- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

- And I'm Claudine Pepin.

- Well, Titin, today, I'm going to give you a fishing lesson.

- Is this some kind of father daughter bonding thing?

- Maybe, but don't worry, we won't even have to leave the kitchen.

It's a lesson on how to make the most of a fish, starting with an arugula salad topped with cracklings made from the salmon skin.

- [Claudine] And baked salmon with a tangy green herb sauce.

- [Jacques] Braised endives with a drizzle of tarragon oil is as delicious as it is easy.

And a quick almond and plum cake makes a sweet and colorful conclusion.

- I'm beginning to feel the bonding already.

Join us for The Fish Connection, next on "Jacques Pepin's Kitchen."

- "Encore with Claudine."

(train whistle trumpets) (bright music continues) Today, this is The Fish Connection, and we'll start with what?

- Connecting fish.

(laughs) - Connecting fish.

To what?

To the bone?

- I hope so.

Let's make salmon.

- Okay.

We're going to do a baked salmon in green herb sauce, and we're going to use the skin of the salmon to do another dish.

I have a very large salmon here, as you can see.

That salmon is about 10, 12 pounds.

- Wow.

- Put it flat on the bone here and you take your filet out of it this way.

That's one way of boning it out.

There is four or five different ways of boning out salmon, Claudine.

Wep.

The salmon has been scaled here, and that's important.

We don't want the scale on that particular salmon.

But as you can see here, I slide my knife to get as much of the rib cage as I could out of it.

And if you are as miserly as I am, you could even use a spoon to scrape this and get a little bit of extra salmon to do a tartar.

And if you're really broke, you can go to the fishmonger, ask him for a bone, scrape it, and have tartar for free.

- Yeah.

- For free, right?

Okay.

Now, on top of this, I'm going to remove the rest of the rib cage here.

Of course, all of that, you can have that done by your fishmonger, you know?

- [Claudine] Which is definitely my preference.

- This is your preference.

Yes, I figure it would be that one.

And this, you need a lot of space when you do salmon, especially this one is big.

- Yeah.

(knife scratching) - Okay.

Take the end of it.

Good.

And I'll give you that board here.

Take that board.

- Okay.

- We have salmon for 20 people here.

(Claudine laughs) Salmon is a very reliable fish, Can do the raised salmon, which come usually from Chile, from Canada or from Norway, right?

Can you run your finger through it, Claudine, here?

- Ooh.

Bones.

- Going this way.

You see the bone.

Because in addition to the rib cage, there is those bones which go straight in this way.

And that's how you remove them.

You don't remove them, again, this way, because you tear the flesh.

You go with the shape.

- Oh.

- You wanna try this, yeah?

You have better eye than I have, so you should be able to do this.

I forgot one?

- That's okay.

- All right.

Well, start here.

Good.

Yeah, that's good.

And they get shorter and shorter, and they'll finish just at the opening of the salmon here.

That's where the end of the bone are.

That's it.

I think that's the last bone.

You see, it's small, this one.

- That's it.

- That's it.

Here, Laud.

- Thank you.

- You did very good.

(Claudine laughs) So we're going to cut a slab of salmon here.

Let's say about a piece, pound and a half, would be about this.

The rest, we can do gravlax, we can do.

And you see, again, I show you, you use your knife in a jigsaw fashion, - Mm-hmm.

- this way, to remove the skin of the salmon.

- Wow.

- This, we're going to poach right here.

So we have shallots.

I put the shallots right in there.

White wine.

(pan sizzling) This is nice and hot.

Okay.

Salt and pepper on top of this.

Salt and the pepper.

That's all you want to put on it, you know?

- [Claudine] So there was no oil in the pan?

I'm sorry, I couldn't see.

- No.

you don't really have to put anything on the pan.

- Oh, wow.

- You have to realize that at that point, you just want to bring it to a boil here.

And when it comes to a nice boil, we put it into the oven after.

Okay?

That's boiling.

This is going to go in the oven now, about 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

Can you open it for me?

- Yep.

- Just a plain baked salmon.

Okay.

Here we are.

- It's not that plain.

Looks pretty good to me.

- You wanna put the timer on?

- Okay.

I'm on the timer.

- And now, we are going to do the endives.

- 10 minutes, 11 minutes?

- 10 minutes will be fine.

- 10 minutes.

- So I wanna put a little bit of water in there.

We're gonna cut that into, ooh, look at that.

You see, sometimes - Ooh.

- you get a little bit of a surprise inside.

(Claudine chuckles) Clean it up.

Even if the recipe doesn't say so.

(Claudine laughs) Clean it up.

All right, we cut it in half and in wedge and take the end of the root.

Okay.

Basically, you use almost no water, just enough to start.

We're going to put that to cook right in there.

A dash of sugar.

No orange sugar with this.

A little bit of salt.

Put a dash of oil.

And a little bit of lemon juice.

I strained that through my impeccably clean hand.

Okay, you can cover it.

And now, while the salmon is cooking, you wanna do the salad?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

So here, I have this.

You know, the first thing that I want to do is to saute some garlic in there.

- Okay.

- Yes.

And I have a little bit of olive oil and slivered garlic.

And the way you sliver garlic is very good too.

- [Claudine] This is the only way I can sliver garlic, so I'm glad it's very good.

- Yeah.

But this is very nice and very thin this way.

So we put the garlic in there.

A lot of slivered garlic here, to use as a garnish for the salad.

Okay, here it is.

- Okay.

- That cook pretty fast, you know?

(pan clattering) Yeah.

And you especially don't want to burn it.

You want it just when it start browning.

If it burns, it gets bitter.

It gets bitter very fast.

(wooden spoon clatters) And you know what, I'll put a little dash of salt on top of this.

Good.

And then now, the skin of our salmon.

We are going to cut it into pieces.

- Just like that?

- You know, to do crackling.

Yes.

Well, we could cut it bigger, smaller.

- I love crackling.

- Crackling, like.

You see the way I cut this here?

If I cut it on the skin side, it's much harder.

- [Claudine] Oh, I was wondering about that.

Okay.

- It's easier to cut it from the inside out, toward you.

And you know, run your knife, really, this way.

This is a good knife.

Let me do this here.

(pan clatters) (pan scratching) Mine is getting ready.

- I cut one.

(chuckles) - How are you doing?

You really have to apply pressure, yeah.

- Yeah.

I didn't think it would be that tough, actually.

- Yeah, it's almost like leather, you know?

Yeah, you have to, only in one direction.

- Yeah.

- Don't go forward.

- I just found that out.

- Okay.

My garlic is ready.

- Okay.

- Give me that plate here.

Put that on top.

- [Claudine] Mm.

Nice and golden.

- Yes, but it's plenty here.

Okay.

Okay, so here, in addition to that, you would not want to put any oil or anything.

In fact, by the time I finish cooking this, three or four minutes, I bet you that I'm going to have at least a tablespoon of the salmon fat.

- Oh, yeah.

- Right in there.

Yes.

Okay.

So we're doing a little salad with that, right?

- Making salad.

Uh-huh.

- So what are you putting in there?

- Just the olive oil.

- Okay, that's good.

Just a dash of.

- And some vinegar, some cherry vinegar.

- [Jacques] Mm-hmm.

Good.

I'll give you some cracked pepper here.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- And a bit of Vintner's salt.

We're doing it with arugula, right?

- Uh-huh.

- Arugula is kind of garlicky.

Arugula, what we call roquette in French, arugula salad.

And you tasted this?

- Yeah.

- That's good.

I always think you put too much vinegar in your salad.

- Mom does.

- I know, I know, I know.

You always think I don't put enough vinegar in mine.

- [Claudine] I know.

- Again, this will have to be done at the last moment because like the watercress or some very tender salad, this will get wilted very fast, you know?

- [Claudine] Yeah.

- Okay.

- Okay.

Is the salmon ready, you think?

- Yeah, it's basically ready.

Yeah.

So I arrange one of those for you.

- Thank you.

Remove this.

- You can arrange yours.

- I'm gonna put some garlic on here.

- Okay.

Now here, we have that on top.

Good.

And you can see that here, I have quite a lot of oil.

- I'm very surprised, actually.

- Look at that.

Like one or two tablespoons of oil.

That came out of the salmon - Yeah.

- skin.

Very fatty fish, you know.

So here, we have the arugula salad with salmon crackling and garlic chips.

- [Claudine] Mm-hmm.

So next, should we finish up the fish and the endive?

- [Jacques] Yeah.

Let's take a look at it.

- You have to get it out of the oven.

- [Jacques] I have to get it out of the oven.

- I'll just open and close the door.

- Ah, it's a heavy one.

Yes.

Let me see now.

Just barely cooked.

And now, it depends, of course, how you like it.

Give me that plate here.

We're going to remove the salmon.

- Okay.

- And don't touch the end of this that came out of the oven, remember?

That's the end of that thing.

- There you go.

- No, that's flour normally.

- Well, yeah, but I didn't have any flour.

- Okay.

Give me that plate.

Okay, we keep that a second warm here.

In the dripping that I have here, we're gonna put, you wanna gimme a bit of tarragon?

- Yeah.

- I have spinach here.

- [Claudine] You want the tarragon cut, I would imagine, right?

- Well, just some, yeah, some leaves of tarragon.

It doesn't really matter.

You can just do the leaf this way.

- [Claudine] And I was gonna make it all complicated.

That's why I like learning from you.

- Yes.

And that would be, this is pretty strong tarragon, you know.

So we do that in there.

You know what, I could have a little more moisture in there.

I'll put a dash of water.

- Okay.

- Usually, I poach it with white wine.

Remember?

But I would not probably want to put the white wine at the end, extra white wine, because it'd be very acidic now.

So this is cooking, Claudine.

Let's see if we have maybe a little bit of parsley or chive.

- All right.

- You can put four, five different types of herb in there.

And what you wanna do is to cook them in the liquid from the salmon until it get wilted like this.

Good.

- Just mix it all together, and just cut.

And it actually works.

- That's plenty.

- rather nicely.

- Okay, so I have a whole bunch of herb, which now is seasoned with the shallot like, and.

- Oh, we're gonna make sauce.

- So we're gonna make the sauce with that.

I'm ready for it.

Are you ready for me?

- I'm ready.

- Okay.

So with this, we'll put that in there.

First, you make a puree out of this.

(blender blaring) All the way, huh?

Good.

- That's good.

- Good.

Now, we put a little bit of cayenne.

Taste, yeah.

Not too much.

You wanna put just a dash of vinegar.

Remember, there is white wine, so.

- [Claudine] Oh, okay.

That's a dash.

- Salt.

And I put some mayonnaise in it.

I mean, usually you would put egg yolk, but some people don't wanna use raw egg yolk, even though it would cook partially with the temperature of this.

So to replace the egg yolk, you can have mayonnaise as well as mustard.

Okay, go ahead.

(blender blaring) I'm going to put a little bit of oil into it.

Should be, yeah.

Should be good.

Let's see what it is.

While I work on this thing, - Oh, wow.

- I want you to taste it.

- [Claudine] I just did.

(laughs) - Mm.

I like the endives when they brown a little bit.

- Me too.

- Good.

- I like that taste.

- Okay.

- Okay.

- So you know what we'll do.

I'm going to arrange the endive.

- First?

You want the endive?

- And with the endive, we have done a tarragon oil here.

And the tarragon oil is simply tarragon that you drop in boiling water for about five seconds until it gets wilted.

You take it out, run it under cold water, press it in your hand, put it in the food processor or in a blender like that, dash of salt and oil on top of it.

You can use any oil you want.

And you have a flavored oil, this one is a tarragon oil that you can keep in your refrigerator for a couple of weeks, you know.

- Mm-hmm.

- So that would be for the endive, Titin.

- Yep.

- All right.

- [Claudine] And we're gonna put some tarragon oil?

- [Jacques] Yes.

On top of it.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- On the outside.

But the endive will be good this way.

- [Claudine] Mm-hmm.

- Even though they are a little burnt, a little roasted, I should say, not even burnt.

- Roasted.

Caramelized, I like too.

I think, is a good word.

- Hmm.

Good.

Yeah, caramelized.

That's it.

- Right.

There you go.

- Wanna shake it?

- I did.

- [Jacques] You're a beautiful green, you know.

- [Claudine] Mm.

- Okay.

- Okay.

- And now, let's do the salmon.

Put your sauce right in there because the salmon has a beautiful color.

Just pour it in.

It's going to go all over.

Okay.

That's beautiful.

That sauce, I should say, if you do it ahead, will turn color, another of the beautiful green that you have now.

It will slightly change color.

The reason is that the acidity will go.

You see the salmon also, Claudine?

I would want to break it.

- [Claudine] Oh, you'd flake it?

Like that?

- Yes, I would want to break it to get the different shapes of the, you see the inside of the salmon here?

- Yeah.

- And that's what you want to see.

When you cut it, you kind of break, you know, it kind of get mushy.

So you would want to break it this way.

- Oh, okay.

- It has a nicer, more elegant look.

- I love that.

- I think maybe we put that here.

- Okay.

- Okay.

That you wanna put that.

And this is the baked salmon in green herb sauce.

- [Claudine] And now, should we do dessert?

- Absolutely.

- Awesome.

- Let's move on to the dessert.

Me rinse my finger one second here after all that salmon.

- Yep.

- We're getting into dessert now.

And we're gonna do a very simple quick almond and plum cake.

And we're going to cook that into a spring form.

You know what you could do is to butter this a little bit for me.

- Okay.

- I'll give you a little piece of butter here.

That's it.

- I'm glad I'm next to the sink.

- And we'll start with the dry mix.

And in there, we're going to put a cup of flour.

You just ate one almond.

- Two.

- The recipe is off.

Cup of almond, about two-third of a cup of sugar.

This is your dry ingredients.

And like a teaspoon of baking powder.

And that mixture has to go first.

So here we are.

(blender blaring) That's it.

I have a powder here.

So it's very simple, you see?

Now, you put the wet ingredients.

How about half of a stick of butter, we put in there.

Dash, more or less.

Dash of vanilla.

- Mm.

- Two tablespoon canola oil.

I'm putting two eggs in there.

This is a fast cake.

You're gonna do that at home, right?

- Yep.

- One.

- [Claudine] This is awesome.

- Two.

And a little bit of, put a third of a cup of milk.

Okay.

You can process it.

- I mix it?

- That's it.

(blender blaring) That's it.

That's it.

It's finished.

Yeah.

Here you are, Titin.

- Okay.

- Thank you very much.

- Thanks, Papa.

- And now, your batter is ready, you could cook that other regular cake without putting any fruit in it.

But in that cake, we're going to put plum.

Okay, here we are.

- [Claudine] This looks really pretty.

- This is going to do about three times, you know?

I mean, the volume is going to grow about three times.

- That much?

- Yeah.

- Wow.

- I have to do that with my finger.

Okay.

Okay, now you put your dough here and you want to let it spread out a little bit.

- Okay.

- 'Cause we're gonna put the fruit on top.

As I said, it's really going to grow quite a lot.

And we have plum here.

- What's this for?

- And you know this- This?

Parchment paper.

Oh, yeah, you could have put a piece in the bottom of it, but this is a spring mold.

So if it's a regular pan, it's hard to remove, but otherwise, we don't need that here.

You know, the skin of the plum here are the same component that the grape.

- Oh, really?

- In the French paradox?

- Yeah.

- The resveratrol?

You know, it's the component - Oh.

- which makes it good for you to drink red wine.

You can eat plum too.

You see here, we're gotta - I'll drink wine.

- take the, with the point of a knife, I'll go right, inside, and go around this way to remove the pit, you know?

- Oh.

- The pit.

Like that.

So we use this.

This one, we're gonna put them, Let's put them of a different color.

Two and two.

- Oh, that sounds nice.

- You could put more smaller one.

You could put other type of fruit actually in there.

Here it is.

Did I get it?

- I think so.

- Yep.

Here it is.

And what you wanna do, it may be wet, the plum, a little bit, so that you dip them in sugar.

- Oh.

- Like this.

And you put them in there.

- [Claudine] The whole thing?

You didn't cut it or?

- You don't cut anything.

Here, wet it a little bit.

- Okay.

- No.

Don't fill it up in there.

I mean, you have a hole.

It's gonna fill up with water.

Just wet it a little bit with your fingers.

- You knew I was gonna do that.

- I didn't know you were going to do that.

All right.

You can roll it in there.

- [Claudine] Oh.

(chuckles) - [Jacques] Okay.

- [Claudine] This way?

Hole side down?

- Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, you push them into this, you know.

Okay.

And that's it.

Can you put that in the oven for me?

- Yeah, hang on just a second.

- Put that in the oven.

- Let me get a baking sheet.

- Like 350 degrees.

- Makes my life easier.

- Take about, I don't know, 40 minutes or so.

And with this, we're going to do a glaze to go on top of it.

And the glaze that we're going to do here is with plum, plum jam.

And I like the plum jam, like this one, where there are still pieces of jam in it.

Wow.

That cooked very fast, Claudine.

- This is the one that was already cooling.

- Oh, all right.

Okay.

(Claudine chuckles) Cooling.

And a little bit of a good cognac is called a Grandin champagne, which indicate great quality.

Okay.

- Okay.

- [Jacques] So let's see now.

Ah, the best, we open it.

Oh, that thing comes out.

Okay.

- Ooh.

- [Jacques] Good.

I'm going to glaze it, so.

You see the plum have sunk into it.

You know what?

- Yeah, it looks very kind of art decory.

- Especially at the house, if your mother would use a silver tray probably to put that on top.

- Yeah.

- Then you would probably leave that thing underneath.

- Oh.

- If you don't leave that thing underneath, when you cut it, you cut into your tray.

- So you don't- - And I don't think that (sucks fingers) your mother would be happy about it.

- No, probably not.

So you're gonna just leave it on the tray.

- Serve it on top of that so you don't damage the tray underneath.

But we'll cut a piece for four.

Either you have to cut the plum in half.

Maybe I'll cut the plum in half here, (knife thumping) because otherwise it's one plum per person.

So it's - It's a lot of plum.

- four portions.

That's maybe a little too big.

- Nuh-uh.

- But this one here, you see?

See the inside of the plum here?

Good.

That's very nice.

- That is beautiful.

- We put this.

Yes.

And this is our quick almond and plum cake.

(bright music) So today, we're eating fish.

This is The Fish Connection.

I know you love fish, but you're not crazy about cooking it, are you?

No?

- Well, I always get confused cooking fish.

I mean, I can saute fish, but this I really, really like.

Actually, my godfather would really like that.

- Uh-huh.

- That would be something.

- You mean my brother?

- Yeah.

(laughs) - Oh, good.

Okay.

Well, you see we have that first course, we used the skin of the salmon even, which does a terrific crackling and with lots sliver of garlic here.

And after, what are we having?

- Then we're having the caramelized endives, - Yes.

- which I really love.

- Which has the name.

(Claudine laughs) - [Claudine] And the plum cake.

- Yes.

- So I'm having wine.

- Yes.

- And I'm actually going to have a red wine.

I'm gonna have a Pinot Noir - Oh, you are?

- from the Russian River Valley.

- Well, I'm going to have a burgundy from France.

A white wine because I'm a classic guy.

I drink white with my fish sometimes.

- Oh.

- I drink anything.

- I just love this.

I just love the wine, so I'm just gonna drink it 'cause I like it.

- Yes, I know you do.

So there is an old joke about seafood diet, right?

- Right.

Whenever I see food, I eat it.

(Claudine laughs) - That's it.

So you all saw this meal was not how to do at all.

It's healthy, it's light, it's delicious.

And I love to cook it with you.

- Thank you, Papa.

- Thank you.

(glasses clink) Until next time, happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.

(bright music)