- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

(mellow music) - And I'm Claudine Pepin.

You know, Mom's birthday is coming up.

What do you think we should do?

- I think she would enjoy, really, a quiet dinner with the three of us with her favorite dishes, of course.

- Well, I know she wouldn't want any birthday cake, but I know she'd love some bread pudding.

- And champagne and caviar.

- And we'd have to buy her flowers, of course.

- Of course, it's a great treat cooking for those you love best.

Join us as we celebrate a birthday party for Mom.

- Next on "Jacques Pepin's Kitchen."

- "Cooking with Claudine."

(horn tooting) Well, it's your mother's birthday.

- And we have to cook.

(laughs) - Yeah, do you know what you wanna cook for it?

You thought about it?

- I thought about it.

I wanna make some of those dumplings.

You made them once.

- Mm-hmm.

- They have kind of a pepper sauce, and I know she loves- - Oh, yeah, little dumpling, ricotta dumpling with a pepper sauce, yeah.

- She loves chicken.

But I wanted to do something maybe a little bit more elegant than just simple chicken, so I don't know.

What do you think?

- I think I have a good idea to do a kind of maybe a chicken, a squab chicken, a smaller one.

- Oh, yeah, that would be good.

- Exactly.

Yeah.

- Mm-hmm.

- I think in addition to that, a birthday would not be a birthday without caviar.

- Not in our house.

- So we have a nice can of caviar here.

(bowl clanging) This is a white sturgeon from California.

It's kind of unusual as it's a small grain.

It's almost like a sevruga.

It's nice and beautiful.

- Yeah.

- I know you hate caviar, but- - I know.

- That good?

- Mm.

- It's good?

- It might not make it to the table.

- Make it to the table.

(Claudine laughing) You know what you have to do?

I think you have to put that in the refrigerator.

- Okay.

- Okay?

And you know what?

You wanna serve that with chopped onion.

You want a bit of sour cream.

You wanna put that in ice.

And especially, don't forget to chill the champagne because- - Okay.

- we need champagne or vodka, preferably champagne with a caviar.

And to start our menu, then we're going to start with those ricotta dumpling.

And we're gonna do that in the food processor.

You'll see how easy it is.

I have eight ounces here of ricotta cheese.

Put that in there.

You know what?

You can put the flour with it.

I have a little bit of flour here.

- This?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- You go ahead.

- [Claudine] What is ricotta cheese exactly?

What kind of a cheese is it?

How does it get- - Break that.

- this consistency?

- It's cooked- - Oh.

- to a certain way.

That's it.

- I know, I know.

I'm not supposed to break it on a, okay, paranoid.

- Now we put some Parmesan cheese in it, and that's it.

You turn it.

- That's it?

- Yes, and you don't do it long.

You do it, like, a few seconds long.

There you go till it's together.

(blender whirring) That's it.

That's fine.

That's it?

- Yep.

That's it.

- Okay.

- So this is a very fast recipe.

- (laughs) This is very fast.

- Okay, so let's put that in there.

In that case here, I'm going to put a little bit of chives in it.

Why don't you put the chives in, Claudine, there?

- Just like this?

- Yeah, just chopped chive.

That's it, just stirring them in.

So with the ricotta, Gnocchi, or dumpling, it's a little bit of the same thing.

Here we are, and now I'm gonna show you how to cook this.

(dish clanking) And you know what we have?

We are boiling water here.

We do them about a tablespoon a piece.

So this is going to go, you can go on the side like that and kind of roll it, and with your finger, let it drop into the water.

- And it holds together.

- It holds together.

We wanna go fast enough to do the whole thing.

So that's one way of doing it.

You can try one of those.

Or you get that little ice cream scoop.

You go on the side also.

You break one.

- Oh, that looks like fun.

- You like that one?

(Claudine laughing) (scoop clanking) You wanna do it?

- Yes.

- Okay, you go on this side.

You do them.

(scoop clanking) Yeah, you go ahead.

That size, which is a relatively small size, should do about two dozen, you know, so you wanna put them in there fast enough also now because, remember, the first one- has been- - 'Cause they're already cooking.

- cooking almost a minute by the time we get there, you know, and, you know, you don't want the water to boil here.

You want them just to simmer a little bit but not boiling.

And if I shake it a little bit, the one which are stick, which stuck to the bottom are going to come to the top.

And at that point, you know, we want to lower the heat a little bit and cook that for about, with that size, about seven, eight minutes.

It should be enough, and during that time, let's do the sauce which goes with it.

(dish clanking) Remember you said that we wanted to do a red pepper sauce, so I have a red paper here, and what we're going to do, we'll cut that in half and, you know, take this one and remove the seed like this.

That's it, and even a little bit of the rib around like this, (pepper thudding) and any seed.

(pepper thudding) That's it, so we cut that into pieces.

- Okay.

- Okay, so let's put that in there.

Now I put a tomato in there.

Cut the tomato, very coarsely, any old way, here, here, here.

(knife thudding) That's good, and a little bit of water in that.

I have half a cup of water there.

And that's about it for the time being, you know, and that, cook, bring to a boil, and cook about eight to 10 minute.

And this is the one that I have here.

(pot clattering) We wanna put it through a food mill rather than in the food processor right away because of the skin, the skin of the pepper, the skin of the tomato, too.

So it's smoother if you do that, all right.

- You're pouring, I'm milling?

- If you want.

Okay, go back a couple of times.

That's it.

You wanna lose anything?

- No.

I love the color of this.

- It's bright red.

Yes.

- Yeah.

Beautiful.

Okay.

- (Jacques) It should be about, now look, you wanna clean up that bottom should really You have a fair amount right here.

- Oh, this looks beautiful.

Okay, that I'll give it to you.

- Thank you.

- And we put that back in there.

And what we want to do now is to thicken it a little bit.

And you see the way it is now we want to bring it to a, to a boil.

You know what we can do also, add a little bit of water.

If I think that it's too, it seems to be a little too thick because I want to thicken that and I want a little more than that.

- Oh, okay.

So I put a dash of salt.

We're gonna put a dash of freshly ground pepper there that looks good.

- Mm-hmm.

And I'll dilute a little bit of cornstarch with water.

Like this.

And I think we need like a teaspoon, teaspoon and a half of, I have more there.

But you see I put a little bit in there and I stir it, you know, like this and I see whether it's thicken or not.

And here I think it's thickened Add the touch, it'll thicken on that pack.

So you put only what you need.

Okay.

And you know what, what?

What I want to do now?

- What?

I want to emulsify that to have it very creamy and put, give me a tablespoon of butter in there.

- Okay, - See I have a bit of butter.

Put tablespoon of butter and about a tablespoon of olive oil.

- Does that look like a tablespoon to you?

- Yeah.

About, that's a generous one.

- I'm a generous person.

- Okay, that's good.

And put the oil now also.

- (Claudine) You say stop.

- That's it.

Yeah.

And you know, you see there is a special thing to put that in because that should be immersed, you know?

- Yeah.

- That's it.

Now it's gonna get very creamy and too, and you do it good.

Tailoring color.

Beautiful.

- Yeah, the color is really different Now it's really like a cream, you know.

- Oh, it looks gorgeous.

- So we can put it right, put it back in there.

Okay.

- Okay.

Good.

And we can grate some cheese like this, right?

That Parmigiano Reggiano, - Parmigiano Reggiano.

- The best, Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Oh, you can do that.

Also get little strip like this, - Right?

But these are like for snacks.

- Yes.

This is for snacks too, - Right?

Okay.

- Okay.

So our dumpling are cooked now.

And what happened at that point, if you want to do those dumpling ahead, you do them ahead, and you lift them up as I'm going to do that, let's say about four.

Four per person.

And what you would want to do with those dumpling is to put them in ice cold water.

They cool off and then you can heat them when you need them.

Which for them here, I have those four.

Hmm.

Which look very nice.

And you put that and, or you could remove them to a gratin dish like this ahead, dry them a little bit on top of a paper towel.

And then after that you can reheat them in the sauce directly in the oven.

- Ah.

Okay.

That's what we have now.

I think it looks pretty good.

- I think it looks great.

Okay, so now look at this.

A beautiful, - (Claudine) That looks so good.

- And you know it's really relatively low calorie.

I mean not really low calorie, but you know, it's not that much.

It looks so creamy and all that.

I have a tablespoon of butter, right?

- And for four people, that's not too bad.

Want some chives on top of here?

- Yes, baby.

I put a little bit of the parmigiano here.

Maybe a slice of this or that will look good.

You want to do that here?

Why don't you try to do that with this?

You can do it directly on top of a, - Okay, the - Russian curate thing, huh?

That's it.

And you move forward.

That's good.

Look at this one.

- Cool.

That's great.

And this is flat chive though, the garlic chive.

And I'm sure your mother is going to be delighted with that first course.

- Absolutely.

Okay, I wanna pick up some flowers for mom for her birthday.

So I know her favorite thing is daisies.

- Yeah, that's right.

So I think we have to get daisies anyway, but maybe we can get something to dress 'em up.

- Look at those, how beautiful they are.

- The roses are beautiful too.

With so many choices.

It's hard, It's hard to decide.

- I love lavender.

And in the middle of a bouquet, I mean those pale color like that, it's stunning.

- Put this together, it's gonna be gorgeous.

Yes.

- Mom will like it.

She will?

- Definitely, If she likes it.

(Claudine laughs) - When I was 16 my father started sending me roses for my birthday.

And ever since then I get one more rose.

So 18th birthday, 24 was, was great.

Two dozen roses.

He doesn't actually send them to me anymore.

I have to go home to get them because it's a lot of roses now.

- Now you wanted to do little Cornish hens and we're going to do them.

Those are about a pound, a pound and a quarter a piece.

They come, you know, this way and inside, you know you also have some liver and all that that you can keep, you can freeze, you can do soup with it.

But basically you want those tiny bird like this.

And we are going to do them in a Russian style, you know, and a Russian style, which are done with, by pressing, by putting a brick and pressing a very crisp on top of it.

So the first thing we wanna do is to open them in half.

And you see Claudine, you see I put the, the front of the knife here and I cut into it to open it like this.

Now I can get that piece of bone out or I can leave it in.

You know this way, why don't you try it?

- Sure.

You want, you want your own knife?

- I have my knife.

I love this knife.

Okay.

- Okay.

Now you see that's it, about here.

Watch out your hand take, take your knife a little more this way and and cut this way.

That's it.

You're practically through it.

- These aren't gonna go through my hand?

- No, no, no, no, no.

See you are in the carcass here.

You have to go slightly higher.

That's it.

- Oh my goodness.

I did it.

- Yeah.

Okay, good.

Now you open it.

- Beginner's luck And you can leave the bone.

- I think I'll leave the bone.

I'm really excited I got this part.

- You see what we do there?

You fold your wing like this rather And put a piece of plastic wrap on top of it.

You know, you want to pound it a little bit.

(pounding noises) And you will have piece of plastic wrap so it doesn't splatter all over the place, you know?

(Pounding) Okay, that's good.

Maybe we serve half a bird.

Or you can even serve one bird per person here.

Procure here.

So what we want to put on top of this is salt and pepper.

Yes.

You, you want to dry it out like this.

Okay?

And then put salt and pepper on it again.

That's it.

The other one.

And we wanna put savory in it.

And savory, see this is fresh savory.

In that particular case, you would wanna put dry savory.

Dry savory is going to be better there because the, the fresh one is going to burn the way we're going to cook them.

- Oh yeah.

Okay.

And what we want to do again, they are folded.

You see I have a very hot pan on the stove.

We start them skin side down like this for a couple of minutes just to mark the skin.

And you can, if you don't have this and you have a griddle like that, we can start them on the griddle like that.

Put a couple.

Oh we better get rid of that.

Now if you use poultry, yes, we choose that and you wanna wash your hand?

- If you tell me to wash my hands, I'll wash my hands.

I wash my hand too.

Okay.

Should really wash it with soap, but good enough this way.

And we're going to have a salad with that, right?

- Yes.

And what do you have in there?

Spinach.

I love spinach.

Mom loves spinach.

- I know you love spinach.

So those are nice, young, and you cleaned them good?

- Yes.

You know what I should do now?

I should turn the, the little bird.

- Okay So look at those here.

You see now I just turned them a little bit for the, the skin slightly starting to cook, you know, so we can put that on top.

I need to put a lid on top of it here and there.

And this should cook like 10 minutes before we continue our recipe with that.

So during that time, why don't we do finish the dressing?

- Okay.

So we're going to do a garlic dressing, right?

- I love garlic.

We're all eating, the family together.

- Well yeah, we're all eating together.

We should all have garlic, lots of it - (Jacques) For a birthday, You think garlic is okay?

- Yes.

- Alright, so we do, garlic and again you wanna try your garlic?

Now don't put it flat like this, on a bias and hit it with the palm of your hand.

Yeah, that's a, that's it.

You see?

- Well - Good.

- That's pretty good.

Alright then you see if we take one of the stem here and again I crush it.

Now it should peel pretty easily, see?

- Yeah.

Right - Right.

Sure.

Now we crush it.

You wanna crush a little piece?

- Okay.

Bang it.

That's it.

Good.

- Okay.

And now chop it.

Good.

Clean up your knife.

Yeah.

(Claudine laughs) Okay, go ahead.

- Can't be that painful.

Come on.

I'm doing pretty good.

- Yeah, you're doing terrific.

Easy.

We want to mix that.

Just mix it with a little whisk if you want.

- Okay.

I'll give you some, uh, French mustard.

Go ahead and crack pepper, - Mm-hmm.

salt, and red wine vinegar.

And I'm going to put a little more red wine vinegar than I normally put.

- Well that's 'cause it's for mom.

- Yeah.

And she like your salad pretty acidic, huh?

More than you and I like.

- Yeah.

- Okay, that's fine.

- Okay, and I'll just put this in here.

Yep.

- I want you to help me with the brick.

- Okay.

we are going to do, okay.

- All right.

So this is good.

You want to go in there?

I want to keep that clean.

And you know why we are taking two bowls to put them here so that that beautiful salad bowl we have in the dining room is not too messy if you mix it in there.

Okay?

So that's great.

You know what you do now?

Why don't you bring the brick over there?

What we want to do in that recipe, is actually cook the little bird mostly on the skin side with a big weight on top of it.

So if you have a brick like this, you know this is about five pounds, and I know those are clean but it's better to wrap them up in the thing.

I think they're a little bit better.

So bring your brick over and what we'll do now is really to cook it skin side down.

So now we put them, you see they're brown on top and you put the - Can I put the brick now?

Yep.

Across just like that, this way.

That's good.

And again, on this one.

We wanna lower the heat to low and we want to cook that for about 25, 30 minutes on this side.

And this is basically what we have on those two things here on very low.

Okay?

You can see in the bottom of that pan the beautiful crystallization that I'm going to have here.

Nice and dark brown and slice as it is here.

And in the bottom of this you see the crystallization in the bottom of this if you think there is too much fat.

But here basically I have no fat or maybe couple of drop.

- No that's not a lot.

I could deglaze with a little bit of white wine or some water.

Water is fine just to melt those solidified juice and to create just a natural sauce.

And you know what you want to use, you want to use a spatula and the wood here on the metal, the wood, and you want to melt that crystallized juice.

Okay?

And this is will be very simply served with the chicken.

Okay?

- Yeah.

So I'm gonna cut that in half or you have some lemon there?

- Uh-huh.

That's good.

See we cut those in half this way, we present them this way.

- Oh that looks so nice.

Whoops.

- So a little bit of lemon juice, a little bit of dill because Russian use dill.

So I put a little bit of dill on on top this way.

- Wow, wow, wow.

You could also put at that point the fresh, fresh savory.

Remember what we put there?

Oh yeah.

But that would be fine because you know it's fresh now the lemon juice on top.

And if you want, - That looks good.

we could even put with that on top.

- And the sauce on top?

And you, oh, the sauce.

I forget my sauce.

Oh, good thing you are here.

You know I make a mess in the kitchen if you're not there telling me what to do.

Okay, we put that there.

Well let's put it this way.

- Okay?

And this one, this one here.

And I tell you this is going to be a terrific main course and I think your mother is going to adore it.

- I do too.

(string music) And for dessert, Gloria's favorite bread and butter pudding.

- Well we better hurry up.

She's gonna be home soon so.

Yeah, that's right.

So you know what you want to do.

I do one with lemon, even though you're not crazy about lemon, your mother loves it.

The skin of lemon like this, you cut them into fine Julianne, you drop that into boiling water to blanch it what we call blanche.

You blanch it 10, 15 seconds, take them out, rinse them under cold water and then you put them into that pot as I have done here with a third of a cup of sugar, half a cup of water.

And then you cook that seven, eight minute to become to have like a syrup coming out of it, it slightly syrupy and so forth.

Give me some of the milk in there.

- Okay?

We have two cup of milk.

Put about half of it in there just to cool off that mixture.

That's it a little more.

Great.

Okay, that's fine.

- How did you know?

Yes.

Okay, put that back here.

See I can put that back right in there now.

Now it's cool.

Okay, what do we have?

Four eggs here, I'll put the eggs, give me a little bit of vanilla.

Okay, about a teaspoon.

Okay, and we have about a third of a cup of cream or something like that added to it.

So it's a very simple custard and the rest of the milk.

So my custard, is, pour it in, pour the whole thing in.

Yeah, that's it with this thing.

And now our custard is ready.

So this is bread and butter pudding.

All of them are buttered.

That's great.

Butter side up.

Why don't you pick up, put the, the raisins on top.

- Just sprinkle?

Yeah, - I hope so 'cause it's done already.

Go ahead.

Then you want to pour your custard on top of it and............... that's it.

And you want to sprinkle out, sprinkle your almond on top of it.

You know, you could leave that five, six minutes now so it soaks the bread, you know, but it doesn't have to be.

Okay.

- Just like this?

Yes, that's it.

And you put that into the oven now.

- Okay.

Conventionally, you wanna put that on that tray, you know, but you can put it on that tray just in case it spills.

So you put that and you want to cook this about 375 degree, about 30, 30 minute, 25, 30 minute.

Wanna put powdered sugar on top of this?

- Oh yes.

I'll do it.

And this, you know, can be served by itself or with a bit of sour cream or even a little bit of creme anglaise.

And this is our dessert (music) for mom's birthday, right?

- Happy birthday mom.

I really hope you like what we've cooked for you for your birthday dinner.

I love it.

It's beautiful.

You didn't forget my favorite flowers and this little box.

- (laughs) Yes.

- And the food looks sensational.

- Mm-hmm.

I think we, we tried to do your favorite dish.

I mean I know you like that ricotta dumpling, you know, with the red pepper sauce and the little Cornish hens you know.

- Ah.

And the spinach salad because I know you love spinach.

And I think that with the, our menu tonight we are going to serve with the first course a chardonnay from Upper Burgundy, it very fruity.

And with the main course with the little Cornish hen .. We're going to serve a pinot noir from the Sonoma Valley.

And before that, however, I thought that we would've a bit of champagne with the caviar.

So I'm going to serve a little bit of that champagne.

It's always great celebration, you know, to have champagne and those glass are beautiful.

Look at this, happy birthday again.

- What a treat.

- Happy birthday.

Thank you.

- And I hope at home you all going to celebrate birthday.

Have a ball cooking for your family.

I love to cook for mine.

Happy cooking.

- Happy cooking - Happy cooking.

(end credits music)