- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

- And I'm Claudine Pepin.

So if you were gonna make Valentine's Day surprise dinner, what would be on your menu?

- Valentine's Day?

I don't know, heart of palm?

- No, I'm serious.

What's your idea of a really romantic menu?

- Well, how about starting with little souffle of mussel with basil.

- [Claudine] Sounds good.

- [Jacques] And then chateaubriand with a Madeira truffle sauce.

- [Claudine] Oh, we're getting there.

- Serve with elegant little mushroom timbales and crepe barquette with corn puree.

- [Claudine] And homemade raspberry sherbet with raspberry sauce and a little surprise of raspberries inside - [Jacques] Like a beautiful valentine on a plate.

- Join us for a Valentine's Day surprise, next on Jacques Pepin Celebrates.

- The first time I took your mother out was for Valentine Day.

- Oh, that's so cute.

- Did you know that?

- No.

- Okay.

- Nobody tells me anything.

- Oh, for sure.

Of course.

So this is a bit more than Valentine, it's a bit of our anniversary.

So I'm going to do a great... Well, we are going to.

You are going to.

- Thank you.

- Okay.

So I have some raspberry preserves here and some frozen raspberry here.

Unsweetened.

- Oh, so just regular- - And we do the mixture together here.

- Okay.

And I already have strained some.

I just wanna show you that these are black raspberry, but you can have regular berry, yes.

- So now blend?

- Yes.

- Okay.

(whirring) - That's it.

So what you want to do here to strain it, is to hold the bottom with your hand here.

Put that in.

- It's a beautiful color.

Very Valentine's Day color.

- It's Valentine's Day color, yes.

You wanna strain that.

So what you wanna do is to bang it on with your hand like that.

And notice I don't keep it straight because it goes up this way.

So now that I'm basically left only with the seed, then I can press it a little bit, because- - [Claudine] Then you can fill up all the holes.

- I can fill up all the holes.

This is the end of it now.

Now you clean all of that.

Now this is a coulis of raspberry, all right?

So what we are going to do today is raspberry with raspberry with raspberry.

- Mm.

- The first raspberry is the raspberry sauce.

So I'm going to keep this to do a sauce to serve with it.

About a cup and a half there or so.

And I put a little bit of raspberry brandy.

This this is the real Framboise, you know.

You need close to 20 pound of raspberry to do one bottle of Framboise, you know?

- Wow.

- So that's very expensive.

So you do that in the sauce to intensify the flavor here.

You don't put that in that mixture in the freezer because the alcohol will prevent it from freezing.

- Oh.

- So into this, you put water.

A bit of water in there, and some lemon juice.

And this is the base of our sherbet, you know.

- Wow.

- You have a sherbet machine?

- I have a sherbet machine.

- Okay.

Now the sherbet machine.

(banging) It goes there.

I mean, any type of ice cream maker is going to work with that.

And you should really do that a day or so ahead so that it really will have time to harden.

You know?

(whirring) Now it takes for a while.

I have one in the freezer, Claudine.

- [Claudine] Okay, I'm gonna turn this off.

- What we want to do there is what we call a (speaking French).

You want to fill that up like this.

You know, one portion.

And then you make a hole in it you can actually use.

- You can put this in it too.

- The plastic wrap, yes.

To do a hole like this, with or without.

Or with this if you want, that's a good idea.

To make like a small receptacle.

And then you prepare those like that.

You have a party of 10 people and then you put that in your freezer.

So what we want to have here, we made a hole in the center.

We want to fill up that hole with fresh raspberry.

So what we're going to have is a sherbet of raspberry plus fresh raspberry, served with raspberry sauce.

- I got this.

- So it's a raspberry decadence.

You know, it's not complicated to do.

But what we want to do is to fill it up with the fresh raspberry.

And that of course you don't want to do before you could not put your, raspberry into the freezer.

Because if you put that into your freezer, your raspberry will be hard.

You know?

And you don't want them to be hard.

Want them to be just like this.

I put it in a plastic because it help you to unmold it.

Otherwise you may have a bit of a problem there.

And then I'm putting the sauce, if you want to get me... Maybe a little bit of a... - [Claudine] Something green?

- Decoration on top.

Thank you, (speaking French).

- Little lemon balm.

- Lemon balm.

See, I wanna show you the inside.

You know, as you're eating this, you're going to have the inside.

You are going to have the fresh berry right there.

- Oh, that is just lovely.

- It's beautiful.

- So this is our raspberry sherbet with the raspberry sauce.

- That's it.

- We;; we have to have something other than dessert.

- Something other than dessert.

Let's work.

Where is the beef?

(slapping) Oh, here it is.

- Beef, it's what's for dinner.

- So we're going to do a very classic chateaubriand here.

For the chateaubriand, a large piece of filet.

You want to clean up the meat entirely, bottom and top.

And you want to take even that skin here that we call the silver skin.

This is not fat.

So what you do, put your knife like this, cut it here, and then hold that straight and you scrape against it.

- [Claudine] Oh.

- A chateaubriand is a large piece of filet like this one.

You know, usually about a pound and a quarter for two.

It's all right for two.

So you take the head of the filet with this.

Okay, this is about a pound and a quarter.

But from that part here, we do what we call the (speaking French).

You know, the heart of filet.

You know.

Sometimes we call (speaking French).

- [Claudine] (Speaking French) Okay, that word I know.

- And then as it gets smaller we do (speaking French), about six ounce.

And then with the tail, you do a beef stroganoff.

For something like that, you saute.

So there is a certain division of the filet that we do.

Now this you want to pound.

You take a towel.

You wrap it into a towel all around like this.

You use a pounder like this.

(banging) - Or a pan.

- Yeah.

(banging) That's an expensive pounder.

(Claudine laughing) (banging) That's it.

And I have my chateaubriand.

Little salt and pepper on top.

Don't salt it ahead when you do it.

But when you're ready to use it, salt, paper and you put it in.

- Okay.

- Okay, so that's going to cook four, five minutes on each side.

And that will go into the oven, depends of course.

I'm talking about something medium rare, which is the way I would like it.

- Mm-hmm.

We have to do some more stuff.

We got mushrooms.

- [Jacques] We are moving ahead, yes?

- Yep.

- So we're going to put this into the food processor.

The puree of mushroom to do a timbales.

And this.

Right.

(whirring) (whirring) (whirring) Okay.

That's it.

- All right.

- It should be fine.

The beauty of those timbales here is that it can be done ahead.

It can be done ahead.

You cook them in a double boiler in there and you can reheat them in the water, you know?

So you have a nice puree there.

- This has already been... These have just been buttered, that's it.

- You boiled them?

Okay.

So... You cook that in a double boiler, like a caramel custard or anything like that.

So the custard just coagulate gently without expanding and leaving all kind of hole on the outside.

So about 350 degree.

And you cook that for about 30 minutes.

So this here is browning nicely, you see on the other side.

- [Claudine] Mm.

- And what we want to do, it's a puree of corn that I have here.

Now here is what happened.

This hasn't come to a... Have three cup of corn and it's very liquidy, as you can see here.

And do three cup of corn.

You put them in the food processor, in a food mill.

And as they cook without anything, see they will thicken.

The natural starch in the corn.

- Oh yeah.

- So that comes to a boil.

That's all there is.

So maybe you can put a piece of butter now because for the time being.

- A nice piece of butter.

- Okay, so we let it melt in it and we'll stir it.

Now I wanna show you how to do those little things, which goes with it.

- Ooh, those are beautiful, papa.

- Those are corn.

See we have some crepe over there.

Do one for me.

Those are crepe that we did before.

One egg, a bit of flour.

- Water.

- Water or milk.

- Yeah.

- You know, and some herbs in it.

We put this in there.

You know, you press it so that it's all over.

With your thumb you kind of do that, and you wanna put another one on top.

- [Claudine] Do you better them?

- [Jacques] No, no, it's not necessary.

- [Claudine] No?

- All I do put this in there and you just want to do a little shell out of this.

It's about a minute or so.

(sizzling) My oil was a little too hot here.

And it comes out... That's it, you see?

Okay.

You know what, Claudine?

- What?

- We need to put that in the oven now to rest.

- Okay.

- I have that beautiful plate, which is... - [Claudine] Oven proof.

- Yes, and which is oven proof.

So low oven.

200 degree, 180 degree.

You want to let that rest, you know.

That's very, very important.

Look at the crystallization here that I have.

That's what I want.

You would not want to use a non-stick here.

- Do you take the... (sizzling) I guess no.

- No.

I have a little bit of butter that I put in there and I wanna use it.

- Oh, okay.

So this, I'm going to reduce Madeira and right away deglaze, you see.

That's what it does.

And then to this, we add the demi-glaceú.

And the demi-glace is a pure brown stock without any salt.

Basically fat free.

You know, we brown the bone, put the brown bone into a large stock pot with water, carrot, onion, no salt, nothing.

And you boil that five, six hours, you strain it, take all the fat out when it's cold.

That's a stock.

And you reduce that stock to that level that we call a demi-glace, which is about that texture.

Slightly syrupy, you know.

- [Claudine] So demi-glace is reduced stock.

- It's a reduced brown stock.

(sizzling) We boil that a minute.

And as you see very often in those sauce, chef will finish that up often with butter.

But then here I decided to use the butter that I saute the meat to emulsify so I have enough richness here.

This is a Madeira sauce.

(Claudine laughing) - These are truffles.

They go very well together.

- [Jacques] Those are summer truffle.

You can see they have that big granulated texture on the outside.

- [Claudine] That's how you tell that it's a summer truffle?

- [Jacques] Yeah, and much less flavor than the winter truffle.

This is a winter truffle.

As you can see very often you take your truffle and you peel them, and you keep the peel in cognac or in Madeira.

Or you mentioned yesterday in oil, you can keep them in oil too.

This is tougher.

And you chop them in turn when you do different type of sauce.

(chopping) You chop them up and you use them in pate or whatever.

In that case here, I'm gonna use some of this one here.

Okay.

So you have the infusion of the Madeira and the truffle here.

There is no salt, remember in demi-glace.

- [Claudine] That's right.

- But I'm going to strain it.

Can you give me the... - [Claudine] Yep.

- When do you put the truffles in?

- Well, after I strain it.

Otherwise, if I put it in- - Oh yeah, I guess that makes sense.

- Now my truffle in there to infuse a little bit.

Maybe a tiny bit of raw Madeira in it to gimme the proper taste.

And that's it.

Now all we have to do is to wait for the mushroom timbales to finish cooking and for the meat to rest.

- To rest.

- And they're ready to serve.

Can you get me the steak knife, resting?

- Yep.

- Been resting for a while, which is neat.

And usually all the juice come out of the steak, then you can add that juice to your sauce if you want.

So here I have the timbales here.

So I'm going to unmold one.

You get to run this gently all around by moving the mold, not by moving the knife.

And this, I can put that directly on top of that.

Those are little... - [Claudine] Crouton.

- Little crouton that we cut with this, you know.

- Yeah, which I think is a great idea.

If you use actually what you're gonna cook to cut.

- Okay, you see.

I'm gonna do my meat here.

You know, we always say that a chateaubriand is for two people.

But this one would serve three easy.

- I'm really glad.

Do you wanna do the sauce and then that on top, or does it matter?

- No, I think... Which one?

This one and that one?

- Sure.

- I hope this is what I was supposed to do.

- Isn't that beautiful?

- It is beautiful.

- So when you do that, you come with this.

That's it.

(clinking) (clinking) Sauce maybe a tiny bit on top of this and that.

- [Claudine] Oh, little pieces of truffles.

- Okay.

This is stunning, Titine.

Very classic.

- I don't think I'd want to put any more green anywhere, would you?

- No.

This is our chateaubriand with Madeira truffle sauce, timbales mushroom and corn puree and crepe shell.

Our first course we're going to do a souffle of mussel and basil.

- Mm.

Sounds good.

- You like mussel?

- I love mussels.

And I love basil.

- So you know what?

- So this will be great.

- I'm just doing like, just for your mother, you and me.

Just three.

I have a pound and a half of mussel about, which I put with a cup of wine.

Not even an half a cup of wine, rather.

And the juice here, you know, whatever comes out of it.

I need a good cup here.

- [Claudine] Oops, sand.

- Yeah, a little bit of sand.

So we are going to do the mussel.

So they are just open.

As I say, a bit of wine, period.

Now what I want to do with half of this, a sauce for the mussel.

With the other half, a base for a souffle.

So Claudine, I need a piece of butter here and a little bit of onion.

This has been cleaned and washed.

(chopping) (chopping) All right.

So saute your onion.

Garlic.

All of that we saute for a second.

Put the garlic in there too.

- Glad this doesn't need to cook as long.

- That's it.

- That was excellent.

- I think I put a little bit of olive oil in there.

And in that I'm going to put half of that juice.

- [Claudine] In there?

- [Jacques] A little bit of cream.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- Then we put a little bit of thickening with a little bit of arrowroot here.

So I do it ahead, just prepare it.

You want a bit of white wine.

- [Claudine] Whatever I find.

- [Jacques] I get... Dash more.

- [Claudine] More?

- [Jacques] Yeah.

- Now you use sometimes arrowroot, sometimes corn starch.

Is there a different flavor or is it just a choice of how it thickens?

- Well, actually the arrowroot stand to thicken more, and more gooey and elastic.

Arrowroot, potato starch are more delicate, you know.

- Hm.

- For sauces.

You know, it doesn't have to cook long as I say, a minute or so.

Okay.

Then how about a quarter of a cup of cream here?

- Nice.

- Don't really need much.

And again, that will come back to a boil.

I think that I'm going to thicken it a little bit.

A bit liquidy.

Reduce in the oven.

Okay, so I pour that in there.

Again, stir it.

And we have three souffle mold there.

This is about a cup and a half at least.

You divide your mussel.

- Okay.

- And you divide your sauce in it.

During that time, I'm going to do the base of the souffle.

- One, two.

- It's a small souffle, so I have about a tablespoon of butter and I will mix this with the flour.

Mix that in there.

And the juice of the mussels.

(clinking) You see the veloute now, which is ready.

I'm gonna put the egg yolk.

And the egg yolk is going to thicken it slightly more.

- [Claudine] Ah.

- [Jacques] Okay.

And now that's a veloute, so-called.

- [Claudine] Oh, it's beautiful.

- Yeah.

Now in the veloute we can put our eggs.

So I want to beat the eggs.

During that time, you can shred a little basil for me.

- Would you like a chiffonade?

- A chiffonade of basil.

Yes.

- Okay.

I'll use the really big leaves.

- [Jacques] Excuse me.

(clinking) (clinking) I did that fast then slow.

Fast to break the white, to make them liquid.

And then slowly up and down, lifting it up to inflate it.

(clinking) And by hand, you know, contrary to a machine, especially small quantity, where you stir it, here you lift it up and it certainly go much faster.

I'm going to be ready, Claudine.

Finished my egg white.

(clinking) (clinking) Okay, that's enough for my egg white.

So... I put this in there.

This is hot.

(clinking) - [Claudine] How's that?

Put this in here?

- [Jacques] Yeah.

That's it, and I'm ready.

- [Claudine] Is that enough?

Yeah.

- For my souffle.

I wanna put a little bit of liquid in the bottom.

A little bit of water so this doesn't cook too fast.

See, a lot of souffle you can do ahead.

This you can't really do it ahead too much.

The reason is that I have liquid underneath.

I have the sauce.

If I were to leave that here, it start collapsing in the sauce, you know?

- [Claudine] Of course.

- And then the cheese on top.

Parmesan cheese.

And this will take 20, 25 minute.

- Okay.

- [Jacques] All right.

And now we wait for the souffle.

So here I have my layer of souffle underneath, which is cooked.

One way of presenting it, one of them is actually to pick up the cooked souffle and to put it on the plate like this.

And then to serve the mussel mixture around.

It's one way of the mussel and the cream.

So that we have... And this is nice to do it this way.

Can even decorate it with a little bit of the mussel here.

For effect.

But otherwise, conventionally just like an onion soup, you know?

Take it out of the water and bring it here.

It stay quite hot underneath.

So ready for the table.

- Wow.

- Here we are.

- Beautiful.

- Ooh.

- The souffle of mussel.

(speaking French) A surprise.

- Thank you.

It's beautiful.

- It's a Valentine's Day surprise.

- Yeah.

- Valentine's Day surprise.

- Look at that surprise.

What a great surprise.

- Oh, that looks beautiful.

- Isn't it?

It smells good, huh?

- Yeah.

- So we have the base of the souffle there.

Of course.

The base of the souffle and the souffle mixture on top and... - It's crunchy.

- And Claudine, what else do we have here?

- Well, we have the beautiful dessert, which is raspberries with raspberries.

And then we added some raspberries.

Which is good.

We also have the chateaubriand, the timbales of mushrooms on croutons, which is really, really nice.

And the crepe squished between two molds.

I'm sure it has a better name, but that I really like.

- (Speaking French) like this.

- Yeah.

And the corn on the inside.

- Great, great.

This is a beautiful presentation.

Very elegant.

- Very, very nice.

- And I'm so happy to share it with both of you.

- Wow, you're gonna be even happier to share... We're gonna have some champagne.

- [Jacques] Uh-huh.

- [Claudine] But that we're gonna have with the raspberries for dessert.

We're gonna start off with a New Zealand sauvignon blanc, because I know you love that.

So I'm just gonna pass the bottle over to you.

- Oh, I love the... Yeah, so sauvignon blanc and (speaking French) over there, tend to be very crisp and very lemony.

- And as my own Valentine's Day surprise, this one is for the two of you, written with gold pens.

You just write on the bottle.

- [Wife] It's beautiful.

- And you can even cellar the bottle.

- So this is great.

- And this... - Yes?

- Well, I just wanted to tell you that it's a beautiful merlot from California.

It's really nice too.

And that it's gonna go great with this.

- It is great to share together that special moment.

- Happy Valentine's Day.

- And to share it a little bit with you.

Happy Valentine's.

- Happy Valentine's - And happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.