- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

- And I'm Claudine Pepin.

- I tell you, this is a remarkable basket for Easter that you made here.

- Well, thank you very much.

It's Easter.

We're gonna have dinner at Charlie and Priscilla's, and I thought it would be the least we could do would be to bring them something so beautiful.

- Oh, what do you mean the least?

I'm doing the whole dinner.

- That's right.

And why is that again?

- Because I always cook Easter dinner.

- Well, that's true.

And at least I know we'll always start with champagne and caviar and blinis.

- [Jacques] Yes, and then we'll have salmon with a tangy, fresh sorrel sauce and delicate little cucumber footballs.

- [Claudine] And of course, lamb.

Spring lamb loins coated with a ground lamb and vegetable mousse are a really elegant way to celebrate the season, especially served over fresh fava beans.

And leek and mushroom pie has just the right earthy flavors to go with the lamb.

- [Jacques] Hmm, so do eggplant cushions garnished with a lightly stewed tomato and artichoke bottoms stuffed with spinach and coated with a golden gratin sauce.

- [Claudine] And we'll end the way we started with more grownup Easter eggs.

Fluffy caramel snow eggs floating in a custard cream served with old fashioned oatmeal cookies dipped in chocolate.

- So join us for a special tribute to the bounty of springtime.

- Next on "Jacques Pepin's Easter Celebration."

- We do like big celebration at our house.

- Absolutely.

Any excuse.

- Any excuse.

But when the excuse is even better than an excuse, when it's Easter- - Or a real holiday, yeah.

- Real holiday, we start cooking and that's what we're going to do today.

And let's start by doing some cookie.

- That sounds like a very good start to me.

- When in doubt, start with dessert.

That's what we say.

So I have the flour here.

I have flour, about two third of a cup, stick of butter, baking powder, and sugar.

Those are oatmeal cookie, Claudine, so you'll see, very easy to do.

And one of the favorite of your mom.

- Mom makes a good old oatmeal cookie.

- [Jacques] Yes.

That's it.

- Wow.

- It gather into a bowl.

- So you start processing as soon as it, like, just- - As soon as it get together, yes.

So you know what?

Put the oatmeal here- - [Claudine] In the bowl?

- You have oatmeal flake, yes.

And raisins or currant, you know.

We mix it together.

The best way is really to do it with your finger here to incorporate that.

I mean, you want the oatmeal to be really incorporated into it, but not really form into a powder in there.

- You don't want it emulsified, just kind of.

- That's it.

- Yeah.

- So you have enough to do about 16, 18 cookie with that.

- Okay.

- So you want to take about the value of one, two tablespoon, you know, a little piece like this, and roll them, or press them, into a kind of oval shape, like this.

Then you put them here, press them a little bit.

- [Claudine] Is this too big?

- No, no.

And you wanna put those in the oven now.

- Okay, I will then.

- During that time, I rinse my hand.

And I have some which are cooked here.

You see the way they are when they are cooked, they don't really spread out much, but they're very- - Oh, they don't.

- Very brittle, you know.

- Ooh.

Oh, this with coffee would be just perfect.

- Now, if you wanna be a bit fancier, you put chocolate underneath.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- And you see, you don't have to worry too much.

This is melted chocolate.

You spread it out this way.

You could let it cool off that way.

If you want it to be nice and flat, you put them flat like this, press a little bit on plastic wrap.

You have to put it in the refrigerator.

That's it.

See that?

Press it.

Because you see, so it just came out of the refrigerator- - [Claudine] Oh, okay.

- Are glazed.

So we'll arrange that on the platter and we're gonna serve that, which we always do for Easter, with oeufs à la neige, in French, which is snow eggs.

That is the eggs... Just beat an egg, white sugar, a dash of vanilla.

You take large bowl of it, you poach that in water, a few minute, and then we do a custard sauce, which is milk, and egg yolk, sugar, vanilla.

And then we finish it by putting caramel on top.

And that will go with those cookie, Claudine, just like this.

All right.

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

- And this is our chocolate with milk cookie with the oeufs à la neige.

Now, next, I wanna show you how to make a leek and mushroom pie.

- Ooh, that sounds good.

- Special of the southwest of France, you know?

- Hmm.

- And this has to be cooked first, but I wanna show you how to make the dough.

All right, so what we have in there, we have three cup of flour.

See, the pound of flour.

And we are doing that... That's a very earthy type of thing, so we are doing it with lard.

And here I have like six ounce, six, seven ounce of lard on our flour.

- People are always afraid of lard, but I mean, one pie serves eight people so I don't think it's that big of a deal.

- Well, it's not that.

I mean, certainly in terms of saturation, it's less than butter.

- Really?

- Yes.

- Oh, I didn't know.

- And the configuration, chemical configuration of lard, is such that it make very large flake.

So it always make a flaky dough.

A bit of salt.

And then we're going to do some more in there.

(blender whirring) You have to let it turn.

I have half a cup of water here.

What would we do without those machine?

I mean, everything is done.

Wow, look at that.

So if you decide not to do it with lard, you can do it with another fat.

So my dough is done here and I'm going to roll that dough.

You can explain a little bit what the feeling is.

I mean, the feeling is they're cold.

- Well, it's leeks sauteed with onions, pepper, salt, and thyme.

- And then, a little bit of cream at the end.

A little bit of cream at the end.

- But it has to cool off before you can work with it.

- Yes, and let it cook down so that it reduce and it's not liquid anymore.

So see, that dough is very good like this.

We're gonna do a very... A kind of flat type of thing.

- How come you can get your dough to go round, if you feel like it, or square?

Mine goes whatever way it feels like going that particular day.

- A little bit of practice, Claudine.

So this is a very tender dough, especially that I just roll it.

And we want to do it pretty large, about 12, 13 inch, and quite thin.

So this is about 13 inch.

Let me see that tray here.

About, yeah, the side of the tray.

So stay here one second.

Bring back the dough right on top of this.

Here, and that goes down there.

Okay.

- [Claudine] Perfect.

- Now, I'm gonna roll the other one to do on top.

- Okay.

- During that time, spread that thing in the middle but leave me about one inch.

Okay, so you do the other piece of... Do exactly in the same manner to put on top.

Okay.

It's cold now, right?

- [Claudine] Yeah.

- Good.

Okay, I'm ready for you.

- I'm ready.

- So let's brush this out here.

Can brush that with water or egg wash.

We need the egg wash for the tub, so... Should be about right.

- Yeah, I would say.

- Okay, we press that around.

We can brush this with egg wash again.

Now, we're going to mark the outside like this.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- Okay.

Keep going, I'm gonna go on my side.

Now, the creaming, we can keep.

All right.

Okay, make a few hole here.

- [Claudine] That's just for steam?

- For steam, yes.

And I think that's fine, Claudine, right?

- I think it's beautiful.

- Okay, so you wanna put that in the oven?

- Yes, I do.

- That will take about 45 minute, 400 degree.

I mean, the dough are pretty spread out, and the filling in the center are quite spread out too.

Okay, let's see how beautiful that is, yes?

Well- - No, that wouldn't work.

- Let's see if... You know what you can do?

Yeah, it's moving, you know?

- See?

- Otherwise, you know, those thing there?

- Yeah.

- This is one of the best thing to do when you have big thing like that, when you slide this directly underneath and it does help.

- [Claudine] Oof.

- [Jacques] Okay.

- [Claudine] Give me- - This is how I put it here.

Okay.

Isn't that beautiful?

- That is perfect.

- [Jacques] Look at that.

- [Claudine] And it's just thin, and elegant, and- - Big tart like that, and you can serve that with anything you want.

So this is the leek and mushroom pie.

I love mushrooms.

When I was a young boy, I went with my father to find them in the woods.

40 years ago, when I came to America, going to the market asking for mushrooms, they sent me to aisle five, which had canned mushroom.

And now, chef are using tons of mushroom, with at least eight or 10 in the supermarket.

And you are growing mushroom which I've never even seen.

So tell us a little bit about the one you're growing there.

- Yeah, we actually have been doing this for 23 years.

We use a bottle system, using sawdust as our substrate, and as- - [Jacques] Oak?

- It's mostly oak saw.

Those are broadleaf deciduous trees.

This first bottle here is the raw sawdust in its own form.

- [Jacques] Sawdust, yeah.

- [David] In the lab, we put spawn into the bottles.

And you can see the spawn start happening.

There's a little bit of white fuzz, they're called mycelium.

And the mycelium will start growing, digesting the wood.

And you can see different stages of this.

As with time, they would grow more until it's digested all the sawdust in the bottle.

And this stage takes about 10 weeks.

And from this stage, it would grow steadily until it is finished at the end.

And this stage takes about 10 days.

- So now, they're ready to be sold, right?

- They're ready to be harvested.

So what I'd like you to do is let's build a basket together.

- Okay.

- And I'd like you to put your hand and try it- - So how do you do, you break the top here?

- Yeah, you kind of wriggle around a little bit and pull it out with a little bit of force.

- [Jacques] Whoop, and the whole thing comes out like this in one?

- [David] And the whole thing comes out.

Yeah.

- [Jacques] Look at that.

- We usually leave some of the mycelium behind.

And voila.

- [Jacques] Wow.

- [David] That is the- - So this is close to half a pound, about five ounces, no?

- Yes, yes.

It's about that.

- This is clamshell?

- A clamshell, we call it.

Brown clamshell.

- [Jacques] This is beautiful.

- We call it a trumpet royale.

- [Jacques] Trumpet royale, yes?

Wow.

- [David] And it's a very interesting texture.

Very firm.

Reminds me of ceps.

- [Jacques] Of a cep, yes?

- Yes.

Now, there we have a basket.

- Look at that.

- Yes.

- Now, my father would be proud of me if I come home with this.

I go to the wood to find mushroom but it is not very reliable.

- Now, you can just come here.

- I come here instead of going to the wood, right?

I have a little bit of a lamb stew here.

We're going to do a mousse with that.

- Oh.

- So I'm putting that in there for the time being.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- Take a regular lamb chop you buy at the supermarket like this.

And to start with, there is a T-bone here, so we take the filet out.

Stay your knife against the bone, you know?

- [Claudine] All the way.

- Then, and on the other side again.

Okay, I have removed the T-bone now.

Now, here, we want to take all of the fat out of this.

Trim it, you know.

So we start trimming because this is going to be encased inside the mousse, so we don't want any fat at all.

So I have the filet here and that piece here again.

So I have six piece, now I have 12 ounces of meat here.

I put some ice in it.

You know, when you do a mousse, if I were to do a mousse, if I were to put ice, let's say, a mousse of fish, it would collapse, 'cause there is not enough albumin and strands.

With meat, the meat is very, very strong and you can't afford to put ice in it.

(blender whirring) So you add that.

And ice, why ice rather than water?

Ice is cold.

You wanna work with the albumin here, which hold things together, you know?

And that's what ice will hold it very tight.

Put your eggs.

(blender whirring) (indistinct) And at the end, Claudine, we put salt and pepper.

The salt will also tighten the mixture.

You want enough salt in there, like this.

Good dash of salt, a good dash of paper.

I said the mousse is finished.

(blender whirring) Beautiful.

Okay.

Beautiful color, right?

- [Claudine] It is.

- Now, I do a garnish in there, a vegetable.

And those are carrot cut with a vegetable peeler and into pieces, and just brought to a boil one second, and then some spinach.

But you wanna be sure, however, that you... After they are drained, you don't want to have too much water in there, you know?

- [Claudine] Right, because you already have the ice.

- Yeah.

At that point, okay.

Good.

So here is our mousse.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- I'm gonna show you how to put that on top because this is a bit messy here.

You put this on top.

And you want to have the mousse on each side.

So I wet my hand here so it doesn't stick, and I put that on top, or on that hand rather, and back again here.

It has to close.

I have to close it on all side.

Okay, throw it over there.

And you can keep it like this in your refrigerator.

You can wait.

You know what?

I have those chive on the table here, they're supposed to go in there.

Cut some chive for me in there.

A little bit.

So you get the gist of it.

I wet my hand to hold this.

Okay, that's good.

- Is that enough?

- Yep, plenty.

You want to- - Yeah, I was gonna do that with just one piece.

- [Jacques] Okay.

That's it here.

You understand the principle now?

- [Claudine] I understand the principle definitely, but I would still just get messy with the whole thing.

It's more fun.

- Maybe we'll do one more.

I'm gonna start here with a little bit of olive oil and a dash of butter.

I'm gonna start cooking it.

And if you do that ahead, when you're ready to use them, you have them in your refrigerator covered like this.

They are nicely covered and so forth.

You lift that up, they will firm up a little bit, and you can use the plastic to take them out.

They would firm up much more than they are now.

I just finished them up and... Okay.

Okay.

- [Claudine] All right, so mine's the little one.

- You want the piece of meat to be totally covered.

You do a mousse like that, if you do that ahead, it is going to be easier to handle.

It won't stick to the... Just to rest a little bit.

This is fresh.

Okay, lower the heat.

And now we're gonna do a sauce for that.

So tomato sauce, I have it here.

- Can we put some chives in it?

- Later on.

We have to strain it anyway.

- Okay.

- So why don't we put a little bit of oil in there in the first skillet here.

Okay.

- Anything else?

- We saute the onion, about half a cup of onion, and crush the garlic.

This way, it's all over the place.

When you crush it like that, the- - The skin comes out.

- Skin comes out, and we're gonna strain it anyway so it can go in there.

Okay, let it cook.

We want to put wine in there.

Water, tomato.

- Okay, wine.

- Yeah, about- - About a half a cup?

- Yeah, half a cup at the most.

- Wine.

Water?

- Water, tomato.

That's it.

Salt and pepper, if you have here.

Okay, we cover it, bring it to a boil.

You could even add a dash of sugar.

Let me see that.

It may be ready to turn on the other side.

I want to turn very gently here.

You see that?

- Wow.

- Now, you have a large piece of meat and that loin is protected in the center.

Now, you could cook that longer than what I'm going to do here and serve them directly from the skillet.

The best way, however, is to brown them.

A couple of minutes, two, three minutes on each side at the most.

Put them on a tray, or leave them in there, and put them in the oven, 200 degree, and then they can stay there up to 45 minutes to an hour, very slowly.

They continue cooking very slowly.

Stay nice and pink in the center.

And when you do a big party, that's what you want to do.

- [Claudine] Yeah.

- What do we have here, Claudine?

- Now, we're gonna do fava beans.

I love fava beans.

- Fava beans, yes.

- For me, that's very Easter too.

I don't know why.

- Easter because it's the beginning of the summer, things are coming and so forth.

I have an escarole, you know?

- Lettuce, kind of bitter.

- Yes.

Yes, but I like it when it's pretty white like this, that goes with it.

And then we have those.

You could do that with lima beans.

You could do that with even fresh, what we call "flageolet" in French, which are the fresh... Or with peas for example.

Anything in the pod like this, which is green.

It's a lot of weight for what you get out of it, but this is great.

I mean, we love that 'cause there is nothing you can do with that.

- Whoa.

- This- - Is a jumping bean.

- Right.

This, you can use them as such.

But when you use them as such, the skin on the outside of the shell, you see the pod, you see the shell, right?

It's pretty tough.

So very often, you want to remove that and it's very difficult to remove it.

- [Claudine] It's also important to look for the bad ones.

- [Jacques] If you try to remove it like this with a knife and all that, it does- - [Claudine] You can't just?

- Well, you can, but it does take time.

The best way is to drop them in boiling water, which is what I did.

- Oh, I knew you'd have a better way.

- You drop them in boiling water, 30, 40 second, a minute.

And then when they come out, you do a little hole just with your thumb like this, and then you pop them out, you press- - [Claudine] Whoa.

- You pop them like this, huh?

- [Claudine] Oh, that is a lot easier.

- Yeah, yeah.

Okay, Claudine, not quite as hard.

Here.

- You can't do anything with this, right?

- No.

I want to have sliver of garlic like this.

I'll cut some with a knife and you can cut some like this.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- I mean, look, the big clove of garlic, you wanna do it with that?

And I'm cutting my lettuce this way to saute in two inches pieces.

This is washed.

Of course, I washed it.

Okay, and olive oil.

So a bit of olive oil here and garlic.

(knife tapping) - Show off.

- Well, no show off.

The point is that the way you do it with the vegetable peeler is actually more equal than what I do here, just in case you want to do them very thin.

Sometime, those sliver of garlic, you saute them in oil until they are brown and crisp-like, and put them on top of pasta, on a salad or whatever.

Garlic.

Okay.

You know what?

This here, I would put that in the oven now.

So there is two things happening here.

Two things happening.

They are cooking and at the same time, they are resting because they have a very low temperature oven, about 200 degree.

- Oh wow.

Sorry, I didn't clean this very well.

- Almost ready.

Now, in this, you have the garlic underneath, Claudine.

- Yeah, which means I was just waiting for you to do that.

I can do it when there's a little bit of... You are just a nut.

- No, because I'm only grabbing the cold part from the lettuce on top.

- Yeah, yeah.

- This, I'm putting some chicken stock in there.

Anyway.

Now, this is going to get wilted a little bit.

And while this is cooking like this, let's strain this here.

This is the sauce.

It's practically cooked.

That cooked pretty fast, you know?

- [Claudine] Yeah.

- And we can strain it.

I mean, you could actually put it in- - Get better at this.

- You can put it in the food processor also.

- [Claudine] Or you can even use that handheld emulsion thing.

- That would be good too.

We want a puree of that.

Actually, it'd probably be very rough in the food processor.

Oh, no food processor because I... Did I leave the shell of the garlic in it?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

This is to put in top of the lamb chop.

Now, let me see this.

Okay.

This is cooking nicely.

We can add this now to it.

- [Claudine] Now, the only thing you did to those was blanch them, right?

- Yeah, yes, yes.

Salt, pepper.

Continue cooking them.

And I'm gonna finish straining this and we still have to wait about five or six minutes for the lamb to be ready.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- Okay.

You know, that was fine here.

You can stick on it a bit if you need to.

If you doesn't need to, you see the viscous, it tastes fine, and we leave it as such.

- I think it looks beautiful.

- Okay.

Here, don't touch this, but touch this.

- [Claudine] I won't.

- The way it's springing.

- [Claudine] Oh.

- You know, that will indicate how rare it is inside.

So here, what we are going to do... I look at that and you want to taste this, just the juice.

See, those are not cooked very long, a few minute.

- Hmm.

It's nice.

It's very vibrant and the garlic, of course.

- Lot of salad.

I like to cook salad, you know, Claudine?

- Yeah.

- Probably would put a little bit of that sauce on the outside.

The moment of truth.

This one need to be all right.

You can serve it this way, but it's nice to cut it so that they can see inside.

- [Claudine] And all of the beautiful... Oh, that is just perfect.

- [Jacques] (indistinct) - [Claudine] Perfect.

- [Jacques] Yeah, we serve this one here.

- You know, I keep saying you should do this professionally?

You're really good at this.

(chuckles) - This one here.

So do you see this is a large- - [Claudine] Yeah, I mean, with the- - This is a large portion now.

- My art deco.

I gotta do my art deco.

- Your art deco thing.

Okay.

And this is our lamb loin in ambush with the fava beans.

I think we're really spoiling the guests today.

- I hope so and us too.

- Yes, but there is a lot of other dish that we are doing.

Along with that beautiful lamb, let's do a stew tomato.

The stew tomato is going to be served it in... On a cushion of eggplant, you know?

- Oh.

- So you see this, you wanna peel that tomato.

The best way to peel your tomato is to drop it in boiling water.

I mean, if you only have one, you can do it like that.

You don't scrap it.

You just actually take it and take the skin, and you see?

The peel come back.

- [Claudine] But that's just because you just dropped it boil- - Because you dropped it in boiling water, you see?

- [Claudine] Okay.

- So there, we cut this out across, cut the other one, (onion sizzling) have onion in there.

And then you press it one way, and then you turn it the other way and press it again, and clean up.

So now I have pure tomato flesh.

Okay, I'm putting a little bit of garlic in there while you're doing that.

And you, of course, do that type of stew tomato.

When you are going to leave the tomato like this, it's not the type of thing that you do, and strain your tomato or put it through the food mill, or in a food processor, or whatever, then that would be... That would be ridiculous and extra work to do all of that ahead and strain it.

So garlic.

And there, you see?

And then, I cut the tomato in little dice.

- That just smells good.

- Just plain tomato.

Even like this, you can take a piece of tomato, like I have here, tomato flesh like this, take your towel, put that in there, and create a cherry tomato.

- Wow, you are certainly rearranging mother nature right now.

- Yeah, but this is the best cherry tomato you ever had in your life.

It doesn't have any seed.

It doesn't have any seed, it doesn't have any skin.

- [Claudine] Hmm.

- Juice, so you just brush it with a bit of oil, butter, you warm it up, and you serve it at a garnish.

People will tell you, "My god, where did you get those cherry tomato?"

Yes, go ahead, put that on top.

And you see, the tomato look a little dry here.

If they look a little dry, I put a little bit of water in there.

Sometimes, they have a lot of juice.

Sometimes, they don't have much juice.

So I'll put a little bit of water in there.

We're gonna cover them.

Salt, pepper.

A lid and that's it.

Good.

- Okay.

- One thing is going on, right?

- I love it.

- Now that thing is going on, the cushion here that I have, and this- - Oh, eggplant cushion.

- Yes, as you do, we just cut about one inch slice, scall the top with a knife a little bit, a bit of salt, a little bit of oil you put on the tray.

You can dip that in the oil, this way and that way, you know?

And in the oven about 40 minutes.

You know what we can do in there is to put a little bit of tomato paste.

See, you're supposed to tell me if I forget something there.

- I'm sorry.

- Because that will give me a bit of redness and a bit of thickening.

Sometime, I don't add it until the end, and the reason is that if I have beautiful red tomato- - Oh, then you don't need it.

- In the summer, then I don't need it.

Okay, let that cook.

Now another special vegetable which you love, you love artichokes.

I wanna show you how do artichokes bottom.

Usually, when I do artichokes bottom, I usually don't get artichoke as beautiful as those.

When they start getting yellowish, less expensive, that's when I do artichokes bottom.

If you want to see how old they are, if you break this- - [Claudine] Do you count the rings?

- [Jacques] No, you count... There is a lot of thread coming out.

- [Claudine] Oh.

- See?

There is nothing there.

That is a very fresh artichoke.

Sometime, you have a lot of this coming out of it.

Now, the way I'm going to show you how to do an artichokes is the way I do it... A rather sharp knife for that.

I cut around, you know?

Like a pine cone not getting, I don't get into the heart.

You have to cut all around that heart, which is like that.

You see what I did there?

- Okay.

- Like if you were eating... When you eat all the meat, stay there.

So I show you this way, then you cut it here.

That's where you have your artichokes bottom.

Sometime, I cut the end of that, which all the prickly stuff there, remove that, which is no good inside.

And even this, this is nice and... That, you can't cook too.

Nothing of that, you can cook.

Now, turning an artichokes bottom to finish that, I have a knife here.

See, you have an angle here?

With that angle, my knife is straight here.

And I will go around cutting that edge that I have until here, where I started.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- From that position, I go to that position to get that edge here, now.

So you know, it's a motion that you don't stop.

You turn one side, you continue turning.

And when I finish getting to it, I go flatter again and keep turning.

So turning an artichoke bottom, as I say, you start here, and here, and here, and you finish.

Your artichoke bottom is done.

- [Claudine] Very nice.

- Now, we cook that into water, a little bit of lemon juice, sometime a little bit of flour, dash of olive oil until it's standard.

See, when you do them like that, you rub them with the olive oil- - [Claudine] With the lemon.

- With the lemon so they don't discolor.

That's it.

Now, we have those artichokes are cooked here.

They are cooked in water and we took the inside out.

Now, look at that here, where we didn't remove the center, take a little spoon, take the other one, and we start gathering the thing here to expose the choke, and then after, with your spoon.

I mean, you can see the choke here.

- [Claudine] This is what the choke looks like.

- You know, that thing here, yeah, the choke.

But you know, that's why it's cooked.

When it's cooked, it will slide off very easily, but you have to cook them completely.

And here, we have a spinach.

The spinach are just saute with black butter, salt, pepper, and a little bit of nutmeg.

So I'm going to do a sauce to go on top of that, like a kind of bechamel or cream sauce.

Though what I need there is a tablespoon of butter.

I think my pan is a bit hot there.

(butter sizzling) Right.

Melt the butter, tablespoon of flour, and this is the mixture that we call a roux.

Flour and butter.

This is hot.

Always one of the two.

This is hot, so this is cold.

I have a cup of milk here, in there, dash of salt, dash of pepper, a little bit of nutmeg.

- That's very good.

- Well now, we're going to bring that to a boil, and a little bit of flour here.

One cup is going to thicken it just to make it slightly... Slightly thick.

So you can arrange your thing in there.

Six of those.

And put your spinach, divide your spinach in there.

- [Claudine] I put this in here?

I fill it?

- Yeah, yeah.

Okay, this has to come to a boil.

This is looking pretty good.

I'm going to take the cover off now so it reduce a little bit.

A bit too much moisture.

Remember, I put some water in there.

And my cream sauce here, well, it's close to be ready, yeah?

Can put a little bit of cream in there.

- [Claudine] Doesn't hurt.

- Well, I have a cup of milk, couple of tablespoon of cream, that's fine.

Now, I'll taste it for you because- - I'm busy.

- You see how how fast it goes?

- Yeah.

- To do a cream, so dash of salt.

Always taste, Claudine.

Always taste.

- [Claudine] Yes.

- Okay.

The cream sauce is good.

- Okay.

Perfect.

- Enough salt?

- Yeah.

- Okay, now it does come to a good boil.

We're gonna put a bit of Parmesan cheese on top, maybe a bit of Gruyere.

- Okay.

- And that should go under, so we can put it on top.

- This was totally wrong.

I was supposed to wait- - No, no, no, it's fine.

We can put the Gruyere on top.

This is really hot.

Okay, put- - And then some Gruyere?

- Yeah, you wanna spread it out.

Don't let it fall in one mass like this.

Okay.

That's good.

Pour your Gruyère there, or you wanna put it on your individual artichokes bottom.

That's it, that's more than enough.

- Okay, I like cheese.

- And that, you can put- - [Claudine] In the broiler.

- [Jacques] Under the broiler, right there, okay?

This will take only a couple of minutes.

- [Claudine] Under the broiler, yeah, it shouldn't take too long.

- Yeah, you see, you would want, if you do that way ahead, you would want to put it in a hot oven to brown it.

In our case here, the artichoke bottom are still kind of warm, lukewarm, warm.

The spinach were still warm.

Throw the hot sauce on top, it can broil, it'll be fine.

But if everything is cold, even though this is hot, the sauce is hot, you will have to put it in an oven so that the whole thing get hot first.

So I am almost ready for that, Claudine.

Do you want to- - Would you like something to put it on?

- Yes.

You know what would be nice with that too?

If you give me a little bit of a fresh thyme over there, okay?

- Oh, absolutely.

- And for me.

I'll put that.

Two, three, maybe we'll do four there.

- [Claudine] It's okay, I haven't had lunch yet.

- Yeah, this is very tender stem, so... - There, (indistinct).

- Thank you, mademoiselle.

Give it a taste at the end, you know?

Nice taste.

You can put a little sprig on top anyway.

- I saved some.

- Good.

Good idea.

Stew.

I love stewed tomato like that fresh, you know, because- - Now, this is like a meal, this.

- This is the best tomato sauce, in my opinion, you can do.

Just fresh tomato saute for a few minute.

This way.

- [Claudine] Absolutely, I think that's lovely.

- Okay, so this is our eggplant cushion with stew tomato.

I still have the meat here which was resting on there.

I tell you this as I say, makes quite a nice portion.

- [Claudine] Oh, absolutely.

It's beautiful.

- [Jacques] And it just cooked just pink, you know?

- [Claudine] Just right.

- The way we like it.

Okay, there is enough sauce.

I still have a little bit of the brown sauce on top here.

- [Claudine] The tomato sauce.

- Tomato sauce, rather.

And then, Claudine, I think you can get your- - Can I?

Yes, please.

Okay, would you move that over just a little bit?

- And with the artichoke bottom with the brown butter spinach.

Okay, let's go now do our first course, and we're going to do salmon.

- Okay.

- But to do the salmon, first, I have to put some water in this.

This is really nice.

I have boiling water here and I wanna show you how to do those beautiful cucumber football that I have here, you see?

Football shape.

- Cucumber footballs?

- Right, right, right.

So first, you cut the whole thing so that they're all equal size.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- If someone do one in his corner, another one do, they're all nice but all different in size.

So here, let's say this one, what size are those?

You would cut it in quarter there.

Right.

The first thing that I do, I take the seed out.

And you see what I do there, it's not straight, it's a kind of football shape.

And then, after here, with the point of the knife.

When I was an apprentice, it had to be seven turn.

Let me put those to cook here while you are practicing.

You want to use the least amount of the flesh, more mostly of the seed, and a little bit of... Now, you can start with peeled cucumber, maybe that would help you a little bit.

- Well, I've got about 45 turns going here.

- Okay.

Well, that's good.

In any case- - Here's mine.

I'll be able to find it.

- So this is going to be a garnish for a salmon, which is going to be a salmon with a sorrel sauce.

I have a lot of sorrel in my garden.

It comes back every year.

You know, the type of things appear annual, which is great to grow.

And it's very expensive at the market very often.

So here is sorrel.

It's very acidic.

Now- - It's good.

- Often, you wanna remove... Bring this, this way like the spinach and remove the fiber.

The stem which is fiber.

- Because it's tough.

Do that out.

Now, here... You know what?

This is going to be cooked almost.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- What I want to do next is to put a little piece of butter for the sorrel here in that skillet.

- [Claudine] Should I put the sorrel in it?

- Huh?

Well, the sorrel, we have to do a chiffonade.

The chiffonade mean that it look like chiffon.

You know the material?

- [Claudine] Oh.

- [Jacques] You roll it on itself like this.

- [Claudine] Yeah.

- [Jacques] And- - [Claudine] Chiffon is a rag.

- Chiffon is a rag in French.

Now, chiffon or chiffonade, the material which is kind of crinkly and all that to look a little bit like this.

And that's why when we cut something like this, we call it a chiffonade.

Now, Claudine, this is... You wanna strain that for me?

- Okay.

- And the chiffonade is going to go in there.

- [Claudine] I'm right behind you.

- Back in the skillet, a little piece of butter, a dash of salt- - [Claudine] Salt, pepper.

- Pepper, and that's it.

It's finished.

Now, look at this.

You see that color it get?

- [Claudine] Definitely a different color.

- Khaki color.

It's extremely high in oxalic acid.

Very, very high in oxalic acid.

And it get a bit like okra, gooey as it cook like this to get that wonderful acidic taste.

I'm saying that also particularly because people cook a green and say, "What did I do wrong?

"It turned out brown."

The sorrel always turn brown like this.

And again, I cook it in stainless steel.

It's not like I cook it in aluminum.

So you wanna gimme the cream?

- So you're gonna have cream in there?

- And then it will thicken into the cream.

That's it.

- [Claudine] It's gonna be a wonderfully rich, delicious meal.

- Yeah, this is just... And then we have to do dash of salt.

We have to do our salmon next.

- Well, that I'm looking forward to.

Here you go.

- So you see, you can ask the butcher for a large steak of salmon like this, a steak of salmon that I cut in half, and then you butterfly it.

So this is very flat and it should cook very fast.

Dash of salt.

Have salt on this one, that one.

A little dash of oil on top because I have nothing in the pan.

- [Claudine] Do you wanna put any butter or anything in the pan?

- No, no, nothing.

Just like this.

And you have a hot pan.

- That's gonna go.

- Lemme check if it's hot.

Just.

(water sizzling) - [Claudine] It's almost hot.

- Yeah, it's hot.

But this is a nonstick pan.

Of course, you want to do that flat and it will cook very fast because we have thin it down to about half inch.

Now, the sauce here are thickened, you see?

And I want you to taste it.

- I would very much like to taste it.

- You see how acidic it is?

- Ooh.

But I mean, it's acidic but it's not unpleasingly acidic.

It's really nice.

- Wonderful.

That's the whole point.

- Yeah.

- With this richness, you know?

- Hmm.

- Dash more salt and pepper.

Here's my cucumber football.

They look beautifully glossy, you know?

Like this.

- Yeah, I know.

They look very nice.

- This should not thicken at that point here.

Basically ready, you know?

Saumon à l'oseille, the salmon and sorrel sauce were the famous dishes that one of the three star restaurant, the Troisgros brother in Rouen, in France, developed quite a number of years ago.

Everyone would come there to have the saumon à l'oseille, you know?

Salmon with sorrel sauce.

Okay, give me a plate.

All right.

You know, my- - [Claudine] Oh, it's beautiful.

- You wanna put that on top maybe?

Now, I'll give you the cucumber football to arrange there.

- [Claudine] I'm making these for Thanksgiving.

- Good, go ahead.

Take care.

Not like me.

You want to arrange maybe what, six, eight?

Not all around, but I mean... I mean, all around, but I mean not filling it up.

You don't want that many ball there.

That should be fine.

- That's good?

- Yeah, do you think so?

- [Claudine] Uh-huh.

- And then, that salmon is plenty cooked.

Still slightly rare, you see in the center?

Do you want it this way?

We put that right in the middle and that's it.

This is the salmon in sorrel sauce.

When I was at the Russian Tea Room as a consultant, I had to taste caviar all the time to choose between... This is a beluga, we had the ossetra, we had the sevruga.

- Sevruga.

- We had the Payusnaya, which is the pressed caviar.

- I like that one.

- As well as two type of red caviar, plus the yellow caviar, and so forth.

And so, I ate caviar, and I think that I'm going to take- - It must have been really torturous.

- It was torturous, you know?

Torturous.

And I'm going to put a little bit of butter on mine, on the blinis here.

Our blinis is done with buckwheat flour- - Oh.

- Which is really good.

So you know what?

- What?

- I love vodka with my caviar.

- I like actually tiny bubbles with my tiny eggs.

- [Jacques] Ooh.

Tiny bubble with tiny eggs.

- Yeah, I like champagne.

- I'm going to give you a piece of that.

- I can't believe that you're eating that and not giving me any of it.

- Here.

And I'm pouring some of the vodka here, as you can see.

- I'll taste it.

I'm just not a big vodka person.

- The vodka is very oily now because it's been kept in ice in the freezer but the best way to keep it.

So we're gonna toast with that but- - I'll take the little one.

- Explain to me a little bit... That's a beautiful bottle of champagne here.

- It is.

Well, yeah, it's a vintage champagne.

- So you want champagne with your bubble?

- [Claudine] Yes.

- [Jacques] I love it with- - Bubbles with my bubbles.

- I love it with my dessert.

- Okay, that sounds perfect too.

And I also picked a Chablis, which is a chardonnay.

I think it's gonna go really well with the fish, the first course.

- With the salmon?

- Yeah, and also- - Explain all of this.

I'll eat that because you can't.

- And then a Shiraz from California, from Santa Barbara, which is gonna go beautifully with the lamb.

It's really gonna bring out the earth tones in the lamb and the fava beans.

And it's really just gonna match very, very well.

I mean, food and wine pairing, you can almost even just look at the colors of the food that you're eating and pair it with the wine you're drinking.

Lighter color, lighter wine.

Darker color, darker wine.

- I never thought of it this way.

- Uh-huh, it's easy.

- Where's the wine anyway?

- Wine.

Always wine.

- I love my champagne for my dessert.

- With the oeufs à la neige?

- Yes.

(glasses clink) - [Jacques] Easter, the celebration of spring and new life.

But here in Connecticut, it's still pretty cold and the trees are bare.

We take a walk on the beach and the wind comes rushing in from Long Island Sound.

I know what I want to plant in my garden, but I have to be sure that the last frost is gone.

I love to prepare a feast for this time of year.

Fresh springtime vegetables, mushroom, and lamb.

Of course, Paschal lamb for Easter.

(speaking foreign language) The French word for Easter is even "Pâques," and it's spelled P-A-Q-U-E-S, like "Jacques" with a P.

- Happy Easter.

- Okay, just grab it.

Happy Easter.

(people chattering) - Here we go.

The last two.

- Here we go.

- Bon appetit.

- Bon appetit.

- [Jacques] Happy Easter, let's eat.

- [Claudine] Happy Easter.

- So nice to being at your house for Easter.

We're gonna do it every year.

For me, the dinner table, however, humble or grand, is the heart of all of our relationships.

- So Jacques, what is the secret to this lamb?

- You gotta buy the book.

(guests laugh) It's actually very (indistinct) because we take the center of the loin.

I mean, you can buy a lamb chop, take the little bone out and you have a little loin.

It's about two and a half ounces of meat.

It's not that much in the center.

And you buy a little bit of stew meat to do the mousse, which is usually putting it in the food processor with an egg, crushed ice, and some cream that we have spinach and carrot in it.

You put the mousse all over around and then you saute it on each side.

It rest maybe 30, 40 minutes in the oven, that's like 180 degrees, slowly.

And that's it.

- Easy for you.

(people chattering) - [Guest] Tell me what he said.

(people chattering) - I heard 180 degrees.

(people chattering) - [Jacques] We had the pleasure to cook a special meal for friends and family that celebrates new life.

- [Guest] The Norman guy, his grandmother made it.

- Next, we're going to have the dessert, and dessert is going to be the snow egg of the floating island, or oeufs à la neige in France.

Those small egg white beaten and poached with a custard sauce covered with caramel.

So when you serve the oeufs à la neige here, it comes on top and you have that hard caramel on top, and people try to break through it and it crush the oeufs à la neige.

So what you have to do is to turn it upside down and you eat your oeufs à la neige from here.

And I like that you can cut right through the caramel.

That the best way to eat your oeufs à la neige And with that, we're going to have chocolate oatmeal cookie.

That's your cookie covered with chocolate that you did.

And Priscilla, that beautiful little lamb thing that you did here, that little lamb animal covered with whatever you cover, it's going to be great.

- Lamb coconut.

- We feed the lamb, (indistinct).

- Yes.

Thank you, Claudine, for helping me cook.

- Thank you, Papa.

You did most of the work anyway.

- Thank you - Claudine, you did a great job.

- Yes.

- Fantastic.

- And Charlie, the great bread.

And to all of you here, happy cooking.

- [All] Happy cooking!