- I love to use those dry spring roll wrapper.

You put them in water to soften, takes about a minute, and then you can fill them up.

In that case, I'm putting sardine, I'm putting some green, I'm putting onion, pimientos.

I mean, you can put a little bit of vinegar, oil, salt and pepper.

And this is it.

You roll it into a nice tight roll and you serve it right on top of salad, cut in half, and you have a delicious first course.

I'm Jacques Pepin, and this is "Fast Food My Way."

Happy Cooking.

One of the great treat of the summer for me is to make pasta with a lot of vegetable out of the garden.

And I start cooking pasta here.

I have some shell.

I have some pasta shell cooking.

You can use other type of pasta.

And I'm going to do that with all of those fresh vegetable, a kind of salad mixed with pasta.

I think the recipe originated with my friend Ed Giobbi, was a professional artist, was a great cook.

He has several cookbook.

And when we were at Le Cirque before it opened in 1976, he was there with Sirio, and Sirio, the owner of the Le Cirque, say, "Ed, you know, do you know any recipe that we could use, something different, with pasta?"

And Ed say, "Well, my grandmother in Italy used to do a pasta primavera."

And then pasta primavera became quite famous.

It's on all over the menu and with a lot of different variations.

Sometime with cream, sometime one thing or another.

But originally it was really a kind of salad, you know, a vegetable, mostly tomato.

Sometime I do it only with tomato.

And toss at the last moment.

In that case here I'm doing some mushroom, though there are not of course from my garden, but I do pick up a lot of wild mushroom, which usually I would not use raw.

So mushroom, you can put all the type of herb that you have in your garden, of course.

You can put a little bit of onion.

Remember it's not going to be cooked.

So the onion maybe a bit strong.

So here I have plenty of mushroom, just coarsely chopped, you know?

And tomato of course.

So you want, I mean, tomato is the base of it and you really want to have some nice ripe tomato.

And those so-called ugly tomato are nice and ripe and soft, and that's what you want.

I should have plenty vegetable here with this.

You can put it directly in the bowl where you're going to serve it in.

Bring it directly from the table this way.

And now a great deal of seasoning.

You know, you put a good dash of olive oil, plenty of salt and pepper.

And you know, in full summer when the vegetable at that room temperature, it's okay.

But sometime what I do, I put this directly in the microwave oven for like a minute or so to soften the vegetable a little bit if they are too cold.

What I do also put a little bit of the juice of the pasta, you know, to soften it.

So here I have a nice salad.

I'm going to check on my pasta.

And yeah, that's it.

Cooked enough.

Let's drain the pasta here.

This is a beautiful strainer, you know?

Easy.

You want to toss it a little bit because the shell, you're going to have some, you know, a fair amount of of water inside.

And we put plenty Parmesan cheese on top.

You wanna toss the whole thing.

And that so, you know, it's almost half vegetable and half pasta here.

And I like to finish it up with basil on top, a lot of basil and you just crush it this way, because I love it this way.

Let me check it.

Maybe a dash more of oil.

And this is it.

You know, before you put the pasta in the bowl, the mixture that you have, that mixture of vegetable, the pasta of course is a starch, you do the same thing.

The panzanella, which is a a type of bread salad, which I have here, and is the same mixture that I have in the bottom with layer of bread in between.

And you know, I love to use one of those old, you know, I mean old, day-old type of rough, you know, country bread, it goes so well with it.

And it all the juice is absorbing it.

So that's a great variation.

(gentle music) One of my favorite berries is certainly the raspberries.

And when I get a lot in summer, sometime I put them on tray and freeze it.

Or you can buy them like that in package.

Be sure to buy IQF, individually quick frozen, so there is no sugar or anything in it.

And strangely enough, you know, you will realize sometime that your frozen berry is better than the fresh one unless you really have good fresh one.

That is, if I do a sherbet, I'm going to do a puree or a granita like this, then I often look at the frozen one rather than the fresh one.

So this one, you just put your berry right on top of it.

One of them, we're going to cover it with cookies.

Very simple recipe.

I have those butter cookie here, so, you know, you can use this and even a bit of that to crack it.

That's it, in pieces.

And this one we're going to do with that crumbly cookie on top.

Here it is, about a third of a cup or so.

A little piece of butter, maybe like one, two teaspoon.

A bit of extra sugar because remember those are unsweetened berries.

And I like that particular shortbread because it's very, very rich, you know, and remind me of cookie that I used to have as a kid.

So that's one variation.

I mean, you can do many variation with it.

The second one we use chocolate chip cookie.

Why, because chocolate and raspberry go well together.

You know, so you can just crumble your cookie right on top of it, this way.

Again, the same thing.

So you can imagine right there the variety that you can have just with this.

I have done that with blueberry, with strawberry, and they all come out pretty good.

I mean, at the last moment when guests come out unexpectedly, you know, I have always have berry in the freezer, grab them, in two minutes it's done.

So that goes into the oven, 375 degree.

Takes about 15 minutes or so.

And while it's cooking you want to eat that lukewarm at the best, you know?

We are going to do some asparagus and fish, two different dish.

When I buy asparagus, I buy the big fat asparagus.

But you can see those, a very tight head like a flower, you know, the but of a flowers.

That's what you're looking for, and very... Now, look at those here.

It's like a flowers where the petal is already opening.

So this is an older asparagus.

It's softer.

So you want to keep, you wanna go to those.

Now, these asparagus are tender probably up to here, then start having a bit of fiber.

So you want to take that fiber out from the end.

You need a vegetable peeler like this because otherwise you have to cut it off, and it's a shame.

So you know, you peel it this way and then break it at the end here.

Now that piece here, you know, just a standard at the end.

Now you save money.

Those asparagus, I'm going to cut them in pieces.

And we're going to do that with shallots and I have some shallots here.

And I will slice the shallot very coarsely.

(knife thwacking) You can use onion if you want or scallion, but I like the shallots, are mild.

And very often the asparagus are poached, you know, or sauteed.

In that one, we just put them directly in the skillet and they're going to be Sautéed directly in olive oil with the shallots.

The nice way of doing it a bit different.

So my asparagus, I line them up, if you want, like this, so that you can cut them on a bias.

That's it, in pieces.

This Chinese style.

And in Chinese cooking you cook a lot of things on a bias like this.

This is what my friend Martin told me.

So three, four piece.

You will have a different taste in those asparagus when they are sauteed like this without actually any water before, you know?

A more confectionery more taste.

This actually we did the pasta before.

A great thing with pasta, you know, you have your pasta, you put a bit of olive oil on top, drain it, put your asparagus in it, cooked asparagus at that point, and that's it, you know?

Salt and pepper in this.

(food sizzling) Maybe a bit of paper.

(food sizzling) Okay.

Now, in that skillet here I have a bit of water and what I'm going to do is to cook some onion in there.

And I wanna cook onion and tomato to create a sauce for the fish.

And I have those large red onion.

Boy, those are big.

I'm gonna slice this thinly sliced onions.

(knife thwacking) You know, one thing that we do in professional kitchen, we use water a lot.

Sometimes you use water purely as a carrier that is in a recipe which tell you cook your onion until they are nice tender, and don't let them brown.

Well, usually you put them in a skillet and then they start browning.

So what we do in the skillet, you put a bit of water, maybe I have a bit too much water here, but I can always take a little bit out.

So a little bit of water.

And a bit of olive oil, or butter.

And what happen is that the water will boil, eventually evaporate.

And by the time it's evaporated, you're down again with the butter or the olive oil there, but by then your onion is cooked and didn't pick up any color.

So it's nice and tender.

So I have about a good two cup of onion here, which is good.

This should be covered.

That will soften the onion.

So those are very ripe tomato, soft, and that's what I want.

You don't have to take the skin out of it, you don't have to take the, you know, the skin, the seed, it's fine.

Here we are.

You have about two cup of the onion and you would've about at least as much tomato or about the same amount of tomato.

You know, in those recipes the proportion are not very crucial.

Doesn't really matter that much.

So here.

Sometime, you know, when in the summer I have those in the garden, so I get crazy.

I may do three dish in a row with tomato in it and, you know, people tell me, "Will you do a menu?

You already use this and that."

Yes, I don't really care.

So my onion are getting softer now.

I think I can use, put my tomato in there.

I forget whether I put salt or not into it.

No, no salt yet.

So I wanna put salt, pepper, maybe I still cover it a minute to get it soft.

So it's time to cook the fish.

It's important, you know, with the fish, I use a big stainless steel pot here.

And that's important.

I wouldn't want to use aluminum really.

And the reason is that you will have discoloration.

not only discoloration, but I'm going to use white wine and you'll have reaction with the aluminum and the white wine.

So it's better to use stainless steel for that.

Now, I take the cover out of this.

Hope you're not getting confused.

This is onion and tomato.

This is the base for the fish, which I'm going to poach there.

This is another dish all together.

Actually you know what, I think that dish is ready so I'm going to plate it.

And this is very concentrated asparagus, you know, this way.

I have beautiful red snapper.

You can see those filler are very glossy.

You keep the skin there.

The skin has been scaled of course.

And I'm going to put some white wine in there.

(wine sizzling) Oooh!

My pan was hot.

It's good.

See, when you do alcohol in there, very often people don't realize that by the time the alcohol get to be about 180 degrees, the alcohol evaporate, you know, in the form of vapor.

And with that evaporation, actually most of the calorie that you have in your alcohol goes with it.

You know, most of the calorie you have in alcohol is in the alcohol itself and the process of cooking it make it evaporate.

So you are left with a bit of residual sugar.

I like to taste the wine.

So let's see where it goes.

That fish will poach relatively fast.

Not quite.

And this here is going to be ready.

As you can see is practically totally reduced.

I have a little bit of juice left in the bottom.

So we're going to put some of those beautiful chives on top of our fish that we are going to have a cream sauce and it's going to be quite rich, ready.

And you know the wine, you people often ask, you know, "What type of wine should I serve with this, that?

That now we mix so much red wine with fish or other."

It's purely a question of taste, frankly.

I don't agree with so-called cooking wine because there is no cooking wine, there is just wine.

Some are good, some are no good.

And if you cannot drink it, you certainly cannot cook with it, you know?

So it should be at least good enough to be able to drink it, you know?

So here is my bed of tomato and then you can see that now those are just barely cooked.

So this, you know, I would probably normally keep them maybe in 100-150 degree oven or so, you know, just to keep it warm.

Let me see this.

I have four beautiful filler here.

All right.

And now the reduction here, we're going to do a reduction with a little bit of cream.

Another thing with cream, you know, people always get terrorized cream.

Well, many of the dish that I eat, starting with grilled, have more calories than the one that I do with cream.

People will put four five tablespoon of olive oil, you know, on a piece of meat that they're going to grill.

And there is 130 calorie, you know, in a tablespoon of oil, whether it's light oil or olive oil or whatever oil it is, it's always about 130 calorie.

You have about 45 calorie in a tablespoon of cream.

So you know, you put four, five tablespoon.

Like here I have maybe a third of a cup, half a cup for four people.

It really doesn't amount too much.

So there let me taste it.

Still a dash of salt.

Very good.

The reduction.

Now, I could let it reduce to concentrate the flavor or actually take a little bit of potato starch.

You can take potato starch, you can take even corn starch here and dilute it with liquid.

Any type of starch has to be diluted in liquid, otherwise when you touch something hot it cease, you know, and you have nice little dumpling all over the place.

After you dilute it here, you pour a little bit, see you pour a little bit and you stir it.

And it tell you exactly where you are.

It thicken right on contact.

You want a dash more, okay, you put a dash more.

That's about enough for me here.

(pot clanking) I think I'll put a little bit of pepper in there, on the sauce.

And basically this is it.

So, you know, when you do that type of dish, you know, you don't do it too much ahead because it cook quite fast, you know, as you can see here.

We have a little bit of this.

And of course you can if you want, finish like my asparagus, I did it with a bit of olive oil.

You can finish it with butter if you want, but that's plenty of rich this way.

This is red snapper on the bed of tomato coulis and the sauteed asparagus.

(gentle music) Beautiful ligata.

They're ready now.

You would not actually serve them boiling hot like that or they are boiling around.

As you can see, this is the one darker in color and that the one with the chocolate cookie, and that the other one lukewarm, they're the best, you know?

And lukewarm, we can serve them just by itself.

However, you can serve them with sour cream, with creme fresh, or if you're in the mood, you can whip some cream.

So here I have some cream, preferably cold.

You should always have it cold when you do this.

I put the sugar directly in it.

Some people put it at the end.

I think it's immaterial.

Then in flavor here I have a (speaking French), which is orange would go very well.

On the other end the rum, you know, with the chocolate will go very well too.

Or you know what, a little bit of vanilla and no booze in it, it's okay too.

Doesn't really matter that much.

Question of taste.

Take a whisk, you know, with large, a lot of thread like this.

And if I were to whip egg white, for example, I'll go and lift up the egg white, you know, to beat it.

You don't do that with cream, otherwise it turn into butter.

You go in an immersion back and forth like this.

Now, actually when I'm at home, you know, when I do that I go directly in the sink because being in the sink to start with, it's lower, so it's easier for me to do and whatever splatter doesn't get all over the place.

So my wife is really happy when I whip the cream in the sink, you know?

So you go back and forth in that type of immersion.

And remember that there is different type of whipped cream.

For example, the cream, it's about almost halfway whipped now, as I said before, a tablespoon of cream is about 45 calorie.

However, when you whip the cream, it goes about two and a half times the volume that you had at the beginning.

So that lower your amount of calorie per a tablespoon of cream of course.

And as you see, when you're tired you change hand.

I mean the idea is really to work just with your hand, you know, without moving your whole arm.

And this is nice.

I have a nice peak here.

This is what you want with whipped cream.

As you can see, I have a lot of it here.

So this can be served with the sour cream.

Let's say we put the sour cream in the middle of the one with the chocolate.

And here we'll put this one.

Actually, you know, I like that one.

This looks good.

I think I'm going to have to taste it, you know, especially the one with the chocolate here.

It's too hot.

It's too hot to eat now.

But, again, five minute, is going to be delicious.

You cannot have an easier the dessert than this one to make.

Do it with fresh berry during the summer, or extend the season to winter and week with frozen berry.

One way or the other is gonna be great.

Enjoy.

Happy cooking.