French Fast Food - French Food at Home (Full Episode) | Cooking Show

Modern life is as busy and hectic in France as anywhere, so it makes sense that there are plenty of French dishes that are quick and easy to make, but still beautiful and satisfying. Duck breast with raspberries. Steak au poivre, everyone's bistro favorite. Pork chops with capers and lemon. And sole in hazelnut parsley butter. It's fast food, but it's homemade, so it's delicious and good for you. French cooking can be quick and easy, but still beautiful and satisfying. I'm not talking about baguette sandwiches, I mean real food. Succulent duck breasts in a bright red raspberry sauce. I've got a great duck breast here, which in France are called maigret de canard. They're lovely and red. In France you can get them just as easily as chicken, which is why I made it all the time when I lived there. Now I'm just going to score the fat. There's a nice thick layer of it, not to be removed. I'm just making this crisscross pattern on the fat so that when it shrinks as it hits the heat it will stay nice and flat, not curl up. I'm just going to season with some salt and a bit of pepper. Now I'm going to take this to the stove and do a little trick called rendering. Render the duck fat. Render it what you're dying to know. So I've got my pan nice and hot. I'm just going to lay in the duck breast, skin side down, fat side down. And that fat is just going to melt right off like a snowman on a sunny day. That fat starts running off right away. I like to pour it off because you can end up deep frying the meat and I don't want that. I can already see it's getting nice and golden on the bottom. Now look at that all nice and brown and crisp on the back. That's going to be delicious against the meat. Now I've just flipped it over so the other side is going to start actually cooking now. That's looking good to me. I'm going to get that off. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. And I'm going to let it rest here on the board. Not because it stayed up too late last night but because when you cook it, all the blood runs right into the center and it's drier around the edges. So as it rests, those juices run back out again through the meat so it's all nice and juicy. I'm going to make the sauce. It gives me time to do that. I'll just pour off that little bit of extra fat. And I'm going to deglaze to get those nice sticky bits off the bottom with raspberry vinegar. Because there are raspberries coming later. And I want to layer up that same flavor in different ways. I'm just going to let that reduce to a few tablespoons and that will concentrate the flavor and sweeten it a bit. It's got lovely acidity but I want it not to be too sharp. That's reduced enough for me. So I'll keep going with a bit of garlic. Now just a bit of tomato paste. This is going to add a bit of complexity to the sauce and give it some body. Also color. It's nice and red just like raspberries. And now a bit of red wine. This will lengthen the sauce. And red wine is great with duck. Makes a beautiful rust color. I just love it. That's nice and reduced now. Nice and thick. Now I'm adding a spoonful of raspberry jelly. Which just adds a bit of sweetness and more fruitiness. So it's layering up those same flavors again. I used to make this all the time in Paris when I had friends coming over in the summer at the end of a long work day. I could throw this together so quickly and it always looks so spectacular. It's really great casual dinner fare with friends. Now that's good. I'm going to take that off the heat now. And just whisk in some butter. And just whisk it in off the heat so that it doesn't melt into the sauce. But just sort of melds into it and emulsifies it all and makes it lovely and glossy. And now last but not least, my berries. Nice and summery and ripe and sweet. Those berries are beautiful and glistening just like little ornaments. They just need a duck to go on. And that's ready to carve now in the time it takes to make the sauce. I'm going to just slice it on the diagonal into nice thinnish slices. See how beautiful and rosy it is still inside. Nice crisp top. The duck is lovely and juicy. And what I love about this sauce, it's very fruity but it's not one solid thing. It's all layered up. Raspberry vinegar, raspberries, raspberry jam. It's really spectacular. When I'm in the mood for meat, it has to be steak au poivre. Another easy, fast French dish. Who says French food can't be quick and easy? I just made a spectacular duck dish and it only took minutes. And now I'm going to make a steak au poivre or pepper steak. Which is steak in a peppery creamy sauce and it goes at the speed of light. I got this recipe from my old roommate Camille in Paris. And we used to make it at least once a week. We used to get half price cou de filet or tail of tenderloin. Because it's kind of the flat end and the butcher gave it to us cheap. Now I've got cou de filet again, only the round part. So it's really nice and plump and it looks fantastic. For the pepper, I'm using green peppercorns and brine which I've just drained. That was Camille's trick. It's better than hard black peppercorns because it's just a bit milder. And they're not so hard so they don't crack on your teeth. So to soften the peppercorns just a little bit more. I'm going to pour over some red wine and let them soak for a few minutes. And it's just the tannins of the wine that softens them. You could also use black tea. So I'll let these guys have a little swim. They're so cute. I love peppercorns. In the middle ages a lot of spices were used as currency including pepper. Peppercorns are actually a berry that grows in grape-like clusters on the pepper plant. Black pepper is the whole fruit picked before it's completely ripe then sun-dried. Black of course is the most common of the peppercorns. It's the hottest. White peppercorns are the core of the ripe fruit after the husk has been removed. They're used for flavor not really heat. The French use it in white sauces rather than black pepper because they can't see it. It doesn't blacken the white sauce. Fosse what? And bay rose or pink peppercorns are actually dried berries. Nothing to do with peppercorns except that they kind of look alike. But they're not hot. They have a delicate sweet almost floral flavor. Green peppercorns are the unripe fruit of the pepper plant. They're a bit milder than black pepper and softer when they've been packed in water. Which is the kind I buy for pepper steak. So I'm just going to rinse these off because that wine is not good now. And I want to make sure none of it's clinging to my peppercorns. I don't want it in my sauce. And straight into my mortar and pestle. I'll crush them in a minute. You should always season meat before you cook it. But what I'm going to do actually is season the pan with salt. Because that's what Camille always did. And it makes me feel very nostalgic. Sometimes I think the only justification a technique needs is that it makes you feel happy. And the meat goes right in on top. I'll just give that a few minutes per side. So I'll just leave it rare. And while that's cooking I'll crush my peppercorns. They don't need to be pulverized. Just broken up a bit. And just check on my meat. You see how that lifts off all by itself when it's ready? That means the bottom is cooked and I can flip it over. With a thin piece of meat this isn't necessary. But I'm just going to roll it around a bit. Because I like when the edges are also nice and brown and have a caramelized bit to them. I'm going to just move this over to a board to rest. While I make my sauce. Deglaze the pan with a bit of stock. And then scrape off the gooey bits from the bottom. So this is beef stock, not chicken of course. And I just like the richness it gives to the sauce at the end. And it also colors it kind of nice and brown. But I'm going to reduce it to just a spoonful. I don't want loads and loads of sauce. Just that bit of flavor. This is creme fraiche. And a nice spoonful like that. Creme fraiche is of course a thick cream. Very high butter fat so it doesn't curdle when you cook it. And the other great thing about it is that it has a taste that's between sour and sweet. So it's not too cloying in the sauce. To make creme fraiche put cream and a splash of buttermilk together in a bowl. Then leave it uncovered at warm room temperature to thicken overnight. The next day it should be as thick as sour cream. Peppercorns right in there. I just love the look of it. It's a nice tawny brown with lovely flecks of green from the peppercorns. This is one of my favorite bistro dishes of all time. A great French classic and no wonder. Et voila. If there's one surefire way to make friends and influence people, this is it. I'm having a bite. Delicious meat and I love the pepper. That is one of my top five French dishes. Another quick French favorite of mine is tasty pork chops with the flavors of the Mediterranean on them. If you've been told all your life that French food can't be quick and easy, you've been grossly misled. Raspberry, duck and steak au poivre proved that. Now how about a pork chop? Mediterranean flavors of thyme, lemon zest and capers. Pork chops are a really great cut of meat because they're quick cooking but they're still on the bone and that's a real advantage because anything cooked on a bone is really extra juicy and it has more flavor. Just heating a little oil to fry it in. And a little bit of butter too for flavor. They work well together because the oil prevents the butter from burning and the butter gives that nice buttery taste. I'm seasoning the meat on both sides with salt and pepper. And here's a great trick that I learned from a French chef. It's to use sugar like salt while you're seasoning. Just take a pinch of sugar and sprinkle it a little bit over the meat like that. And it doesn't sweeten the meat but when you cook it, it gives it a lovely caramelized crust, a beautiful golden sheen. So I'll just do the other side. I'm just going to fry that a good five minutes per side. I want the meat cooked but still juicy. That looks absolutely great. Look how wonderfully golden that is. I'm going to take that right out and onto the plate. And now I'm going to make a sauce for that chop with Mediterranean flavors of capers, thyme and lemon zest. Starting though with shallot. I've got one already minced here. A nice fine, fine dice and that's very easy to do. There's a technique that makes it really neat. To mince or émincer in French means to cut food into very, very small pieces. So first peel the shallot. Then cut a little sliver off the bottom so it won't roll around on the board. Then slice horizontally from top towards the roots, making as many parallel slices as you can. Don't cut through the root though because it holds the shallot together. Then cut the shallot several more times vertically. This makes a grid. Then you can just slice normally and it gives you minced. It's the same technique for onions. Now I'm going to deglaze with a little bit of stock to get those good bits off the bottom and make a sauce. Just a splash. I just picked some thyme and chopped that. Almost a bit lemony. Just scatter that over. And now another of my star ingredients, capers. A lot of people seem to think capers are something to do with seafood. I suppose they do sort of look like they were scraped off the bottom of a boat. But in fact they're a flower bud off a Mediterranean bush and they're just sun-dried and pickled in vinegar. They've got a lovely tangy lemony taste. And the last thing this needs is a bit of lemon zest and a squirt of juice. Not really a sauce, just pan juices with those lovely Mediterranean flavors of shallots, lemon zest and capers. They go so well together. It's very good. The meat is so juicy thanks to that bone in there. And those flavors complement it great. Sole Meuniere, an elegant flatfish fried in brown butter and flecked with parsley. French food can be very quick and easy but it still delivers on the great taste you expect of it. I've made raspberry duck, steak au poivre, caper chops. Now for a quick fish dish. Sole Meuniere is one of the great classics of French cooking. It's an elegant piece of sole, dipped in flour and fried in clarified butter until it's golden brown, then sprinkled with parsley. This is quick cooking and with any quick cooking it's good to be organized. It just takes the stress out of it. So I have a few stations set up. I've got milk in a pan. That's going to be kind of my glue because after the milk I'm going to dip it in flour. Now I've seasoned the flour with salt and pepper really well rather than seasoning the fish because otherwise it would just all come off in the milk. That's a little tip. And I've got clarified butter to fry the fish in. It gives it that great butter taste but it works like oil because the butterfat has been removed. Not by a surgeon, by moi. Melt butter in a saucepan slowly to separate the milk solids from the fat. Keep it on the heat to get a slight hazelnut color but don't let it burn. Then skim the white residue off the top and use the golden oily butterfat that's left behind for cooking. A la meunière is a cooking technique that can be applied to any fish. It just means that the fish has been dipped in flour before it's fried in butter. Meunière being the miller's wife. The miller of flour, not of the sawmill. Sole is wonderful for pan frying because it's a flat fish shaped like this and it cooks really quickly. Just zzzt zzzt. You can also use a round fish like trout. In fact that's also classic for meunière. And also amandine which is the same recipe using toasted almonds. Okay so that's ready. It hardly needs any time because it's very thin. Out you come fishy fishy. Now the sauce is really easy. I've made some hazelnut butter or beurre noisette in French and that's just the opposite of clarified butter. It's when you leave the butterfat in the butter and heat it gently so that it turns a lovely brown color and gets a nutty flavor. You just have to stop it before it burns. And then a handful of parsley in on top so it foams beautifully and then right over the fish. Just a squirt of lemon is all it needs and it's ready to eat. Lovely crisp crust and tender fish with a squirt of lemon. It's as good as it looks. See French food can be as quick and easy as food anywhere. Raspberry duck, a duck breast cooked in a rusty sauce. Steak au poivre, steak in a creamy peppery sauce. Caper chops, capers with Mediterranean flavors of thyme, lemon zest and shallot. And sole meunière, a great French classic. Flat fish pan fried in butter. Even if you don't have a lot of time you can still cook French classics. Try some of these recipes. They'll make you feel like a real pro.