Today's Gourmet; 110; Todays Gourmet 110; Potpourri Dinner

Hi I'm Jack. As you can probably tell I was born in France that I live in New England. My wife's background is full the Rican and Cuban and my daughter a thoroughly American thing like a house but often that make the most interesting combinations. Same thing with food. Take a look at our menu today. Thinly ponied beef but you have a baby and she found I had tender catfish on a bed of raw and I think covered with candied violets. It's a book of wonderful flavors coming up on today's go away. Today is made possible by wishbone including a blend of herbs spices and a touch of lemon salad dressing is the only thing we put our. Blue Ribbon far away flavor that's California fresh. Made rays of America's natural choice for generations.

You know I like to mix my menu sometimes a little bit of French added bit of Italian that is you know South America somewhere and this is what we are doing today a kind of

potpourri mixed menu. And for that we're going to start with this. And we do some nutritional counseling in our show. I did figure out fats saturated fat and so forth. But you know a great thing about that is that you have to think of it in terms of moderation smaller portion. And even though I'm doing it this year with cream today with cream it is not necessarily that you have to do it with that menu. I mean I do that this year for each of the show. But actually at home you know it's rare that I serve a distillery unless we have guests coming over the weekend the week stand the menu make it a bit fancier and so forth. And that's what we are doing today. So what we are doing is basically whipped cream. We've not seen it crushed nuts and we are freezing that we call that a pass fail and we have a cup and a quarter of any cream you after using the cream hear the whipped cream I mean it want to weep properly. If you use the light cream a dash of vanilla and sugar. This is pure vanilla extract that we want to do. You can whip it by hand of course we do it too. That

type of electric mixer which is very nice but makes a lot of noise it will take about two and a half three minutes and I have some right here which are already ready to proceed to easy you know it other nice texture. And into this I already have the value of the sugar. But what we want to do with the nuts you see though there is only a field bird sometimes called in different part of the contrary to feed a bird for me probably the best nuts you put them in the oven so that the skin will crack on top of it and release like this this is different for Ottoman ruler if you want to remove the skin of Adam and you boil it when you take it out of the water you press it and the Ottoman pop out of the skin. That would not work with is own not you have to put it in the oven and brand them. And even if you spray that little bit of oil on top of it all water actually. My friend Jim Dodge told me that the skin will release even

better. But what you do with them in there and rub them a little bit to remove the skin like that. You know power. Don't worry about it if you don't remove all of it it's not that important really. Remove whatever comes out of it. The thought sting of it however is very important the taste is going to be quite different from that which are toasted to not which are not toasted. That happened with everything and if you consider like coffee for example in Europe we tossed the coffee beans a great deal and that's why you always called an espresso coffee that is dark you know and strong because of the beans of coffee beans are toasted much darker than what we do in this country and it's a fallacy to believe that we could not help those did more. You get more you get more caffeine in it or you toss it a little bit or a lot. The caffeine doesn't shine in the bins so as you can see here must of it are removed due to it in that little food

processor here. And we're going to ground this into a powder. It goes quite fast in this. Here again this other nice aroma now of fresh nut. We put it into the cream actually you know there is something simular to that that we do. We we take white sugar and we put the nuts in it then we cook it in the oven and it's a type of Mariah and we do cake with it like that that would be done with that type of cake. This is more data here. And now we put that into a little ball. Any type of ball is going to work out fine. And that is to find more oil that very very lightly and what I did here I stripped of paper in it because I don't know how hard it's going to be to take it out and that will help me pull it out so what we are doing here is putting that directly. Into a mold and as you can see

my cup and a quarter of cream give me quite a lot and I have calculated that they sailed for six. Of course I'm sure you can save more than that even with it it's not really going to be more than an ice cream but it's still quite calorie you know. We put on top of it maybe a piece of plastic wrap so you can press it with the plastic wrap so that you make it flat on top wrap it in the freezer. You can do that 2 3 days ahead. I mean you can do that ahead that's a nice to have in your freezer there in case you have some guests to pop on the spectator lethal. But I want to do however I want to talk to you more about the parchment paper you know the two story that I do there. We do a lot with parchment paper in the kitchen. And it's a good idea to know how to live with that piece of paper here which I want to line up that Jelly Roll. If I do have something like this very often you would be

told to butter it so you see what I do here will take a little bit of butter and butter only half of it very lightly so you burn off of that piece of paper. Then you fold the other one on top of it. So again like this. And what you can do to cut each corner with a knife this way. At that point you can do this you put the bird aside directly. Plan and press just put some of the voter ID in the bottom half of it lifted up again now the bird on the flight. The bird put it back on the other side and now you know all this because that cat in the corner the way that you can see here and there. This will fit exactly into the mold. Our You do a jelly roll pan down after you lift up the paper pinned it up and roll your jelly roll with it. I mean the other thing that we do with that paper. For example if you

want to line up those mall take a piece of paper. Actually you can use the edge of the table. What I'm doing here is to get the rectangle out of it. Let's say that rectangle you fold in half. Again in half an hour from the center where you have no opening you fall triangle this way a smaller triangle and the smaller triangle and so forth. Turn that upside down if you want to measure. You cannot do it bigger than that. So you measure your radius from the center. But here you cured it. And that will fit. The bottom of that mold Exactly. I thunder on your see exactly fold in this makes your life much easier. For example at least one which we call a third arm. Do you know which is really strictly for other things. Again I fold it in the same way.

Smaller and smaller and smaller triangle you measure they are from the center. Right here the center is. You cut it here. You can carry it with a knife and I will from here to there. Thanks man you know you're going to have a feast of thing which is relatively of to cut otherwise fitting this perfectly. Maybe look you must use food you have that piece of paper is to do what we call the little corner. And those are little. Cornucopia that you fill up with something decoration. Absolutely indispensable for someone without a wedding cake. I got a triangle here like a right triangle if you remember your plane geometry. You fall this in half in the center of the put in this. Here don't worry about the end of it now you go around a couple of times you know. Now I put my hand inside and I bring this with my finger in that direction to get a real point out of that than I fold that in. Now I have a

really very pointed things. It's easier to put that directly into a cup. Like that or a ball to hold it and that's safe I put a bit of chocolate in there that will hold it. Usually it would just it would be to decorate in the bottom of it. I fold it this way nicely. Then you can cut the point of it very lightly. And to see whether yes it is coming out fine. And this is how you do your decor aeration you know you have all kind of the corporation when you're in the kitchen like this you do a little flour as you do one of that HAPPY BIRTHDAY. They're useful. Let's go man cools now. Now the man today is going to be from the south the south of France as well of the south of the United States. We are doing that through you our aid. He or you I the plastic dish from the south of France which is made of onion garlic

eggplant you have a zucchini tomato and pepper in there and of course on top of it we are going to do a catfish for the first thing we want to do starting out that is to sort the fish table with a bit of olive oil. And for that we are starting with the onion and you cut it down of course leave remember that dot that is even better done ahead than it is when it's fresh thought that he sort of by itself other for schools you know and very often in the south of France they are going to serve it cold not I scored really but like a room temperature you know this is the way it is good so we have you know you want to sort a little onion. I couple of minutes and after the on the on the client and not here like in many dish with a plant we are using the whole IC plant that is and polluting the skin you know. Many receive before a client

in Africa especially North Africa all around the Mediterranean Crescent you know all of the Arab world do eggplant. I think it into a cage they say there is over a thousand received before a client you know Russia. They do explain it also and bring that in they are now what they call poor man's caviar you know where the whole plan is roasted to get roasted in the oven. Then you take the ball from the inside to make a mushy kind of bread you serve with bread. They call that poor man's caviar zucchini is used a great deal too as you can see this is your classics vegetable you know France and. Not entirely and you know Kaplan not that he's a stew which is very slim you know after that too. Again I remember being on the Mediterranean bolder than all of those contrie around the media there in the end will do dishes

which are in a very similar you know. So these two cook a couple of minutes before we had the tomato tomato here we just cut them in half parallel to the stem you know and press have bit of the seed and cut them into a diet like that docu. You want this to cook first then the garlic. We take the stem of the garlic out again crush it so that that's release that's going to release the skin if you like crushing it. Then again crushing the garlic to extract the official oil thing. And shipping of the garlic into our purity you know kind of cool to you. Price you know a garlic press is perfectly fine what. Well well here you have a nice call or fold in it a lot of ground paper. I love Freshlyground paper and they argue with some of you that DNA anyway.

The garlic and this is it I mean the fact that now you can cover it and cook it for about 10 15 minutes all nationalities more and some which you've already cooked right here and now what are we going to put on the heart that you get to fish and the catfish you know the very interesting fish in the last few years have illiberal in so many different part of the of the concrete because it is farm raised. You can have it all over I have the catfish here I want to start by cooking the catfish and I would discover that we have you a little bit after Earth where I put this you know that. Very hard to do that with some water and it just put my feet of catfish in that little bit of water. I mean actually what I'm doing is steaming there in that water. A couple of minutes on each paper and

fold. Cover it. Then we forge them about two three minutes on each side. As you can see here I have a whole catfish. Those are farm raised catfish of course because they are secure like the cat you have to be careful with though that the end of those fin there is a very pointed needle and if you puncture yourself with this it's very painful so. But usually of course you are not going to bite in this form I wanted to show you a catfish farmer as you buy it directly of course from the fish monger in feel and have very fur on nice white flesh fish when the feet are undone you see on the other side here. I have a little bit of darker flesh and you can remove a little bit of that if you want because that's stronger. You know and this is often what people are objecting to the catfish which are fished in pond you know and they end up being a big strong in taste but those are not. But even the one that you fish yourself you know if you

clean it up the right way. Now that I've done here it's a perfectly good fish especially I thought for you know and all that so you can use it you can thought they'd You can even greatly on the barbecue because that will hold. Always remove the skin the skin is like leather you know it's very very strong. In addition what we are going to do with that catfish we're going to do another. And we see find to a can of green puree with a little bit of oil in it. And for this we need that little mashing here maybe First I'm going to fill in my field of catfish because they probably are cooked on the fill side already. I can see here. Earning them. That's quite a nice feeling. Can you see what you do the phrase please use this theme in the same time I didn't put in the fat but they have just enough water so by the time you finish cooking the water has

disappeared so I lose none of the nutrients or anything which is why this is a good reason to hold of the taste stay in my skillet over them. So in top of that we want to do a little bit of oil. Another you that little machine here this much faster than our food processor and you can liquefy it and very often that's what I do in May kitchen I take this type of corn and add the black book on a few of this and I have a powder you know you have grown paper freshly ground papers for you that all the time. And here we have tired and you see that I don't eat when you bite are going what you do you take a piece of it when tested. Type with Oregon French tarragon so it doesn't come from frankly called French tarragon and Russian anti gun. One last days the French are going to stay the other one look exactly the same no taste at all. So be sure to taste it. If you buy a plant that you want to put in your garden because that grows well and comes back every year for terrific. Now they I have some.

You see what I did here this is what I shouldn't do in that little machine put your finger here when you put something in there all the way forward into the center shaft. Well you have the weather there a little bit of water in there to help in the immersion to three to school and then I put that on. I can do that at green liquid. And that grid liquid out of this will of course be beautiful in color and all of the nutrient I mean look at that here. I could have turned it even a little more into this. We are going to put a little bit of olive oil for flavor here. So yeah. I was a. Boy of salt and pepper in there. But there you know we used to cook those souls a great deal.

And now a rule you know the rules tastes of those on top of it is really terrific. We do reduce it with wine and we've got a lot of butter added to the pot in a mission. I live here and just at the last moment in term of us take us where the other piece of fish you know in fact vish table to replace like Alan on this so far something like that that's going to be very good. So we're going to finish presenting this now at that doing we put underneath. Oh yeah. But we put that right there. The fish which now are you can see completely cooked. There is no more liquid in it. I think the liquid of evaporated. They get all the fish that on top of it right here. So you have a complete meal here all of that bed and I thought

that we can really be done ahead and you know if I thought some time with black even black or leave you know a little bit of that beautiful green on top that I can put right there. Maybe a bit of presentation those shy of you know I have Shives in the garden I like to pretend them to make it a bit more festive and I have a beautiful main course here. What we are going to do. Put it on the side we now are going to move to the school of thought what we've had we've had a dish from the south of the United States if you want to get fish we've got the South of France without that. Now we're moving to Italy. We got a patch you and the carrot but sure he's like we used to do the steak you know the ground beef that was season and service where we do it with a piece of beef. This way we're going to

have some shot some baseball with it. Beautiful red onion some Johnny you know the Palmers are where the real one of the part of my journey Reggiano which is where this Wendy's whole garnish on top of it now. Look at that steak. That steak is basically what we call clean steak coming from the butcher they see that cream steak. Well for me it is not creamed. Again we are getting it now that steak with all of those things removed. He's going to be about eight ounces. You see even remove the back here. I really take anything which resemble fat skin or anything like that particularly for that recipe. I don't want anything less than that. I rather have it smaller. But all of this will be removed. OK now we doing for portion with this getting it in half and each of those again in half you know well that give me approximately two ounces of media which is not munch all

those two ounces of meat we have to bomb them to put them directly in those plate year beautiful plate and to help in the foundation for what I do I do that with a piece of plastic wrap you know put a piece of meat right on top of it and then another one again a type of sandwich here in this way. And we use a meat grinder here and you can. Make a lot of noise of course but we want it very thin some time. People will freeze the meat you know to have the meat frozen. I tell that to slice it I don't like to do this because I feel that the frozen meat rather a lot of liquid. Remember that got a patch you see are all while the

planter of the 16th century carols cruel period and he used two ferns. We've a lot of red and white. So someone thought of doing a piece of beef toning it very thin which is red with a little strip of my own there is on top white and that's what they care about you. Now of course we do care about you. Anything people care about your fish kept pressure of one thing or another. You know what you can do here to do it to that extent I do at home then put another plate on top leaving the paper here doing a say on the one third fourth when you do a whole party of six people and you can do that ahead. Now if you have any concern with the rolled beef you don't do you know your steak tartare or cap but you'll like this. I understand that and then you should not do that this very lightly. Be sure to go to a butcher which is very reliable. Remember our way very well when you do a roast beef which is very very rare that you slice for that matter even a hamburger which is very rare

that you slice it very close to what we are doing here doesn't really make that much. Now there is a green onion here and we fly this very very thin here. And I want to have those strips of onion and I have some here which I already wash I wash it with water that removes up there is a compound of acid which kind of sting your eyes and discolored Jani and they wash it with cold water and put it in a sea of rancid that take it out and that's what I would do normally make the union less strong and know that I have the decoration on top you could put some scallion you could put some garlic on top of this will give a garnish and I say remember that this is like two ounces of meat at the most. Now on top of that we are putting some fresh Parmigiano which I use a vegetable peeler like this is the way I used to have those truffle soup there on the end mushroom. They say the white truffle from added by any tally. It's called a tattoo

for Bianca and it ties to for the very expensive that you shave it with a vegetable peeler in top of past whatever here and a bit of baseball. I have a couple of. Better leave that we're older together here to do what we call a type of sheaf where we bring the bass all together. We have call or hear but more important than color. We taste this is about 120 calorie. It is not even quite know if putting your oil on top you will get there was one of oil you need on top of that and that will double your calories you can cut it down a little bit if you want and now lets you have the whole menu for us. Now I have the dessert and I use those straight you see to remove it. Its quite nice you remove them of course that this can be cut into like eight pieces I'm sure you can decorate with fresh flowers I have here which is of course pretty crystallized

violet which are cooked. That makes it there if you finish for our menu but you start the Catfish without that. A nice had a piece of bread and of course a good glass of red wine from the south of France. I hope you enjoy it. All the dishes created in this series by the back could be made at home using the today's gourmet cookbook. Order your copy now by calling 1 800 4 4 1 3000. This beautifully photographed book includes more than 100 Step-By-Step recipes complete with the now you can create a life classic cooking of the past. Please have your credit card ready when you call 1 800 4 1 3000 for the today's cookbook. Today's gourmet is made possible by wishbone including wishbone Italian a blend of herbs spices and a touch of lemon salad dressing is the only thing we put our name on. And bison made Razan

America's natural choice for generations. And buy blue ribbon for. Faraway flavor that's California fresh.