Look at that.

So I'm gonna put them on top.

Look how nice they are.

- Oh, that looks really nice.

- Usually, the leg facing in, you know?

And you can see in the dripping here, I have a fair amount, (smacks finger) I have a little bit of fat.

So what I would want to do is to eliminate the fat.

You wanna give me a little bowl here?

- [Claudine] Here it is.

- As much fat as I can get out of here.

Remember, we didn't put anything in it, but this is a natural fat.

And this, (utensil scraping) see, that no-stick pan, so none of the dripping is really sticking.

So we put that directly in that stock.

Now, you may wonder what that stock is.

Well, this is a cup of stock that we got from this.

Remember, we cook that for a while.

After like 45 minutes to an hour, we strain it, and we reduce it to a cup.

And this is what we have, our natural juice plus the dripping.

You want to give me... - [Claudine] I got grapes.

- Grapes.

- Put in here.

- Okay.

And we're going to thicken that a little bit with a tiny bit of potato starch here, or arrowroot or corn starch is fine.

You have to dilute it with a bit of water, or maybe I have a bit of wine here, why not?

You know, with that... - It's gonna be good.

I know it's gonna be good.

- Okay.

And you have to dilute your starch first, remember?

- Right, because if not, it makes dumplings, - It makes, yes.

If you put a hot starch, I mean a cold starch directly into a hot liquid, the protein will coagulate and you're going to have, yes, still dumpling all over the place.

- [Claudine] Is this enough grapes?

- It looks beautiful.

- All right.

- All we have to do- - Then all will be going.

- is to bring it to a boil here.

That's it.

And, you know, within a minute, this will be cooked enough in it.

Now, let's see.

You wanna taste it?

(Claudine slurps) - Mm.

- That's good.

- Oh, that's really good.

- We taste it too.

Need pepper, no?

(slurps) - Nope.

- No, that's sweet.

That's very good.

- Mm-hmm.

- Because of the dripping.

See, the sweet of the honey.

- Oh, right.

- Okay.

So now let you want to, let me check this in there.

Yeah, it's about ready, Claudine.

Why don't you start, then we can serve it.

- [Claudine] Yeah, let me do it.

I'll do the sauce.

- Okay.

Be sure that to serve- - Lots of grapes.

- some of that around.

And I'll prepare, maybe a little bit for the center here.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- [Jacques] I have some parsley here.

We'll do a little bunch of parsley or watercress, whatever you have around.

- [Claudine] That's good.

- This in the center.

That pretty?

- Yep.

- Okay, so you wanna serve that.

- I'm gonna put it over there.

- I get the gratin.

- Oh wow.

- Whoop, you see, it's nice and brown.

- That looks awesome.

- Now, the gratin browned beautifully.

You see inside?

- [Claudine] Mm.

- And this is our main course, the stuffed quail and the gratin of leek.

(gentle fanfare music) - Now we're gonna do dessert, and dessert needs wine.

- Good thing.

- So don't let me forget the wine.

Okay.

- Okay, there is the wine.

And we're doing a very simple dessert here: peach.

And peach, when they are in season, what you would want to do is to peel them, you know.

If you have a good vegetable peeler, like this way.

For that particular recipe, you peel it.

As you can see, I'm peeling that peach is fine.

But I can look at it, already this is terrible- - Yeah, the peach- - quality.

- doesn't look too good.

- Look at that.

So you cut it into wedge after, but look at this.

They are pretty bad, huh?

- No.

- So with fruit, unless they are in season, you can't really use them.

So what do we do?

Get rid of it.

What do we have here?

- We have frozen peaches here, and they're actually really good.

- Actually, yes.

- Because you told me they're really good, so I believe that.

- Yes.

But you see, those, here, have a piece.

Those are defrosted slowly under refrigeration, and there is no sugar in it.

- No sugar, nothing.

- Right, it's just plain frozen peaches.

So we put a bit of sugar.

You wanna give me some cassis in there?

- [Claudine] Okay.

- So this is a blackcurrant, a blackcurrant syrup.

You can have this, you can have that with a bit of lemon juice, and we're putting a deep red wine here.

This is a red wine from Chile.

Quite deep.

And what you would want to do is probably let it marinate for a good hours, couple of hours, or a bit longer.

But this is a delightful, simple summer dish.

- Yeah, that's nice.

- You wanna mix it up, Titine?

- Yes.

- You can do a lot of thing with different type of food.

For example, berry in the same type of wine mixture is really very good.

Put your hand underneath when you do that, right, to catch any of the dripping.

That's it.

Is that enough- - This would be good.

for one portion?

- We could even put sour cream or something on it.

- Yeah, you could put a nice piece of sour cream, and you have the simple fruit dessert, right?

- Yeah.

- For our classic dinner.

We should have a beautiful dining room here and a great meal.

I see you have the first course, so I'm going to help myself to the main course, that little quail here.

- [Claudine] Oh wow.

- Look how beautiful it is with the grapes, you know?

Fresh grape and the reduction of the sauce that we add here, which is really nice.

Remember also with this, we're going to have the gratin, you know, of leeks.

I want it to show you the inside of this, you know?

Look at this.

- Wow.

- Isn't that beautiful?

- [Claudine] Oh, that looks really, really beautiful.

- [Jacques] Really nice.

- [Claudine] And we have the peaches for dessert.

- Yes.

Okay.

- Okay.

- So let's eat.

- I think it's time to eat.

Why don't we have some wine?

- Yes.

- I'm going to have a Pouilly-Fuisse from France, and that's what I'm gonna have with the fish.

What are you gonna have?

- Well, for me, since I'm having that stuffed quail here, I'm going to have a deep Pinot Noir, very rich in berry, and this is from the Santa Maria Valley.

So we both are going to enjoy our dish.

We enjoy cooking them for you.

- Thank you very much.

- And happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.

(glasses clink) (gentle bright music)