Brussel Sprout Love: Jacques Pépin: More Fast Food My Way | KQED

When you get a piece of really fresh salmon, it is the perfect time to make cured salmon morsel. And what you do, you cut it into dice like this. I mean, cube rather. In a second. Okay, you put that to cure. You put salt on it, a dash of sugar, a fair amount of cracked pepper. You stir it. And this is going to cure within 20, 20, 30 minutes. And after you can take those pieces and roll them into different type of herbs, chopped parsley, chives, and all that. And you have this. You can enjoy it. Even if it take only a minute to make. I am Jacques Pepin, and this is fast food, my way. Happy cooking. Production funding for this series has been brought to you by Cuisinart. With the next generation of food processors. From bread dough, to pizza, to stir fries. We do the work to save you time. Cuisinart, the next generation. And by Scharfenburger, makers of fine artisan dark chocolates. Recipes available at scharfenburger.com. And by Spectrum Organics, a purveyor of fine culinary oils and condiments. Spectrum, the taste of goodness. And by OXO Good Grips, makers of kitchen tools that make everyday living easier. I love to cook, probably because I'm always hungry. So cooking is great. And today's menu is the type of menu that I will do for me at home, and my family. We're gonna start with a seafood chowder, as we do in New England, with shellfish and fish in it. Then a crusty chicken leg, with the mushroom sauce. Finally, a fricassee of Brussels sprouts with bacon, that is great for Thanksgiving. And finally, a divine trio, which is cheese, nuts, fruit, and port wine with it. So that's great with even four. So I'm going to start with the chicken. And that chicken here, the thigh. I like thigh better than any other part of the chicken. And those thigh are about seven ounce. And you may say it's not that much of a main course, but in the context of a menu, remember that the chowder is going to be quite consistent with a lot of stuff. So we tend to have a smaller main course. Now to help that cook, what I do, I cut on each side of that central bone a little bit here, just like this, just to increase the cooking because it's the place where it usually always stay a little bit red, you know? So here we go. And there, since I leave the skin on that particular chicken, I'll start without any fat in there. Directly in there. This is a non-stick pan, so it should work fast. I can see that it doesn't stick. I want to start frying it. And of course, I'm putting salt on this. And freshly ground black pepper. So wash your hand after you do the chicken. Here we are. And this is going to cook a couple of minutes. When it's really sizzling like this, I want to be sure that it's not sticking. And I will cook that chicken for like 16, 18 minutes completely on the skin, you know, so to get a really crusty skin. I'm going to transfer it to that one because I want to put it on low heat here. Okay. And cover it up. Here we are. That's it. So about 16, 18 minutes. And now I'm going to start on the chowder. Okay. So olive oil. Good olive oil in there. And leek. And this, I'll probably have a good cup, cup and a half of the leek. You cut your leek always like this, except when you want a so-called julienne of leek, which is not the case today, but if you want a julienne of leek, then you take that part of the leek and you keep it together because this has been organized by mother nature. So you leave it like that, fold it in half and cut it this way. This is what we call a julienne, you know, very thin thread like that, that are often done in Nouvelle Cuisine. It's fine. I can put that in there as well. Good. So I want to fry that for a couple of minutes. Garlic and the mushroom as well. Now those mushroom, I just washed them a second ago because you should not do it ahead. It is not that you don't wash mushroom, it's that you don't wash mushroom ahead. Otherwise they get yellowish on top. The top get all sticky-like and they discolor. But if they are dirty, of course, at the moment that you are ready to use them, put them in the water, wash them and take them out. This is it. Okay. So I have that in there. Let's see. It's already smelling wonderful. Okay. This is a thick, heavy, thick, heavy cast iron pan. And it's the type of dish which is great. You can do a stew with that too, the type of dish that you bring to the table and serve like that because it looks good. So with this, we're going to put the clam juice, which I'm adding here. That will be the base. And a bit of water as well. With a cup of water. You could use chicken stock, but basically this is fine here. So we want to bring that to a boil and cook it, well, a minute, couple of minute, you know, at the most. And then we're going to add zucchini to this and thicken it with the potato flake. I did an easy way of doing it. And it works beautifully. So there you can prepare ahead. This doesn't really have to cook that long so that I'll cut it into pieces, about a half inch. You want to put about, when you do those type of soup, you can use other things that you have in your refrigerator. You know, if you have a piece of some scallion in there or even salad, I shred the salad and put it in there. And then we are going to serve the fish later on here. I have cod, scrud, we use very often cod, scrud. I mean, you could use salmon for that matter here. You could use catfish for that matter, or all kind of, you know, a white type of fillet of fish like that, that you want to cut into maybe one inch, three quarter of an inch pieces. Okay, I can see that it's boiling now very nicely. So I let it boil for a couple of minutes. Turn this upside down so the steam doesn't run all over the place. I finish cutting this. So there, you see, for four people, I probably would have four, five little piece of fish per person. And that will cook quite fast, you know? So I think that now, cooked a couple of minute, it's enough. So I can add my zucchini. Here we are. And I can sprinkle the potato flake on top. When I do that, I always like to use the point of a whisk, you know, just to stir it on top so that I'm sure that it doesn't form into a big lump, you know? So those are very handy, you know, to thicken soup or... That's it. And by the time it comes back to a boil, basically it's cooked. So I have it. I'm gonna cut those shrimp. I'm gonna cut that into, well, inch pieces like this. Okay. So, you know, if you want to buy smaller shrimp, even very small one, then you can leave them whole. But I like that size. That size is about what they call 2024. That is 24 shrimp per pound. That's how it comes. So now the thickening agent of the potato flake has worked. So I have just a little bit of thickening. I can put my fish. This is, of course, as I said, what you would do at the last moment. You know, like say if you have a party, you do everything except the fish. And at the time when people sit down, you bring it to a boil and you put all that stuff in it. A little bit of half and half that I will put here. About half a cup or so. And by the time this comes to a boil, it is basically cooked, you know? It's a great soup. Quite satisfying, you know? So I want it to come back to a boil. So I have it ready. Beautiful soup with the mushroom. A bit of cleaning up. Right there, I have the French flag. Bleu, blanc, rouge. Oh, the American flag, red, white, blue. And then you want, of course, to sprinkle a little bit of crab on top of this. Little pieces of crab. You know, crab is expensive, but it's so delicious. And you serve that maybe with oyster cracker. And you have the first dish of that meal, which is a perfect dish for winter, summer, anytime. It's always good. So I'm going to start another dish that we are doing, which is brussels sprouts. When Claudine was small, Claudine is my daughter. We never gave her a choice of what to eat. We said, that's what we're eating today. And finally, when she was older, it ended up that her best vegetable was brussels sprouts, spinach, and artichokes. Still now, that's what she liked the best. So it's good to do that when you have kids. You just do it, you put it on the table, and don't reward the kid when he eats the spinach. Otherwise, he's going to ask for something. Okay, so I have four slices of bacon. Here I have about a pound. A good pound of brussels sprouts. And here is my brussels sprouts. What you want to do is to remove that part here when it's all like this, and any of the leaves which are damaged around. A little bit of that, of the stem. And you know, I used to cook them in water, boil them, or cut them in half. Now I cook them raw. It's much easier. And I slice them with the food processor, which makes it even easier. So here I have, right into the tube. I don't even have to push them down. Those machines really make your life easier. That's it. So there is different size blade, you know. This is about like four millimeter, or whatever, and it's fine. That's what I use. And those, you see, are cut into nice, thin slice here. It's going to work perfect for that. And my bacon, as you can see, is really getting crusty and nice now. And this is what I want. So the brussels sprouts, I have about a pound, close to a pound and a half here. I'm going to go directly in there. Dash of salt. Remember, the bacon is salty, but it still needs salt. Pepper. Fair amount of cracked pepper. And then I'm going to make it sweat, so cold that I'm going to cover it. And the steam is going to sweat it a couple of minute. Remove the lid and continue cooking it until whatever moisture is gone. Saute it, and that's it. So now let's check on the chicken, which I think is really crusty. And I think ready. So remember that that chicken was cooked only on one side, but it was the cover. I can test it. See, I can see that it's pretty tender now it's cooked. But look how crusty the chicken is. Here we are. Okay. Onion and garlic in the chicken. Hey, we are moving here. Okay. And then the mushroom. Now those so-called mini Bella mushroom, like Portobello, but the small one, I want to wash them. The best way is to keep them just the way they are when they come out of the supermarket. And as soon as you're ready to use them, wash them and slice them. In that case here, I'm going to dice, to dice those in little square to make a mushroom sauce with the chicken. The chicken, by the way, you could keep it warm in a 150 degree oven or so. I'm going to lower, to lower up this. That's it. Let's check on that. Can hear it sizzling? Ooh, starts to soften a little more. If you feel that it's too dry and it doesn't soften enough, put a little bit of water in it. You know, can always add a little bit of moisture. That's it. This is the trick of the trade. Les ficelles du métier, we say in French. Okay. So square, dice on this. All right. The recipe is only the expression of one moment in time, which is what happened the day that I did this. In fact, when I did that recipe before, it probably was different than it is now. Always different. Okay, let's see that. Ooh, that's it. I think those are cooked enough. Mm, a little bit crunchy, a dash of salt more. Maybe a little dash of olive oil. Can never go wrong with a good olive oil. And I'm gonna serve this just like this. You have to do that. I mean, Brussels sprouts is classic for Thanksgiving, you know? And often I do it this way. Okay. This is going a bit faster here. And I have enough mushroom here. I'm gonna deglaze with a bit of wine. One tablespoon, maybe two. Remember that theoretically, your chicken would probably be in the oven, just warming up, 140, 150 degree oven. That's how I would keep it. And here we are. Maybe a bit of green for the top. If I had, you know, I was left on an island, and I have nothing to eat, I think chicken, eggs would probably be what I would choose first. Eggs, I love eggs in any form, and chicken in any form also. So let's see, this is cooked enough. And the chicken here. You can see that, I can hear it. I mean, you can hear this. Even how crusty the top is, cooking it the way I did. So you have four of those, of course. Don't throw out that juice. She's going to be there. And that's about it for our dish here. A little bit of the juice, actually. I don't want to hide all of my chicken here. A little bit of it. The juice around, the chives on top, and this is it. Simple dish, elegant, and delicious. And now our dessert, sort of dessert. But at home, usually I finish the meal with a piece of cheese, my wife, and very often, a piece of fruit on top. So this is one of the best combination that you can have. So here, I'm taking the apple. You can actually keep this, you know, the nice decoration here. On the other side as well. And then you don't have to peel the apple. We cut it in half. Look at how beautiful that apple is inside. And again, the same technique here. Put your thumb in the center. Make sure that your thumb is in the center because your thumb is protecting you. If you don't have your thumb here, that goes into your arm, your hand. So we cut that into wedge, you know? I mean, you can have different type of apple. Of course, I have a Granny Smith here. Again, the same idea. I like to do the apple ahead like that. Sometimes I do pair, you know? And cut it. Lemon juice on top because I like the taste of lemon juice and it will prevent the discoloration. Put the lemon juice on top. And we have here. That's enough. And then it's a bit wet now. So the thing that I do, I put cracked paper on it. And this is either Malabar or Telecherry paper. You take a good quality and we crack the paper and you crack it with a little skillet or something like this. You can hear it crack. This is basically, in the kitchen, what we call mignonette. Sometimes you read a recipe and say, put a teaspoon of mignonette. This is what mignonette is. Cracked paper and black paper. You don't want to do the white one there. You want the black one. You can crack it a couple of times to have it finer. You know, this is what you use when you do a steak au poivre. You spread that out. You dip your steak in it and on the other side, that's how you do it. But there, we are sprinkling that on the apple and it's really an interesting taste. You know, that goes there. And on my tray here, white one, dark one. You don't want to be too fancy with this. That's it. Get that. And the cheese. I love blue cheese. I love gorgonzola. I really love Stilton as well. And I have a Stilton here. You can cut it into pieces. Sometimes I like the rind. And this is what people will have for dessert and the combination of the nuts. And those are toasted, toasted pecan nuts. You can have walnut, of course, or for that matter, almond or hazelnut. And with this, a little bit of those crackers. I like to break them in that. A little bit like this. And of course, nothing goes better than that, than a great port. This is a vintage port and I have a 20 years old port over there. Either one would be absolutely scrumptious with that. A simple, elegant hand-in to a comfortable, home-cooked American meal. Happy cooking. Visit our website at kqed.org slash morefastfoodmyway to learn more about Jacques Pepin. You can watch shows online, view extra clips of Jacques in the kitchen, print selected recipes from the series and meet some of the people behind the scenes. Call 1-800-937-5387 or log on to channel9store.com to order the book with over 100 recipes and color photographs for $32 plus shipping. Or to order the complete series of all 26 shows on DVD for $39.99 plus shipping. Production funding for this series has been brought to you by Cuisinart, with the next generation of food processors. From bread dough, to pizza, to stir fries, we do the work to save you time. Cuisinart, the next generation. And by Scharfenburger, makers of fine artisan dark chocolates, recipes available at scharfenburger.com. And by Spectrum Organics, a purveyor of fine culinary oils and condiments, Spectrum, the taste of goodness. And by OXO Good Grips, makers of kitchen tools that make everyday living easier. A KQED television production.