- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

- And I'm Claudine Pepin.

- You know, everyday cooking doesn't have to be boring.

- Maybe not in your kitchen, Papa, but you're a chef.

What about the rest of us?

- Well, stick around and I'll show you how to turn ordinary ingredients into something special.

- [Claudine] Like these beautiful stuffed tomatoes filled with leftover meat?

- [Jacques] Exactly.

Or your favorite pizza made with pita bread for the crust and all kinds of toppings.

- [Claudine] Or a stew of eggplant and Chinese sausage that you can whip up anytime.

- [Jacques] And these candied citrus chips, made from nothing more than fruit and sugar.

- In other words, it's not what you have on hand, but it's what you make of it.

- You're catching on, Titine.

Join us for some everyday cooking.

- Next on "Jacques Pepin's Kitchen."

- "Encore with Claudine."

(train whistle blowing) (gentle upbeat music continues) Today is everyday cooking.

You have to take advantage of what you have left in your refrigerator and you'll be surprised how much you can create out of it.

I'm starting here with candied grapefruit, orange, lemon, that you have to slice in thin slices like this, quarter of an inch.

- Hi, Papa.

- Hi, Titine.

And you see those, you arrange them on tray like this.

- [Claudine] I love these.

These are awesome.

- [Jacques] Yeah, those are very easy.

- [Claudine] I came to fill up my box.

- Yes.

And you do that for Christmas, right?

We can give that for gift.

(orange tapping) - [Claudine] It's hard.

- They're dried.

Yes, hard.

You want put a bit of sugar on top and you put that in like a 200-degree oven for five, six hours.

Very slowly.

So the type of thing you can do way ahead and you let it get dry like this.

You see this one dry like this?

- Yeah, it's great.

- It's candied.

It's nice.

- It's gonna get stuck in your teeth.

- A nice snack, too.

Stick in your teeth.

- I love this.

- Okay, you can keep that for Christmas, parties.

Oh, it's terrific.

But now let's do something else.

- Okay.

- Okay.

The first course today we're going to do a stew of eggplant and Chinese sausage.

Fusion cooking, right?

- Oh boy.

Here we go.

(laughs) - Okay, we have two different type of eggplant here, as you can see.

This is Japanese eggplant.

No, this is Chinese eggplant.

This is Japanese eggplant.

I'm right.

- And you know this how?

- Well the color, Claudine.

- Oh.

- And then you have of course the big one.

You can use basically any eggplant that you want.

And we have two type of Chinese sausage here.

Both of them are cooked.

You know you buy them like this at the market.

- Are they cooked and dried?

Can you eat them just like that?

- Yeah, you could.

They are cooked, you see?

- Oh, wow.

- Like a hot dog.

You know the hot dog is cooked.

So we cut them into small piece like this.

Are you going to look at me or are you going to work today?

You know, we have to cut the eggplant.

So I'll start with this.

Bring that in there.

- Here.

You can take the Chinese eggplant.

- A little bit of water.

- I'll take the Japanese eggplant.

(water sizzling) - Like half a cup of water.

Okay, and you want to cut it into like inch pieces.

Those are beautiful, aren't they?

They are nice to grill, also.

Your mother loves grilled eggplant.

And those inside, you know, usually are less spongy than the very large one, which is the common one that you find in supermarket.

Okay.

We put that in there.

(eggplant sizzling) All of that you put in there a little bit of water.

That's what we put in there, the sausage and our eggplant.

- Okay.

Mine's a little late, but it's still going in.

- Okay.

All we have to do is now cover them, maybe a bit more water.

You wanna cook them until basically there is no more water and they are tender.

We cover them, cook them about 10 minutes.

- Do we put oil, salt, pepper, or anything else there?

- Oh, I think you're absolutely right.

I have to put a little bit of oil in there and maybe a dash of salt and pepper.

Okay, good.

- Okay.

- Actually salt, you know, I may have put a bit too much salt because I'm gonna put soy sauce in it.

So we're going to chop some of- - Ginger.

- Is that what that is?

Ginger?

- I love ginger.

- You love ginger.

You know how to clean up ginger?

You can clean up with a (spoon scraping) spoon like this.

- Oh wow.

Look at this.

- You scrape it like this.

I mean, you can do that with this.

You can also do it actually with a knife.

You scrape it with a knife - [Claudine] But you always scrape it.

- Well you scrape it, yes, because you take less out of it.

You know, sometime you have to cut it here in those little pieces.

Okay.

We're gonna chop that coarsely, you know?

You can crush this.

You know when you crush this sometime, even with a knife- - Oh, it smells so good.

- You use the back of your knife like this.

You see what I do here?

(knife clicking) And then you scrape it out and you have all of the fiber here.

- Oh wow.

- And when you want it very, very fine for a very delicate dish, but for us- - We're not so delicate.

(Claudine laughs) - We're not so delicate.

That dish is not so delicate, so to give me your... - Put everything in there.

- In there.

You wanna put garlic in there?

- Okay.

- I'll give you a little piece of jalapeno paper.

You see the seed?

This is the strongest.

You cut all around with your knife to get that piece.

And each time you do a jalapeno paper test a piece.

- What if it's really strong?

- But this one is pretty strong.

But you have to test it because sometime it's extremely strong and the next time it has basically no taste, you know?

So those four piece will be enough.

- We are putting a bit of sugar in there.

- I don't know how much.

Is that good?

I did two cloves of garlic.

Do you want more?

- Oh no, yeah.

Put another two clove.

You don't have to cut it.

We're going to chop it.

And some soy sauce in this, okay?

So you're ready with... - I'm ready.

- Okay.

A good tablespoon, two tablespoon about.

Go ahead.

(food processor whirring) Good.

Beautiful.

That's fine.

- That's it?

That's fine.

Yes.

Okay.

That's great.

- Oh, wow.

Mm, that smells great.

- Now let's look at this now.

Yeah, it's cooking nicely.

As you can see, it'll continue losing its color.

You see the color on top?

Oh, the way on the edge here is get brownish.

So that beautiful red color will eventually disappear anyway.

So we continue cooking it this way and it'll take another, a good five, eight minutes, you know?

- Okay.

- [Jacques] Okay.

Let's check this again.

I think it should be cooked by then.

(dish sizzling) Oh yeah, that's it.

- Oh, that looks great.

- See how tender it is?

Change color, it get brownish.

I mean, that's the color of the eggplant, but that's fine.

So we can put all your good in there, Claudine - Okay.

- Take your knife.

That's it.

- Here you go.

What's green?

I forgot what's green.

- What's green is jalapeno.

- Oh yeah.

Okay.

- That's it.

So this doesn't really have to cook long, yeah.

Okay.

Maybe a little bit of green to put on top of this.

I'm gonna put that in there.

- I'll get some green.

- See the nice stew as an accompaniment.

It can also, you can eat that other first course.

Even a main course with a pasta or... - I bet you can even eat this cold.

- Oh yes.

Cold would be great.

Add the final touch, Titine.

- There we go.

- Beautiful.

- Thank you.

- Okay.

(dramatic music) - That's the eggplant and sausage.

- For now, what do we do?

- Tomatoes.

- Stuffed tomato with leftover, okay?

- Oh, let me get some bread.

- Tomato are really great for that.

In fact, eggplant also to use as a vehicle for leftover stuff.

You can stuff eggplant too.

Here, we're going to stuff tomato.

So let's start with the stuffing.

This leftover bread.

You want to give me some of this here?

What do you want?

You're gonna take the stuff that's already cut.

Good.

- Yeah, well you know it a bit dry.

- Well, this will stay better anyway.

- Yes.

I don't know.

I may not have enough here.

I'm gonna cut that into pieces like this.

And then you want to soften that with, if you have a bit of chicken stock if you have a bit of even milk sometime we use on or plain water, you know?

So here, so here we go in there.

I'm gonna give you that in there.

And I have some water.

About half a cup of water here.

You don't want to have too much water, but you want to have enough to really soak the bread, you know?

And you can crush it like this, yes.

I'll give you a little bit of pepper in there.

Good.

I give you some chopped onion.

It's too wet.

Is it wet now?

- I don't know.

- That'd be fine.

It will absorb.

I have a fair amount of chopped onion here.

Give you some scallion.

And I can use the green and the whole thing, you know?

- I like the whole thing.

- And you know, you can do this just, you know, vegetarian if you want.

Stuff it with all kind of vegetable left over.

But at home, you know, my mother and your grandmother very often would do that once she had leftover meat, you know?

And here I have some leftover pieces of roast beef here.

So we could use this.

I'm gonna cut it for you.

This is fine.

While I'm cutting this.

What do you have in that bag over there?

- Oh, I have mushrooms in the bag.

So you're gonna use some of these and I think I figured out how to store mushrooms reasonably well.

They're clean, they're in a paper bag so they don't get mushy, but in a plastic bag on the outside, so they don't absorb any of the odors in the refrigerator.

Which is probably a fallacy, but that's how mom does it.

- Yeah, but I tell you something, when I say you should not wash your mushroom, yes, you should wash your mushroom, but only when you're ready to use them.

Not ahead.

If they need it.

Already, wipe them up.

Think we have enough meat here?

- [Claudine] I think so.

- That looks pretty good.

We need an egg in there.

You can put the eggs.

And I give you a little bit of garlic.

Well, you know- - You're making me do all the messy stuff.

(Jacques pounding garlic) - You are good.

She's very good at doing the messy stuff.

(Claudine laughs) (knife clacking) As long as you don't dirty your beautiful sweater there.

- Thank you.

- Okay, this, now you know what, those are really large mushrooms.

- Wow.

- Frankly, one mushroom like that be enough.

I mean, you could have more.

It truly doesn't matter.

As I said here, it's a question of using what you have left in your refrigerator, yeah?

So here... - The mushrooms, you don't wanna mix too much or does it matter or- - Doesn't matter at all.

- No?

- Doesn't make any difference.

Okay.

Here we are there.

- All right.

- Now we're gonna stuff the tomato, right?

- Okay.

Well you're gonna start on the stuffing part.

I gotta wash my hands 'cause I got eggs and all kinds of gunk on them.

- That's a good idea.

We leave that here.

And I have two tomato here and a couple of tomato there, which have already been cut.

So the idea is just to get the cap out of the tomato.

You know, this way, Titine, you cut your cap and then you want to hollow the tomato.

And we're going to hollow them in there because we're going to use the inside of the tomato.

Use a spoon like this.

You know, a metal spoon.

Be really good.

Here it is.

You know, press it a little bit, gently.

Can use your finger along the rib.

And you want a nice cavity like this, you know?

And then now this, you put in the food processor, we're going to use that as a sauce.

Okay.

During that time, I'll stuff the tomato here.

We'll bring that here.

- Okay, here we go.

- Here we are.

First, I put it up to here.

If I have extra one, then I'll pile it up on top.

- Okay, so I'm gonna emulsify this?

- Yeah.

(Jacques drowned out by processor whirring) - [Claudine] Is that enough or do I have to do more?

- That's fine.

Okay, so here, Claudine.

I'm piling it up on top.

Putting a little more here.

One last one.

You know what I'll do for you?

- What?

What will you do?

- I'll move a tomato out of the way so you can pour that in.

- (laughs) Thanks.

- [Jacques] Just go ahead, pour it in.

- [Claudine] Okay, I was wondering if there was too much.

- No, no, no.

The sauce is going to reduce in the oven.

Now put our cap on.

- Oh.

Do you know which belongs to whom?

- [Jacques] Well, don't ask them.

Yeah, this belongs to that one.

- Oh, come on.

(laughs) - This belongs to that one.

No, this one.

Oh, it's all right.

Fine.

I'm kidding.

Okay.

- All right.

Let me put this in the oven and are you gonna help me?

- I'll give you a hand.

Yes.

- Okay.

- Okay.

- And we have one which is cooked here.

As you can see it- - Oh wow.

It really reduces.

- Reduced considerably.

Reduce considerably.

And also maybe those tomato may have been a bit smaller than what we have there.

But basically, you know, what you have is this is really type of leftover dish that you love at home, you know?

- Yeah, It's really healthy.

It's nutritious.

- Yes, with a nice stuffing.

It's very nice and moist.

So this is our stuffed tomato Amelie.

- Look, it's mozzarella.

- It is mozzarella.

Maybe the most used cheese in all cheese in cooking, don't you think so?

- I think so, pizza.

- In gratin.

Yes, pizza.

What else?

Lasagna.

- Lasagna.

- Any type of gratin of cheese, you know that you use it.

I visited the cheese maker in California and learned how to make mozzarella.

You have to start with fresh milk, make curd, drain the curd to have something solid and then cut them into pieces like this.

So of course the pieces are small and preferably of about equal size because when you put 170-, 180-degree water, it'll eat all of your curd and melt it so they are of equal consistency.

The cheese melt, it will have a tendency to get together so that the strand of the cheese get attached into a solid mass.

And now you can start kneading.

It is kneaded like bread dough and popping it just out of your hand with a little tail that goes directly into cold water to cool off.

And when it's nice and firm, it goes into a brine to give it some saltiness and some taste.

And finally they are putting a mixture of brine and whey that the standout way of buying them.

And you should be consumed usually during the first two, three day that you have it.

This is the best time.

- Oh, that fresh?

Yes, oh, that fresh.

Fresh is the best.

Oh, wow.

- Of course you love it I know at home sliced with tomato, olive oil- - And basil from the garden.

- And basil and cracked pepper on top of it.

So you wanna cut a piece here?

You see it's kind of springy like this.

When it's fresh, it get a little, you know, firmer even after.

But fresh like this, it's not really a cheese that you eat that much of just by itself like this.

It's more used with one thing or another.

Also, you know, you see it's kind of elastic too.

It's good like that too.

- Oh, wow.

It's good.

- This one is creamier than most mozzarella.

- Yeah, this one is very good.

- Especially if you use the supermarket type of bowl of rubber that you buy there, this is much finer.

- No, fresh is really good.

- Ooh.

(Claudine laughs) - Pita pizza.

- Pita pizzas.

- [Jacques] Oh, they're your favorite, huh?

- [Claudine] I love these.

These are great.

- Yeah.

This is easy to do at home.

We're going to do some, well look at that.

I have white pita here and the whole-wheat pita.

Which one you want?

- I want white.

- Yeah, this one is a bit actually smaller, you know, than this one.

- And I'm smaller than you.

- I cut mine, I go with the knife all around like that because what we are doing here on those extremely thin pizza, if you want it, by cutting the pita in half and that make two.

One of this make two pizza.

- And I'm gonna cut this almost as fast as you because I'm using a scissor and it makes my life much easier.

- Yeah, that's a good technique too.

- I just wanna make sure not to cut too much of the bread.

- [Jacques] And too much of your finger.

- Well, yeah, but this definitely faster than me using a knife.

- You know, I saw you putting that on the tray.

You could put that on the tray directly here.

I see it goes much faster than me.

Here, give me one here.

- You're so mean.

- All right, so I have three here.

And mine I'm going to do, well, I need to put it here because I need a little space, but I'm gonna start with this one.

And here I have some shrimp.

I have a mushroom, I have some cilantro.

I have some Parmesan cheese.

Tabasco, soy, and a bit of sesame oil.

Kind of oriental pizza, huh?

I'm gonna put that on tip right here.

- [Claudine] That looks very nice.

- I can cut it in any old way, actually, you know?

Can cut it in pieces like that.

Or cut in the long way.

Doesn't really matter.

And then I'm going to do a pizza here with red onion, tomato, chives, mozzarella, herb de Provence, a bit of oil, salt, paper.

What are you going to do?

I'll work on mine.

- And I'm gonna do one with scallions, yellow peppers, olives, pignoli nuts, Gruyere, and salt and pepper.

- You mean pine nuts?

- No, pignoli nuts.

(laughs) - oh, pignoli nuts.

Okay.

- And salt and pepper and some oil.

So I'm gonna work on this one.

And I'm gonna do, I'll put my peppers on- - You mean you work on my tray?

- Well, yeah.

- All right.

Okay.

- [Claudine] -Cause I'm gonna go faster than you.

(laughs) - Okay.

Here is my mushroom here.

You already have two made over there?

- Yeah.

- What did you put in those?

- [Claudine] I have one that's mostly greens.

'cause that's kind of what I had left over.

- Salad greens.

- Salad greens with some Parmesan, some tomatoes, some garlic, a little oil.

Really, really nice and really simple.

And the other one has- - Sesame oil, hm.

- Leftover chicken, zucchini, it's got mushrooms.

It's really nice too.

So they're both very, very nice.

- Okay.

We put that in there.

- Okay, I'm gonna put some pine nuts in.

- My cilantro.

They're all very different and great.

Here is the Parmesan cheese.

- [Claudine] I'm gonna put some of this on top.

I think it'll look nice.

- I'll put a little bit of pepper here.

- [Claudine] I'm gonna do salt and pepper.

- [Jacques] Maybe a little dash of oil.

- [Claudine] Will you put oil on mine, 'cause you're already pouring.

- Yeah, I put a dash of olive oil, okay.

Dash of olive oil here also, you have everything you need on that one?

- I think I'm good.

Yep.

- This is not mozzarella cheese.

- No, this is Gruyere.

- Oh, Gruyere, okay.

So let me do mine.

You have another one to do there.

- I'm doing mine.

- Here, I'm going to do sliced red onion right in the bottom.

- I am gonna do more olives.

These are different olives.

- Oh, those are kalamata.

- Kalamata.

- Yes.

And we have sliced tomato, red onion.

- Scallions.

- Chives.

Oh, look how beautiful mine is here.

- (laughs) Got some sliced garlic.

- Little bit of herb de Provence.

That mixture of thyme, marjoram, oregano in it.

And a little bit of the olive oil again on top.

A good oil.

You see the pepper oil, actually - [Claudine] This is mozzarella cheese?

- This is mozzarella cheese.

Are you finishing before me?

- I hope so.

No, well see, I still have my anchovies to put on.

- [Claudine] Okay.

Let me do that.

- I am finished.

Can I help you?

- I guess so.

- A little bit of that oil is good.

- Yeah, the oil is gonna be good.

- Pine nuts?

- I did the pine nuts, sir, on that one.

- Oh good.

- And they're pignoli nuts.

- So now we put that in the oven.

400 degree.

- For how long?

- And we have two oven.

And it's better to put it in two oven.

Put yours here.

Mine's in the little oven.

- Thank you.

- Here.

- Thank you.

- [Claudine] You're welcome.

- And this will take 12, 12 to 15 minutes at 400 degree.

And now let's open the wine.

- All right.

- Okay.

- Here's this thing.

- Thank you.

(inhaling) I can smell the pizza, you know?

I think you should go check it.

- Okay, I'm gonna go get the pizza.

- Yeah, let's go ahead and get it.

- Ooh, this looks lovely.

All right.

Incoming pizza guy.

- Here coming.

Ooh, look at those pizza.

That's beautiful.

- You're gonna have to help me slide them onto the thing.

- Yes.

Look at that.

This is the one.

This is the nicest one.

It's mine.

- It is not.

- Yeah, that's the one I made.

This is the goat cheese pizza.

This is really pretty good.

- And here we have our pita pizzas.

(dramatic music) - Do you think that, look at that.

Oh, maybe we should taste it now?

- Yeah.

- A pizza there.

- I completely agree that we should taste it.

- Oh, this is with the green.

- This is my pizza.

- This is you.

This was with the green, yes?

- And the Parmesan and... (crust crunching) - Mm.

Really good.

- It's good, but it's hot.

- With my mouth full, I'm opening the wine.

And today we have a white grenache here, a white grenache from France, which is kind of unusual.

It's a very inexpensive wine actually.

Do you want a little bit of this wine or the red?

- I'll take the inexpensive one.

(laughs) - Well, both of them are really well-priced for the quality.

And here we have a cabernet Franc from Chile.

- Oh, wow.

- You know, and again, at a new type of brand, and I think this would be absolutely great with what we have today.

We are going to have the stuffed tomato, those stuffed tomato with leftover roast beef or ham, whatever you have in your refrigerator.

And then we have that stew of eggplant, kind of fusion cooking.

- [Claudine] And we have the fruit kind of chips.

- [Jacques] The dried fruit.

And all of our pizza.

- I love the pizzas.

Pizzas are good.

- This is the time.

This is the time to invite friend, right, for the pizza.

- Definitely.

- It was great cooking with you, Titine.

- Fun cooking with you too.

(glasses clinking) - Until next time, - Happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.

(gentle upbeat music)