- Hi, I'm Jacques Pépin.

- And I'm Claudine Pépin.

- You know, Claudine, what I like the most about Christmas?

- Let me guess.

The food?

- The food, yes, but also our tradition.

You know, the way we always buy a live tree and then we bury it after Christmas, and we have plenty beautiful tree over there with your age on each of them, from 20 on.

- And another fine Pépin tradition is also how grumpy you get when you see the masses of Christmas presents under the tree.

- Yeah.

- (laughing) So what's on the menu?

- [Jacques] Well, we're starting with oyster on the half shell.

- [Claudine] Served with a tangy mignonette.

That's one of my favorite memories of Christmas at home.

- [Jacques] And a perfect counterpoint to silky smoked salmon served with cucumber salad.

A classic baked terrine of foie gras, and my terrific simple salt-cured foie gras served with roasted nut, crunchy sea salt and sweet preserves.

- [Claudine] Braised duck with tangy honey sauce, glazed shallots, and honey sweet potatoes is a perfect and wonderful main course.

Black truffle salad with lemon dressing is rich and elegant.

- [Jacques] But for dessert, it's back to the classics.

A spectacular Bûche De Noël, a chocolate yule log with splendid decoration.

- [Claudine] But what about Christmas pudding with raisins, nuts, candied fruit, and old fashioned hard sauce?

- Join us for a one hour special Christmas feast.

- Next on "Jacques Pépin's Christmas Celebration."

- You know, one of the important things when you have holiday, and we have a lot of guests coming, and you do a fantastic dinner, or lunch, or whatever, is to plan ahead, and to plan ahead is what we've done here.

We're gonna celebrate Christmas, and one of the first thing I like to do for Christmas is the classic English Christmas pudding.

So we have flour, we have eggs, we have a little bit of beef suet which is classic.

All of that in the food processor, get it like in powder, and addition of an enormous amount of different type of dried fruit from pear to dried peach, dried apple, and apricot, raisins and so forth, and of course some whiskey.

What do you have there?

- I have a dime.

And you put a dime in here and the person that gets a dime gets a wish when it's cooked, in like 8, 10, 12 months.

- Wow.

(Claudine laughing) Yeah, because that really can be done way ahead, huh?

- [Claudine] Like six months ahead.

- [Jacques] It doesn't have to be six months ahead.

- [Claudine] No, but it can be.

- But it can be done, yes, way ahead.

We put it in there and classically, I mean, what I do, I cover it with plastic wrap, you know, pack it tightly there, and then aluminum foil around there.

- Traditionally you have a bowl like this.

- Yes.

- And then you wrap it just cheesecloth.

And then this has a lip.

So what you can do is put the string around so you, and then also- - And lower it.

- Yep, you can lower it and you make a little thing on top.

- So what I have is water here.

- But we have tongs now.

- Yeah, I have a towel in the bottom so it doesn't... Tepid water from the tap.

We cover it.

And that has to steam for a good five hours.

When you're ready to use it, you have to re-steam it an hour, get it warm, and a bit of syrup on top and the hard sauce.

So this has to cook for a while.

- That like a very long time.

- So we are moving to our second dessert, which is more classically French.

This one we're doing the Bûche de Noël, that is the Christmas yule.

And the Christmas yule was done because the story was that you had to burn a big log in the fireplace during the Middle Ages in France.

It has to burn the whole night, without stopping.

If it stopped, it was bad luck for the year.

If it didn't stop, however, you took the ashes, and the ashes were supposed to cure, you know, headache, to cure everything.

You sprinkled them there, it was good luck or whatever.

So that's the story of this.

- [Claudine] This a great history lesson.

- [Jacques] The Bûche de Noël.

- [Claudine] I didn't know.

- Oh, you didn't know that?

- No, I just eat it.

- Aren't you French or?

- I just eat it and it's good.

- [Jacques] I'm going to beat the egg white for you and you're going to mix- - I have egg yolks.

- [Jacques] the egg yolk.

Sugar.

- I have sugar.

(bowl rattling) And I have a little bit of vanilla, and I'm gonna start mixing that.

- Good idea.

So here what you do, you wanna go very fast to start with, to break the white so that they don't go like a wet mop round your whisk, and then you start slowly lifting it up.

Can see that I barely touch the bowl.

(whisk rattling) This is hard work.

- Now do I?

I know.

- I enjoy it.

- Do I put the flour in here yet?

- You have to put your flour, yes.

Put the whole thing in it and stir it gently.

(whisk rattling) And my egg whites are not ready, but- - [Claudine] Almost.

- Almost.

(whisk rattling) So it goes pretty fast.

(whisk rattling) You don't want any lumps here, Claudine.

- No, I know.

- So change hands when you're... (whisk rattling) - [Claudine] Well, this hand, you know what?

No.

(whisk rattling) - That's it.

That's good.

(whisk rattling) That's fine.

- Nice and smooth, right?

- I'm tightening the whiteness.

(whisk rattling) - I think you should have been a drummer.

(whisk rattling) - No, but you see, that's it.

That's with the old whisk.

So want me to put that in there?

Okay.

- Tastes good.

- And I keep this because we're gonna fold it with that.

- Okay.

- [Jacques] One second.

So very coarsely.

(whisk rattling) I don't wanna break down my white too much to mix it.

- Okay.

This?

- Coarsely.

And then start folding it.

That's good.

- All right.

- And you can see here that I move my bowl, that I don't move my hand, so that the whole thing is nice and light.

I wanna show you how to line up a mold like this.

I mean, I have a piece of paper here, which is- - Just regular parchment?

- Parchment.

You butter half of it.

(hand patting) Then you fold the other one.

- Oh, this I know.

- And it's buttered on each side.

And what you do, you cut the corner here this way, and this way.

(paper rustling) We open it.

(paper rustling) - Everything is buttered.

- So that when you fold it like this at the corner, those two things cross like that.

You see the way they cross?

- [Claudine] Like this.

- [Jacques] You see the way they cross?

- Claudine] Well, since you're so good at this, are you gonna be wrapping all the Christmas presents?

- Ah-ha, okay.

So that's the proper way of doing it.

That in there.

See this is a biscuit roulé, you know, a rolled... And that again, you can do a day or so ahead, you know.

When it's cold, just cover it with plastic wrap.

And you want to keep it refrigerated, of course, until you're ready to roll it.

Okay.

All the rest of it.

- [Claudine] And that's it?

- [Jacques] That's it.

- [Claudine] And I'm gonna put this in the oven.

- [Jacques] In the middle, right about.

- In the middle.

- Good.

I have one which is ready here, as you can see.

Done on this.

- [Claudine] Are we taking the whole thing out?

- Yep, other way.

That's it.

And then of course there is about 10 different type of cream you can do in it.

Back when I was a kid, my mother put jam in it.

- Ah I love that, just raspberry jam.

- Raspberry jam.

But I have a chocolate cream here.

- That's not bad.

- That's not bad.

So the chocolate cream.

What I have here is a crème pâtissière, so called crème pâtissière.

That is a pastry cream, which is flour, egg yolk, a bit of vanilla, flour, egg yolk, vanilla, and then milk.

You boil the whole thing together, it gets thick.

You have a pastry cream, and then you just put the chocolate in it, it melt in there.

You can flavor it with something else.

Well, this one is a little actually, it's a little stiff, because you have to do it ahead.

Now, very often in store they do it with a buttercream, which is of course much richer than that.

It's not only the question of richness.

It's a question that the buttercream will hold better than that.

So for people who do it for several days, you know, when they do the bake shop- - I have to taste this.

- [Jacques] This is a bit easier, you know, and this... - [Claudine] I like this because it doesn't have alcohol in it.

And you know how I feel, I don't like alcohol in my desserts.

- [Jacques] You don't like alcohol in your dessert?

- [Claudine] No, I like it on the side in a glass (laughing).

- And then now you can use the paper, you know, the rolling to roll it like this, you see?

And that also, you can even have it ready, you know, a couple of days ahead.

You will rewrap that in there.

Then you can put that in your refrigerator.

That's ready.

Can you get me the tray?

- Do you want me to get the tray?

- Yeah.

In our case, of course we want to use it right away so.

And we want it- - Seam side down.

- Yeah, approximately.

- Ooh, it's so nice and moist.

- That's it.

You can even twist it a little bit.

Remember it's a log, a tree log.

So maybe we have it this way, right, Claudine?

- [Claudine] Perfect.

- So now we do another cream on top.

You could have the same cream on top, but I wanted to do.

So I have melted chocolate here and cream, and we do what we call a ganache soufflé.

That is a whipped ganache and a little bit of rum in there.

About a tablespoon of rum.

That's good.

And this, I wanna work this out into a kind of a buttercream, you know, if you want.

Just whip it.

It whipped.

You don't wanna whip it too much because you don't want to get it too fluffy.

(whisk rattling) - What do you mean too fluffy?

- If you put too much air in it, it get very fluffy and you know what happened?

It get hard and I can't spread it out.

(whisk rattling) - [Claudine] Oh.

- But they're just holding like that.

That's a weak ganache.

(whisk rattling) Okay, you wanna taste again?

But we have our ganache on top.

(spatula tapping) So what you want to do is to use the side of your thing to up, we're going to clean up.

- [Claudine] We can put decorations on top if we mess up the... - Yes.

(spatula tapping) That's it.

I'm gonna put some on this side.

You want it thick enough because we're gonna mark it with a tin to do the bark of the tree.

But the first thing that we do, we cut the side up.

A little bit on the bias like this to do the stump of one tree, you know, here.

And cut the other side too.

A messy business, huh?

- [Claudine] No, but it's fun.

It is- - [Jacques] The other stump.

Okay.

- [Claudine] Never Christmas without this.

- So that's why you know you need the rubber spatula.

I need a bit more of this.

Right?

Okay.

But here what you want, you want this one.

So remember outside.

Well now it does look like the stump of a tree.

So you know, that's good because you use everything.

The trimming at the end.

That's good.

- There's a hole right here.

- Wait a minute.

Now the fun part of it, you're gonna do that.

You do the bark of a tree here.

Like this, just lightly, you know?

Okay, don't wanna push too much into it.

(Claudine laughing) Do this, yeah, Now it's starting to look like a log, yeah?

And even, maybe.

- [Claudine] Oh, that's nice.

- And now it's perfectly fine this way.

This would be the classic way you put a lot of, you can put some holly around or stuff.

But then if you want to- - Well.

- Do another more complicated, or I think you can do what I did here, which is taking a little piece of plastic wrap, a little piece of- - [Claudine] Parchment paper.

- [Jacques] Parchment paper rather, like this.

And you have some melted chocolate, you spread it on top, - [Claudine] Just melted chocolate with nothing?

- [Jacques] No with nothing.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- [Jacques] And then on top of that we put some- - [Claudine] Mint.

- [Jacques] Mint, because there is mint goes well with chocolate.

See that fit and that the bark of our thing, you know, we can break it.

It should stick to that, you know, a little bit.

Okay.

- [Claudine] Well it will, when it's a little bit warmer.

Oh, this is so beautiful.

- I think this one is even a bit big.

Maybe I'll cut some.

Doesn't matter, it's bark so you know, if it's, you cut it.

It can already be melted you know.

Do whatever you want with it.

You will notice that as it warm up a little bit in your dining room, will have a tendency to soften, you know, fall a little bit on top.

Well, we have done decoration, maybe a little bit of snow, right?

- [Claudine] So we can go skiing?

- Okay, and then you have some decoration that you prepare there.

- [Claudine] Little berries and leaves, and just anything you have around.

- Yes.

Okay, a couple of the berries there.

Maybe Claudine, what do you think?

Here, there?

Couple of berry here and there.

Holly or?

- The berries are not for eating, they're just for decoration.

- Okay, I think we have a splendid Bûche De Noël, don't you think so?

- Yeah, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

- All right.

All right.

- Okay.

- Okay.

- All right.

- I got the good dirt in it.

- That's it?

- [Jacques] Every year after Christmas, my dear old friend Claude helps me plant our living Christmas tree behind the house.

- You want some water on top of it?

All right.

Oh perfect.

- [Jacques] Okay?

Oh good, we try.

Straight it?

- [Claude] Looks good.

- No, that's not straight.

- What do you mean, it's not straight?

- You can't see- - Oh, I understand that.

- Oh gee, I'm tired, you continually- - You wanted to see the bottom of the water there.

- [Claude] Yeah, that's exactly what I'm planning to do.

- What do you mean that's it?

- No, because we gotta put water now, huh?

(beeping) Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

- That's a beautiful little tree, isn't it?

- I think so, yeah.

- It's gonna get real big.

- Oh yeah.

- Thanks for helping, huh?

- Anytime.

- Okay.

(gentle music) The goose liver pâté.

And the goose liver pâté, there is several one which come.

There is some coming from France.

There is some coming Sonoma in California, some from Canada, and the Hudson River Valley foie gras.

I personally think the Hudson River Valley foie gras, which is this one, is the best by far.

So this is what we have here.

And this is mallard duck.

And those are about a pound, almost a pound and a half, liver.

Now as you can see, they come cryo bagged this way.

But I put it into lukewarm water.

- [Claudine] It wasn't frozen though.

- No, it's never frozen.

No, but it come cryo bagged.

So that I can separate the two lobes like this.

And I'm going to do, this one is going to be cooked.

So I'm opening it as you can see, you can see the central nerve here.

So you try to clean the inside.

- [Claudine] What do you look for in a foie gras that's raw?

- I would say that there is different grade that you can buy it.

If you have to splurge for that, because it's relatively expensive, go for grade A, which is the best.

Because the other one, especially if you sauté it, you know, a lot of it may melt.

It's something which is always difficult.

You don't know how much of it you're going to lose on that.

So this, we want to clean it up as much as we can.

That again, you do ahead, you know?

And then we will season it.

I'm gonna show you two way of doing the foie gras.

So this one we're going to cook.

So I'm going to season that, and have a mixture here of white pepper then the salt.

Quite a lot of salt you need in there.

And I put a little bit of gelatin in there.

We mix that together.

And this is going to be, I have gelatin, yeah about close to one envelope of just plain wax gelatin, you know.

And here some cognac.

You want to spread about a good tablespoon, two tablespoon of cognac on top of this, Claudine.

- Here, I had it all ready for you.

- That's good.

And there is different way of cooking.

It's sometime, a torchon, you know, you see in restaurant, a torchon.

A "torchon" mean a towel.

It's cooked in a towel.

Other time, here what we are cooking it, just in the terrine like this.

So we try to put, you know, a nice piece underneath, you know.

A smaller piece which are broken in the center.

You know, and the last piece on top.

- [Claudine] You're just kind of pressing it down?

- Well, you want, you have to press it so that nice and tight.

That goes into the oven.

It depend how you pack it and your container if it's more flat or thicker and so forth.

But it takes a good hour, hour and a quarter, maybe, at like 225 degree low temperature.

We want to cook that to about 120, 125 degree, until that temperature.

And it goes in there with- - With water.

- Tepid water.

You're gonna put it in the oven for me, Claudine?

- [Claudine] Yes.

- Okay.

And then I have another foie gras, which is done by curing with salt.

Just cooked with the salt itself.

So this one, I need more white pepper, I need the cognac.

- But there's no gelatin in this, so.

- No, no, no, no gelatin.

It's not cooked.

And sometimes some people put a dash of sugar, which is fine too.

Okay.

So put the plastic there.

Thank you.

- [Claudine] This?

- No, I want it now.

- [Claudine] All you did to this was clean it?

- [Jacques] Clean it.

- And leave it in the refrigerator?

- You clean it and then you roll it.

And I'm gonna show you.

Tight.

As tight actually as you can, yeah.

So here, try to get it... Already slightly tight here.

But you know what?

(foil crunching) Okay.

- Wow.

- Tight as you can, okay.

And that has to cure at least 24 hours, 48 hours or so.

Okay?

Now here is the first one that we did here.

I already cleaned it up.

I'll show you the way it has cooked with you.

After it's cooked, I put a piece of cardboard like this with a piece of- - [Claudine] Just aluminum foil?

- Yes on top.

And put it on top.

While this is still in, put it on top of the foie gras.

And I put a weight, like two pound a can of something that I put on top, that press out some of the fat.

And that's what I have here.

All of the fat which came out.

Now this- - So that comes, it bubbles from the top.

- Well yeah, because it melt as it cook so you press it a little bit.

- Oh, okay.

- And then this, you keep to sauté potato or doing anything like that.

- Yes, see I knew.

- That's really good.

- I know I have something.

- Right.

And this, in top of this here we have an aspic now.

A meat aspic, which is a stock which has been clarified.

We clarified the stock with a clarification egg white and all that.

That's classic to serve that with it, flavored with port wine or cognac and so forth.

I have hot water here.

Start cutting.

- Why?

- Because it doesn't stick to my knife like this.

- [Claudine] Ooh.

- You see your foie gras, is a beautiful color.

See the Japanese do that with big knife and they do this.

So the water run on top of that when they cut the sushi, you know.

- Oh.

- So we want- - You're just gonna?

- It's classic to serve a sweet wine with this.

I mean I'm very generous with my portion here.

With that foie gras, we could do easy 12 people, yeah.

What we can do also in this, the aspic, I cut a little more aspic that I have in there, and you can cut your aspic this way.

You have to give me a spoon for that.

(knife scraping) I'm cutting it across.

(knife scraping) And then we have, (spoon tapping) you know, the little...?

- [Claudine] Just little dices.

- Aspic, dices of aspic around, which is like little jewel, you know.

This is the stuff that you had since you were a kid, you know from the holiday but this is really- - I didn't use to like it though.

I didn't like it at first.

Now I do.

- Okay.

That's what- - But I only like yours anyway.

- And I have a beautiful truffle here, which is a tuber melanosporum, which is the real truffle of the part of France which is the southwest of France.

And we cut some of this, you know, we put them around.

We are decadent today.

Okay.

I think that would be great.

And with that.

- I think this is beautiful.

Let me get the other one.

- A nice little slice of brioche and you really have something.

(foil crunching) Okay.

- Do you think people would be nervous about knowing that that's raw?

- This is cured.

This way, I mean, you know, today we have the fish which is raw, certainly sushi, sashimi, an enormous amount.

And even in the style of nouvelle cuisine, when you do a salmon rare, you know, you do it so that it's about, it's usually about 90 degree internal temperature in a restaurant when it's a (indistinct).

So basically we eat a lot of things raw now.

You see this one, beautiful butter?

- [Claudine] It really is gorgeous.

(knife banging) - And again, you know what I'm doing here.

I am wetting my knife so.

- You would wanna do this- - And as you see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 people, yes.

So with this we will be slightly different.

And I love to put nuts on that.

And though they're roasted nut, you know.

- [Claudine] They're hazelnuts right?

- They're hazelnuts but I mean I roast them.

(nuts crunching) Something sweet.

You know, whether it's a chateau, a sottano or a sweet wine, you know, goes well with- - [Claudine] Oh yeah.

- With... Carry on, so in the same way here we are putting in fact, you know, usually, what I do, I put a bit of those underneath.

- [Claudine] Underneath.

- To put it on top.

I think the first time I had it with nuts, like that, was with Claude.

I think it was at Postrio in San Francisco, yes.

- Oh really?

- Great cook there.

Okay.

And then we put a little bit of what that- - [Claudine] Fig, fig jam.

- [Jacques] Fig jam here.

- Mm.

Then you have some- - Now to add to this, we put fleur de sel, flower of salt, which is a salt from Brittany, a gray salt right from the sea, which is crunchy a little bit.

So I like a few drop of that on top.

Even a few drop of cracked pepper, you know, on top.

- And some toast.

- Some nice little toast around, you know, two or three.

That's it.

And this is food fit for the gods.

Here is the fresh foie gras with cognac aspic, and the salt-cured foie gras.

(Jacques laughing) Well one of your favorite thing is duck, right?

- Absolutely, I love duck.

- And one of your favorite recipes, the one that I'm going to do.

- Skillet duck.

- Skillet duck that I've done for you.

But we are doing it with sweet potato, glazed shallots, and with a honey sauce.

- Oh, sounds wonderful.

- Have the skin from the neck here.

And we are going to cut this into pieces and use it to sauté the duck.

The duck is only cut into four pieces.

You know, so, I cut that in half.

(pan sizzling) And after- - I cut the other piece in half, right?

- If you want, okay.

Well you know, where you cut it ?

Lift it up like that?

Now go more in that direction.

- [Claudine] You want...?

- [Jacques] Cut straight down this.

- [Claudine] That's what I... (pan sizzling) - That's it.

Okay, that goes into the stock.

(knife banging) That goes into the stock.

If we put it in there and that will leave it in this.

- [Claudine] That we're gonna keep?

We're gonna put this in there?

- [Jacques] Yep.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- That goes into the stock.

And this the extra skin here, I want you to cut it into pieces again.

To add to this, we're going to do a bit of a braised duck.

And by this I mean we're going to cook the duck in the start with fat, what we call "confit".

It's cooked with the fat of the duck.

The end of this.

(pan sizzling) (knife banging) So.

(knife banging) I have four piece of duck here.

The four piece of duck, the two breast, the two leg with the bone underneath.

And then those two extra little piece.

That what we are going to brown, not only brown, brown and braised.

So that goes in there too.

(pan sizzling) Duck fat is one of the best- - Things.

- to sauté potato.

- In the whole world.

- And to do.

And in the south of France, southwest of France rather, that's where they did that study of the French paradox where people live the longest in France.

They don't really use that much olive oil, all they use is but they use poultry fat, goose, duck fat and so forth.

(pan sizzling) So on top of this.

(pan sizzling) This will brown in there.

It will brown only on the skin side.

So now the duck is cooking, and as I say, 16, 18 minute on one side on the side.

This, we never turn the duck even after it's brown, we're gonna cover it and cook it like this.

By covering up, it's going to create steam.

So now and on very low heat, it's going to steam and cook.

So with that we are doing sweet potatoes.

- [Claudine] Sweet potatoes and yams.

- Yes.

Sweet potato and yams.

And here you see you have this way of peeling I know you don't like yours peeled.

- [Claudine] No, not really.

- [Jacques] But this way- - [Claudine] I like the skin.

It's not a lazy thing, I just like the skin.

- Right.

So you can cut your sweet potato in slice as we've done here or then your sweet potato into slice like this.

- So yams- - Two type of sweet potato.

We call them "yams," "sweet potato."

They're actually- - What's the difference?

- Two type of sweet potato, one is orange and the other one is there.

We put that under cold water, bring it to a boil, and boil it for like four, five minutes.

I mean this is still hard and it's halfway cooked.

So now we're gonna start browning it.

I put a little piece of butter in there.

Claudine, you can arrange them in this.

- [Claudine] Okay, I got it.

- Yeah, and what we are going to do there is to arrange them in slice, couple of it.

Actually want to brown these very nicely.

Salt, pepper.

You put salt, pepper in?

Okay, good.

Thank you.

(pan sizzling) A beautiful honey there.

- Mm.

Now you're gonna put this the honey into cook?

- Yeah, maybe put that honey in there.

(pan sizzling) (Claudine laughing) (pan sizzling) - We can lower that.

Well that's good like that.

And next the shallots.

I have some shallots with water here.

So here is what we do here, you can peel one.

- So is this gonna be instead of the pearl onions?

- [Jacques] Yes.

It's a little- - [Claudine] Well traditionally, you know, Christmas... - We do the shallot.

Yeah, glazed shallot like that is really good.

- I like shallots much better than pearl onions I have to say.

They're also a lot easier to peel.

- I like both, doesn't you think so yeah?

Easier to peel?

- Yep.

- So this goes into a little bit of water.

(pan sizzling) The idea here is to boil it at high temperature.

I'll put some salt in there.

You wanna put a little bit of butter in there, Claudine?

(pan sizzling) - [Claudine] That enough?

(pan sizzling) - [Jacques] Yeah.

And then sugar.

- [Claudine] That did not sound convincing.

- [Jacques] No, that that, yeah, that's fine.

Thank you.

And what will happen here, we boil it for a few minutes, until it start getting slightly tender.

Then you remove the lid- - And then?

- Whatever liquid is left, you boil it on high heat without the lid, it disappeared.

You're going to be left with butter and the sugar, and it's going to create a caramel, and they're going to glaze in the caramel.

You can do that with carrots.

You can do that with other vegetables.

What I'm going to start now is the sauce for the duck.

Sauce for the duck.

We are going to do what we call a gastric, which is a caramel really, but with vinegar and sugar.

It's very acidic.

So- - Every time I glaze something with vinegar, I'm always way too close to the pan.

Which is bad.

- Yeah, it is very bad yeah.

(pan sizzling) So we're gonna boil this.

And that will be added to the stock.

What we have actually done with the bone.

We brown the bone in a saucepan like this.

And then after they are nicely brown, a bit of carrot, onion, thyme, bay leaf, water, boil it three, four hours, strain it.

We have about four cup of stock.

And then reduce the stock to two cup, cup and a half, two cups to have what we call a demi-glace here, you know, which is that mixture of stock.

- So demi-glace is reduced stock?

- It's a reduced stock, that's it.

A reduced brown stock.

And to that extent here, it doesn't even have any... Here, taste it.

Doesn't even have any salt or anything in it, right?

(pan sizzling) - No, but I can still, I can really taste the carrots - There is no salt.

- and it's very intense.

- Okay, now my... I wanna show you this, you see?

(pan sizzling) - [Claudine] Oh yeah.

- [Jacques] And the skin shrink, you know, considerably.

- You're still gonna leave it uncovered?

- We still leave it uncovered a little more, and then we cover it for 35 minutes.

(pan sizzling) Now the glaze is there, let's see whether we can turn this.

(pan sizzling) It's starting browning.

(pan sizzling) We wanna glaze them maybe a bit longer huh?

- [Claudine] Is it gonna glaze more on the honey side, or are you gonna put honey on the other side when you turn?

- The honey is inside now just put on it like that so it goes all over.

Maybe I'll cover it.

(pan sizzling) So you see that- - And what about the shallots?

They're boiling.

- The shallots are boiling.

So now the shallots, they're getting tender?

- [Claudine] A little bit, yeah, but I think they probably need a little bit more time.

- [Jacques] Well at that point I remove that.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- And now we start boiling this, and let's see the gas plate here.

It's not quite a caramel.

We still have to wait a couple of minutes for that.

(pan sizzling) Now look, the outside here is turning into caramel, caramelizing, and that basically what you want, you know.

- [Claudine] Wow.

- [Jacques] Then... - [Claudine] I didn't think it would turn brown.

- You see this here?

There's almost no more liquid gone.

So we start reducing the stove that's going to start glazing also.

So I'm reducing the heat a little bit, but I don't want it burn.

But I want to turn them into, you know, the caramelization here.

Okay, now this is much darker even, which is the way I want it.

So we'll put the stock in it.

(pan sizzling) - [Claudine] That's a good smell.

- Good smell, huh?

A little bit of honey.

Even though I have sugar there.

See we doing a sweet sauce there.

(pan sizzling) And then I have a little bit of starch here if I want to thicken it lightly.

- Do you want some water or you want some...?

- I can put water, wine.

- Vinegar.

- Oh no, no, not vinegar now, water.

No, vinegar would be... It couldn't be good with the vinegar now.

So there, what happened is that as soon this touch, it thicken.

(pan sizzling) - [Claudine] I think the way you thicken things is not the way a lot of people think of as thicken.

I mean it's a really light thickening.

It's not like making gravy.

- You know, I just want it to be slightly oily.

That's it.

And then a dash of salt, because remember there is no salt in there.

- Yep.

- Stir it and taste it.

- Want a little bit of pepper?

- Here, you taste it.

Yeah.

Little bit of pepper.

Yeah.

Okay.

- It's hot.

- It's hot.

Now, so this is finished.

The sauce is finished.

Now this is glazing you see?

- [Claudine] Perfect.

- [Jacques] So it's going to glaze all of that all around.

This is- - And what about the sweet potatoes?

- The sweet potato are also glazing, you know, much more beautiful layer on one side, and then the other side with the honey you see?

And now- - And at what point do you cover that?

- About now.

Let me see what it looks like.

You see how dark it is?

(pan sizzling) They're all beautiful and dark like that.

So now it's still on the skin, so cover it.

- Okay.

- Lower the heat to very low and you don't want to open it.

That will create steam, very low heat.

And we put it about 45 minutes now.

Okay, you can see now Claudine, it's cooked.

It's pretty tender.

It's braised.

Then if you do that ahead, what you want do is to take the bone out as I'm going to do it here.

And the the carcass, like this, and that theoretically when I do that, I put that back into the stock, which is cooking for the sauce, you know?

I mean you can serve it with the bone, but it's a bit nicer.

And you may say, why don't you take the bone at the beginning of it?

It protect the meat, the meat stay very moist and all that protected by the carcass.

- [Claudine] And also it gives better flavor, don't you think?

- Yeah, it gives better flavor too.

You can even trim bit of the fat.

And then let's prepare a plate for that.

- Okay.

Here we go, we have a beautiful platter.

- Yeah, Claudine, this is clean.

Put that on top here.

All right.

So this would be for two.

We do a duck for four, you know?

That little piece of wing there, which is really good.

Around, you know, let's put four.

That's more than enough.

Okay, the glazed shallots in the middle.

Large glazed shallot.

You can do that of course individual plate, you know, it's fine.

You put that sauce on top.

If you want, you want nappe, yeah?

On the meat like this, you know.

Okay, you wanna put a dash of parsley in the center for color?

- Would you like there to be a dash of parsley there?

- Okay, and here we have the braised duck with glazed shallot and honey sweet potato.

Very often people are reading cookbook or reading recipe get confused with words such as stock, you know, brown stock, white stock.

Demi-glace, which is half glazed.

Glace de viande which is a meat glaze.

And it seemed to be a big secret of the chef, and it is in a sense but it's much easier than people think.

It's purely a question of common sense.

Stock are a liquid that you do with bone and water.

You have white stock, you have brown stock.

And this is a good white stock.

This is a proper brown stock.

This is the right consistency for a demi-glace, or half glaze.

And this is a glace de viande that is the pure extraction brought to the ultimate reduction.

Now when you do brown stock, you take your bone, you put them in the oven to brown them.

I have veal bone here, but often I use a mixture of veal and chicken.

A couple of hours, in the last 45 minutes or so, you put carrot and onion, the only two because it caramelize.

And after it's nicely caramelized, put that in a large stock pot, cover with water again, no salt.

A piece of celery if you want.

Sometime a couple of tomato.

And you cook it very gently to have that nice gentle boil.

Along the way you skim.

And very often you push with the bowl of your ladle like this and then turning it around, you pick up the fat and the scum from it.

And when that stock is cold, and you take any fat left from it, it should have about the texture.

This is the normal or the natural gelatin of the bone.

Another part of this now is what we call demi-glace, or half glaze.

That is you take that brown stock, and you boil it down to concentrate the flavor into a smaller volume with more color, and stronger intensity of taste.

And the demi-glace reduced like this just naturally, will have a slightly oily look.

Now the ultimate reduction is to continue boiling this until it reach what we call a glace de viande.

There is basically no more moisture in it.

Now my cold glace de viande, I wanna show you the texture that it has.

It's like a piece of rubber, and still it's in the kitchen for a while so it's really soft but when it's really cold, it is almost as hard as rubber.

I would cut it into cubes like this, 'cause as I said, it's extremely potent.

And you know, if I have that amount of glace de viande, I have enough for over a year at my house.

Then from a little piece frozen like that, you throw into a sauce and you will intensify the flavor in an incredible way.

- Hi.

- You are working on the truffle.

- Peeling truffles and I'm- - Peeling truffles.

- And I'm gonna save the peels.

- [Jacques] Yes.

- [Gloria] A little cognac on top.

- You want me to put some cognac in there for you?

- Is that the good stuff or?

- Yeah, that's the good stuff.

- [Gloria] Good.

- Remember the time you make your meatloaf and use my cognac?

- But I won a prize (laughing).

- From 1916.

She got the best prize for meatloaf.

Use one of my cognac from 1916.

Yeah, this is good.

You know, we put that you can keep them basically forever in the refrigerator, in the cognac or Madeira, or things like that to add them to sauces, or to add them to pâté or stuff like this.

This is very rough, rough surface, and whiter inside.

- [Gloria] This is good though.

- And like we have here, but this is a tuber aestivum.

Aestivum, meaning summer in Latin.

So this is a summer truffle and it has less- - Doesn't have the same aroma.

- No less, and the top, as I say there is really tough.

So you keep it this way.

This is a winter truffle, you know, the tuber melanosporum.

You know, and then this is not to be confused with the most expensive of all truffle, which is a white truffle, mostly from Piedmont in Italy, which is the tuber magnatum, which cost a small fortune.

Like three times the price of those.

- Little more cognac.

- [Jacques] A little more cognac.

That's good.

- [Gloria] We just want them immersed completely, right?

- [Jacques] Okay, what else are you doing here?

- Gonna shave these truffles on top of the salad so I'll make a dressing.

- Okay.

Just put some lemon in there.

- Yeah.

- So what else you want?

Salt pepper?

- Little salt, little pepper.

I'm just- - Okay.

- [Gloria] And some walnut oil.

- Walnut oil you put in there.

Walnut oil is quite nutty, you know?

And that goes particularly well with the truffle.

Then we have some sliced mushroom here.

I put your mushroom in there.

- Yeah.

And we'll just toss it.

- [Jacques] Yeah, I don't think you need all of this really.

- [Gloria] No, that's plenty.

Yeah, that's good.

- Okay.

This, you would want of course to season at the last moment because that's going to get wilted pretty fast.

You have your tosser?

- My tosser, my hands are my tosser.

But no, I promise I'll do it with a couple of spoons here.

- [Jacques] I'll give you a beautiful plate here.

- Oh, thank you.

What a guy.

- Okay, we can slice the truffle on top of it.

This is a truffle slicer.

Sometime you slice your truffle directly like this on top of- - That's gonna be a bonus.

You're gonna have little truffles on the bottom here.

- [Jacques] If you want.

Yes.

- [Gloria] Get some red on here for Christmas.

How's that?

Is that enough?

- I think for one salad should be enough.

- Okay.

- You wanna slice some truffle on it too?

- I'm always afraid I'm gonna hurt my hand with this thing.

- [Jacques] With this.

You wanna use that?

You like that better?

- [Gloria] I'd rather, yeah.

- Okay.

And then I can use, I can even use a knife.

I can use a truffle- - [Gloria] Are we being extravagant here?

- We are.

- Okay, good.

- We are with extravagance for the holiday.

- All right, here.

How's that?

- [Jacques] This is it.

- Beautiful.

- A beautiful black truffle salad.

Well I think we have a little bit of salmon with that, right?

You want me to slice some for you?

- Yes and we're going to put it- - A beautiful smoked salmon.

Now here, you know when you slice your salmon, you really have to use a nice knife like this, and cut very, very loosely.

You know, to get thin, thin slice of salmon like this.

And then you can present them just piled up like this, you know, they look quite nice, no?

You have a salad here?

- Yeah, a little cucumber salad.

- I'll take it for you there.

- Okay.

- We have some eggs also that you can put underneath too.

So again, I'll slice a piece for you.

Now really don't push on the knife.

Let it slide gently.

Is that okay like this?

- That's nice, yeah.

Yeah, I did some asparagus.

- Oh, you can cook them and after slice them like this.

You cut them in fours like this?

- You like them?

like them around the edge.

Okay, I'll have to follow suit here.

Since you're in charge.

- Oh no, no.

The other side if you want.

And then what else?

You have cracked pepper?

- Two is plenty.

- Huh, do you wanna put a dash of oil on top of this?

- [Gloria] Little, the walnut oil's gonna be too strong.

- [Jacques] Now, the walnut would be actually I think pretty good.

- [Gloria] You think so?

- [Jacques] But up to you.

- Okay.

- [Jacques] Just a little fill of oil.

- [Gloria] Like that?

- Even on the salmon.

It's okay.

A piece of lemon skin no, has to go on top.

- [Gloria] It's beautiful.

- So here is our smoked salmon with a cucumber salad with chopped eggs, asparagus and so forth.

I don't think that I have spent a Christmas without oyster and foie gras, you know?

So we have a bunch of different oyster here.

- They're beautiful.

- You know some of those?

- [Gloria] Well it's like wine, I know I like them, but I'll never remember the names.

- But we have Malpeque, and those are from Maine now the belon, you know, that we used to do very iodine, you know, that we do in France.

- It's Claudine's favorite I think.

- This is kumo, those tiny one, you know?

I mean there is so many different type of oyster now, you know.

Let's see those Malpeque here.

- Well I'll get the plate ready so you can put them down, and then we'll make the sauce.

So we have some crushed ice.

- That's a good idea to have the towel, and to have a soup plate in it.

Yeah, that's great.

- Is that enough?

That should make- - Oh that's more than enough.

- [Gloria] Yeah, here you go.

- They go in the crushed ice.

Like you can really put them in, they don't move.

Which is the beauty of it.

When the ice starts melting, it goes right into the towel, it doesn't go all over the place.

Especially if you have a deep plate.

- While you're opening the oysters, you want me to- - You do the sauce, yes?

- do a little mignonette.

I have some red wine vinegar, - [Jacques] Red wine vinegar.

- There's enough salt in the brine, but quite a bit of pepper.

And then we have some shallots, beautifully diced.

And this is the red radish.

- Oh, icicle radish they call it or something like that.

- [Gloria] Put a little bit of that in there.

- You want a bit of the green inside?

- Well, since it's Christmas I'll let you put some green.

Go ahead.

- [Claudine] This is dill right?

Yeah, that's good.

- [Gloria] And a teeny drop of oil.

Not much.

That's it.

- And you just put a dash of this, just a little dash, of this on your oyster and it's really good.

So there is our oyster on the half shell.

- [Gloria] With the mignonette.

- With the mignonette sauce and we'll we can leave in there.

- [Gloria] Yes.

Okay.

- [Jacques] Beautiful.

- How are you?

- Merry Christmas.

- Christmas dinner at our house is always an exceptional time and very close to my heart.

Joyeux Noël.

- Joyeux Noël.

- Special celebrations at our house always begin with champagne.

There is excitement in a bottle of champagne.

The bubbles, the way it feels in your mouth.

The way it marries with certain special food like caviar and oysters.

The whole feeling of celebration is encapsulated in a bottle of champagne.

We have some great oysters.

We have oysters from Fisher Island.

We have the foie gras with the roasted hazelnut and a little little bit of honey, and some cracked pepper on top so please help yourself.

The whole family works as a team to prepare a meal that will celebrate the special day, and the family and friends who are with us.

(group chattering) - This is garlic bread.

- Garlic bread.

Thank you, Charlie.

Beautiful bread.

- [Charlie] I've been baking all day and all night for you guys.

- Gloria, I love your beautiful orange decoration on the table.

This is really great.

- Well you'll have to ask Claudine.

She did it.

- Oh, this is so pretty.

- [Gloria] What did you do?

- Oh a friend of mine taught me how to do this.

I actually took cloves, and put them in different lovely patterns in the citrus.

And what's nice is that it smells beautiful because you're piercing the skin so you're kind of getting some of the essential oil.

The bay leaves are actually off from this beautiful wreath we got in California.

The wreath is bay leaves and rosemary.

And we pulled this off to do part of the table decoration.

- [Jacques] When I was a little boy in France during the war, our Christmases were quite meager.

Gifts were scarce and functional like a few pair of socks or a (indistinct) but now we have such bounty.

Our house is warm and filled with great food.

I don't take anything for granted.

I savor every single bit.

- Santa Claus is here.

- Oh that's a heavy bottle.

- Joyeux Noël.

- [All] Joyeux Noël.

- [Jacques] But the food and wines are only part of the feast, and the way to bring everyone close.

- I wanna make a toast to thank Uncle Jacques and Claudine for inviting us for Christmas.

- Thank you.

(glasses clinking) - It's great to have you all here.

- [Jacques] We are thankful to be sharing this precious time at the table together.

That is the best Christmas gift.

(glasses clinking) - One more.

(glasses clinking) - Claudine, I didn't get you.

- Feels like midnight on Christmas doesn't it?

- It's Christmas.

(glasses clinking) - I love family tradition, and it's so nice to have you all with us.

So I hope we'll do it again.

- [Claudine] Next year.

- Many, many years to come.

And thank you all for coming and happy cooking.

- [All] Happy cooking.