- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

- And I'm Claudine Pepin.

- Remember when you were little and we used to spend summer at the beach in Madison?

- [Claudine] Those are some of my favorite memories.

- Me too.

And today, I want to do a menu based on some of your favorite summer seafood dishes.

- Sounds great.

- [Jacques] We start with a moist and delicate steamed scrod in an easy lemon dressing.

- [Claudine] Long Island bouillabaisse with fresh fish, mussels, and shrimp in a garlicy rouille sauce is perfect for a crowd.

- [Jacques] And a beautiful apricot savarin with fruit, finishes the fish on a light and colorful note.

- There is nothing like summer vacation at the beach.

- Let's capture the spirit with a fresh catch melange.

- Next, on "Jacques Pepin celebrates".

- You got one fishing today?

- No.

No, somebody dropped this at the house.

What are we gonna do?

- That's a lot of fish, huh?

- That's a lot of fish.

- So, we're gonna start with this.

And this is a striped bass.

And we'll go later on with those because this is a whole variety that we're going to do, a great fish soup, - [Claudine] Mm.

- [Jacques] a bouillabaisse, actually.

- [Claudine] Oh, I love bouillabaisse.

- [Jacques] So, we have the filet here.

But, you want to learn how to make a filet?

- [Claudine] Yes.

- So, maybe I'll take this one.

This has been scaled already.

See, you can feel it.

- Okay.

- No scale?

Okay.

So, all you want to do is to cut underneath here.

You know the two, - Gills and the fins.

- The gills.

Put that flat onto the central bone and we wanna cut down along, sliding it on top of the bone here.

- Hmm.

- You know?

So here, put that back over there.

- Okay.

- Now, this one here now has all of the rib cage here.

So, we want to clean up the rib cage this way slightly.

I mean, this of course, I'm sure that most of the time you're going to have the fish monger do that, right?

- [Claudine] Yeah.

- 'Cause I know you.

If there is a couple of bone here, you can run your finger and feel them, you know?

So at that point, if there is one of those, - And I use this.

- When you pull them out, what you wanna do is to put your finger here to press it out.

But if you do that and pull it out, you can pull out a big piece of flesh.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- You know, by putting your finger here, you hold the flesh back to slide it in between.

- [Claudine] Hm.

- So here, I'm taking a little bit of that skin again.

Looks better.

And that, we're going to steam it right on top of the stove.

Maybe I'll do a bit of an incision here.

- [Claudine] What does that do?

- Well, it helps steaming equally on each side.

And it looks good.

I wanna poach it on top of this.

You see, I have an escarole salad here.

- Yeah.

- Sometime what you do, you take some of those leaves, you know, if you have a bamboo steamer or whatever, - [Claudine] Mm hm.

- Maybe you poach it on top of this because that doesn't stick to anything, you know?

- Oh, okay.

So, you're using, but does it impart any flavor or anything?

Or does it matter?

- No, it doesn't matter.

You know?

Doesn't need any seasoning.

We put that.

And this, we're going to do the salad now.

Here is the escarole salad.

You can see I cut a little bit of the green outside and we washed it.

- It's very nice and green and young.

- An escarole.

And you know what they, they call that in Belgium, they call that endive.

And what we call endive, - They call chicon.

- Here, they call chicon.

Let me put a little bit of olive oil in there, you know?

And we're gonna start slicing the garlic.

Slice.

It's a little bit different than crush.

It's not quite as strong.

And we just want to brown it very, very fast with a few of those very hot pepper.

- [Claudine] Mm.

- Okay.

- Yes?

- Put some.

I don't need all of it.

So, I'm doing one portion, that's fancy.

(sizzling) And what you wanna do at that point here, you see Claudine, I wanna flip it a little bit so that your, the garlic comes on top and it doesn't burn, you know?

A little bit of salt, a dash of black pepper even.

And then the lid, and we cook that on.

- We have a lid right here.

- Yeah.

Good.

You know what I do in the lettuce, we're gonna put those dry tomato, the sun dried tomato.

And that give a kind of acidic and interesting taste at the end, you know?

So ,I don't really need many more than two or three here.

And if you don't wanna put them, it's fine, but.

We need to do a little bit of dressing in there.

- Okay.

- Okay.

You want, - Salt, pepper.

- Salt pepper, olive oil, lemon juice.

A bit of those strip here like this.

- [Claudine] A little zest.

- Yeah, they look good in there.

You put some of that in there and you have a nice little dressing.

During that time, I will keep adding my, - I'm guessing this is for the fish because we didn't put anything at all on the fish.

- We didn't put anything in the fish at all.

The fish is basically steamed enough now.

- [Claudine] Yep.

- Right.

Okay.

Now, look at that.

You go through that.

But I mean, it barely, barely cooked, you know?

(sizzling) This is still hot.

You see all the water that I put in there disappeared.

Okay.

The stew.

That stew, you could do that with, - [Claudine] Broccoli rabe.

- Broccoli rabe.

You could do that with spinach, you know?

Now, you can present your filet on the skin side or on the other side.

I think the skin side is nice.

- [Claudine] Mm.

- You see the emulsion you did is very nice there.

It's really thick together.

- [Claudine] Yeah.

- So, put it nicely there.

Remember, that at that point, I didn't even season the fish.

It's gonna be seasoned with that.

- [Claudine] There.

- Okay, you wanna put some chives on top?

- Yeah.

Do you wanna do Art Deco chives or?

- [Jacques] Sure.

Art Deco chive.

- [Claudine] All right.

- Is that okay?

- Yeah.

- Okay, here is our steamed scrod norma.

But today, I did it with striped bass.

I wanna show you what we have here.

The thick one here, it is the Chilean sea bass.

So, we'll take that piece here.

- Yes, please.

- This is a piece of lean cod.

The yellow lean cod.

Like this, we'll take that piece here.

That may be a bit too much.

A couple of those filet.

This is a bass.

This is a red snapper, this.

- [Claudine] Ooh, I like red snapper.

- You know this.

So, that gave us one, two, three, four.

And maybe the shrimp that's like five or six different type of fish.

And for bouillabaisse, you want four, five type of fish.

And you should go with what's on the market.

Okay.

- Now, just cut it into, - You can cut it into like two inch pieces.

Okay.

Maybe I'll take the skin out of the Chilean sea bass here.

You don't wanna cut it too small.

- Well, I'm done.

- Okay, good.

Can get rid of that.

Now in this, we're going to put the rind of orange.

And you wanna put some olive oil.

- Okay.

- So you have some.

You want a good two tablespoon of olive oil.

Okay, we're gonna stir it.

And of course, the most of what we wanna season it with is saffron.

So this, Claudine, at that point, what you wanna do, you would want to refrigerate that.

And that you could do that actually, the day before, you know?

So, it's all seasoned.

Of course, we've bone out the fish.

And with the bone, we've done the stock.

But first, I want to start my, the bouillabaisse here, the base bouillabaisse.

And start that with about a cup of onion.

You know, just chop.

Olive oil here.

(sizzles) Now, I have carrot here.

Yeah, about half a cup of carrot.

- [Claudine] Oh, and celery.

- Celery the same thing too.

So, what we do conventionally, you know, you do a stock with bone.

And the stock with bone, you put carrot, onion, all kind of thing around the bone.

Then you strain it.

I don't do that.

I use all of my vegetable here.

So, this is leek.

I wanted to show you how to do the leek.

The only thing you throw out is this.

And maybe the first leaf.

You see it's dirty.

- [Claudine] But, here.

- [Jacques] But here, well this is tough up to here.

Then, this is tough up to here.

And tough up to here.

Up to here.

- Are there like notes on there that you can read?

(laughs) It says, cut up to here.

- No, no, no.

Yeah, but look, look.

- [Claudine] You can feel that it's kind of fibrous.

- [Jacques] No, not all that.

Look at the color.

- [Claudine] Yeah.

- [Jacques] It's light green.

- This you can wash and put it in your stock.

- Okay.

- Now here, we open them like this.

This is exposed, of course, all the dirt.

Can you wash that?

- I'll wash it out.

- Thank you.

- And you're gonna do the fennel?

- I'll do the fennel during that time.

I'll use a little bit of the fennel, the fuzzy part of it.

And otherwise, I'll use the, about this, you know, of the body.

These have that kind of licorice taste, you know, which is really nice.

Okay.

So this, we wanna cut it in small pieces, just the way we cut the rest of everything else.

- And this too, right?

- This, you know, we need like a cup, cup and a half of this, Claudine, so.

- [Claudine] Of leeks?

- Yeah.

So, you can do just what you're doing, it's fine.

And then, garlic.

And all of that is going to go in our vegetable with this.

But then, what I wanted to show you, we're going to put in that soup.

We're going to put mussel also.

- [Claudine] Oh, those are alive.

- [Jacques] They start closing like this.

- [Claudine] Yeah.

- [Jacques] Because they're alive, you know?

- So, we only use the ones that are alive.

- All we do to put them directly in there, we want the juice, the juice of the mussel.

So.

- You didn't put any oil?

I'm sorry.

- No.

There is enough juice in there for that.

- All right.

- So, let's cover this.

We're gonna cook that a couple of minutes, you know, to let them open.

During that time, I wanna discuss the stock with you.

- Okay.

- Remember, all the fish we have over there?

Yes.

- All the bone, here it is.

- [Claudine] This is what you did?

- And as I was telling you before, conventionally, people soaked their onion, garlic, this, that, put the stock, put water and cook it.

And then after, strain it through the stock.

For me, I put all of my vegetable, I saute there, and only the stock here.

- Oh, so only the bones and the shells.

- Yeah, because 20 minute, about 20 minute of boiling and I have my stock here.

Look at that.

There is no oil or anything.

Just the natural oil of the fish.

- Well, all you did, - You can see it here.

to make the stock is add water and bones, right?

- [Jacques] Yeah, that's it.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- Bone and water.

- Do you want the fish?

- No, no, no.

Look at that.

- [Claudine] No, no, no.

Okay.

- Now we're going to do, see I have all my vegetables.

Beautiful now, as you can see there.

And now, we put the stock.

(metal banging) But, I probably won't put all of it.

- I didn't think you would, but.

- Put eight cup.

- Okay.

- [Jacques] 1, 2, 3, 4.

- [Claudine] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

- [Jacques] There you go.

A little more.

- [Claudine] Seven, eight.

- Okay.

I'm gonna cover that.

Bring that to a boil.

It starts to boil.

We didn't, we didn't put anything in there, did we?

- [Claudine] No we didn't, but I didn't know.

- Yeah, I need salt and pepper in there.

- Okay.

- No, I have it here.

Salt and a bit of the pepper.

- What about all the dried herbs?

Do they go in?

- Oh, yes.

Okay.

Put the dried herb in.

- Okay, what do we have?

I'll just pass.

- Okay, we have tarragon here, right?

We have thyme.

- And how about the tomato?

- We're gonna put the tomato in a second.

First, I want to show you, those are are all open, you know?

- Ooh.

They look very nice.

- [Jacques] Yeah.

So... - Are we taking the actual mussels out or just half?

- [Jacques] Well, you just keep the one which has the mussel in it.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- [Jacques] It's easier to eat, you know?

- See, but this is good to grab the mussels.

- Oh, that's right.

Here.

Yeah, show people the way you eat mussel in the, - Eat your first mussel, you have an empty shell.

- And then after you grab them.

- You can just grab them.

A very good thing.

- One year of graduate school in Brussels, that's good.

- Thank you.

- [Jacques] You know what I want to do also?

- [Claudine] What?

- I'm going to put the juice of the mussel in there, and potato.

Potato, we're going to put in there to serve in the bottom of the dish.

So just to keep the potato, I cook them a bit before.

Okay.

So, here is what we have here.

And to keep it warm, just like this, - Just put the lid on.

- No, I'm gonna put a little bit of this and then put the lid on.

I'll put maybe a layer of the, to have a little bit of moisture in the bottom so it doesn't burn.

That's it.

Good.

And then, I'm gonna heat it up a little bit.

That.

Let's put the tomato in there.

This is very important.

- [Claudine] Mm hm.

- Okay.

I have a beautiful stock now, as you can see here.

Okay, so let's say now, we are practically ready to to eat, so, I would poach my fish.

And that's great.

I have no bone in it.

I have nothing at all.

So this here, you know, you want to poach your fish until it is just nice and tender, period.

And again, the variation of fish is up to whatever you find at the market.

A beautiful layer of fish in.

Okay, let's cover that.

- [Claudine] All right, let's make some aioli.

- Aioli is a puree of garlic, you know?

Just like a mayonnaise is loaded with garlic.

- [Claudine] All right.

- Let's start a little bit with this, - So, garlic.

- To see what it look like.

When we start adding red stuff like paprika and some of the sauces here, it become a rouille, rouille mean rust in term.

Okay, let's see that.

- All right.

(whirring) - Wait.

I'm gonna put this in there again.

The potato, that's going to help to liquefy it.

- [Claudine] Mm.

- Yeah, you can put your egg yolk in there now.

- All right.

- Okay.

Dash of salt, dash of paper.

- A little bit.

- Turn it before you put the oil.

(loud whirring) Okay, Wait minute now.

We need more oil anyway.

- Oh, it's looking like what it's supposed to look like.

- Yeah, we need more oil in this thing.

- Okay.

- [Jacques] This way at least, right?

- [Claudine] Mm hm.

(loud whirring) A dash of this.

(whirring continues) - I think we're good.

- We are great.

So, we put that into a little container and en putin, that you serve directly on the soup, you know?

Or on a small plate.

Okay.

So, what you wanna do in the bottom of your pan here, you want to serve probably, a couple of slice of potato here, which now are warm, you know?

The potato, you know it's in Marseille.

In Marseille, they serve you potato.

Most of the other place, they don't serve you potato.

You know, in the Mediterranean, each time that you go, they have their own version of the bouillabaisse, you know?

And of course, each one of them is better than the other.

- Yep.

- You know?

So, here we are.

And this is our famous bouillabaisse.

- Oh wow, look.

A savarin.

- Oh, you know what that is, huh?

I'm going to show you how to make this.

(whimsical piano music) So to make the Savarin, the first thing you do this dough, so, you have to start by proofing something.

So, I have half a cup of warm milk here, like tepid, a hundred, 110 degree.

Sprinkle it with a little bit of sugar.

That does activate the yeast.

And then, I have granulated yeast here.

You can have of course, fresh yeast.

And this now, gently, I stir it gently and this is it.

You leave it for about 10 minute until you start proofing.

After about 10 minutes, I can see now it's proofed.

It's very yeasty for the smell.

And it has those bubble on top, you know, which indicate this.

And that's what you want.

So to this, you add the flour, the eggs, and a little bit of salt here.

Now, this has to beat to get the elasticity.

You know, it has to beat for at least three, four minutes with, by hand, it's pretty difficult.

But, with an electric mixer.

And after that, I'm going to add butter and raisins.

(loud whirring) (whirring stops) Now, it has about the proper texture, you know?

Thick and elastic.

And this is what you want.

Do you want to take it out?

You can see it at a very elastic type of texture like a brioche.

You wanna gather this around.

And the mixture that I have here, you now want to let it proof right in the mold for one hour at room temperature.

Well, I can see now that it's really proofed.

It come up to the top.

And we have to punch it down now.

So, you can see the elasticity.

And by moving it down gently, I'm punching it down here.

I can see the elasticity of my brioche.

This is a large savarin.

We're putting it all around and it should be barely, about half of the mold, you know?

'Cause it's going to proof.

And now again, you wanna cover it and leave it at room temperature for the second proofing, about another hour.

I can see that now it's really full, the way it should be.

I don't really want to damage the tub, but, you can see that it's really bubbly.

Now, we wanna brush it with a bit of egg wash.

And this is going to go into the oven 375 degree about 30, 35 minutes.

Here we are.

- All right.

- So, it wasn't that difficult to do.

- No.

I could do it.

I just need a lot of time for the whole proofing part.

- Okay, here is what we are doing now.

You see this is full of syrup inside and I can go with my knife to the center to be sure, you can feel it there, that it's wet in the center.

It has to be slightly wet in the center.

So, you do a syrup of half a cup of hot water here on top of the sugar.

All you want to do is to melt the sugar there, that's all.

Dash of vanilla in it.

You can't even put a little dash of rum in it.

That's it.

Okay.

And this is what I put in there.

It's on a wire rack here.

I put it in there and soak it in there, then turn it around or take the syrup to baste it on top.

That's it.

- [Claudine] Ooh.

- So, my savarin is ready to be finished.

The first thing that I wanna do is pour rum on it.

Three or four tablespoon of rum because I didn't put any in the syrup here.

I'd rather have the pure rum go directly.

And now that it's wet through, it'll go down right through.

- Mm.

- And that's good.

So in addition to that, we wanna put a glaze on top.

In that case here, it's a glaze done with powdered sugar - [Claudine] Mm hm?

- [Jacques] And a little bit of rum.

You know, this is what you see on top of a danish and stuff like this, you know?

- [Claudine] Yeah.

- So you know, we going to put a glaze on top of it here.

In some time, in a little while, that glaze is going to start, not melting, but.

- It'll just kind of run down.

- Kind of run down a little bit.

Okay.

So, I put two here.

- [Claudine] And then, yeah.

- Think we could serve by itself with a bit of whipped cream.

We could serve with poached fruit.

- Oh, I have some whipped cream.

Hang on.

- We could serve that with just a fruit salad.

I have peach here.

Beautiful peach, apricot, blueberry.

And here, a mixture of apricot preserve.

- [Claudine] Mm.

- Again, with a little bit of rum.

We keep the rum situation throughout, you know?

(laughs) You can do it with cognac or.

Okay, look at that.

Boy, that looks good.

- [Claudine] It looks perfect.

- Okay.

This is my whipped cream.

- Yep.

It's just in there.

- Thank you very much.

And... (gentle music) Okay.

And this is apricot savarin with fruit salad.

I think we have a real feast from the sea here.

- We definitely do.

- I have the striped bass here with the stew lettuce underneath.

I mean, usually I do it with scrod, but you can do it with any type of fish.

And that little lemon oil on top is really great.

- It's really beautiful.

And I have a bouillabaisse which I can't wait to dig into.

- [Jacques] You've learned how to make the bouillabaisse with the rouille, - [Claudine] With the rouille.

- [Jacques] With different fish, the potato.

- And everything's just poached right at the end, and it's so lovely.

- [Jacques] And then, we have a big dessert for the two of us, I tell you.

- You're right, it did start running down the side.

Little icing.

And for that, I actually chose a Late Harvest Viognier which I think will be really, really beautiful.

And for you, you're gonna start off with a beautiful Arneis.

- Oh, that's good.

- From Piemonte.

- [Jacques] Yeah, north of Italy here.

- Mm hm.

Arneis was almost extinct.

- [Jacques] Yes, very dry.

- And then, they brought it back.

It's really, really an old grape.

And it's really lovely.

It's kind of very floral like a Viognier.

- That's what I heard, yes.

- I think you're gonna like it.

- It's new, yeah.

It smell wonderful.

- It's one of the oldest grapes.

And I have a Chirol, which is made out of Rhone.

- [Jacques] Yeah, that's where I was born.

Very close.

- This is Beaujolais.

- [Jacques] Beaujolais.

The Grand Cru de Beaujolais, the great growth of Beaujolais.

- And this is kind of nice because unlike the Beaujolais Nouveau, you can kind of sell her this and it'll hold up for a while.

- A few years.

- Yeah.

- Well, I'm going to enjoy drinking it.

- [Claudine] So, that's it.

Mm, me too.

- I have enjoyed cooking and eating with you.

Happy cooking, - Happy cooking.