- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

Today's menu feature some of my favorite dishes.

And later, you'll meet a special guest, Dr.

Curtis Ellison.

I'll fix a salad with saucisson, a spicy French sausage, salted potato, which I love all my life, and fine herbs omelet, which remind me of spring.

Lastly, ficelle, thin crusty bread served with chocolate and hazelnut.

Remembering my childhood, I'll cook my personal favorites for you on "Today's Gourmet."

(upbeat music) There are certain type of food that I can eat over and over again, and food that I had probably as I was a child.

And one of those is little bread, what we call baguette.

Baguette means rope in France.

So those are very crunchy type of small bread.

We used to have, my brother and I, after school with a little piece of chocolate very often what we call the (speaks in foreign language).

You know, when you come in the afternoon from school, that's about the only time that we have a snack in front about that hours of the day.

And I wanna show you how to make that bread or that type of bread, which is an updated version, doing it in a food processor, very easy to do.

I have the water in there already.

All you do is to sprinkle the yeast on top of it and add a little dash of sugar to make the yeast work.

And this is what I did in there about 10 minutes ago.

And you can see now that it's all bubbly on top and you have a strong smell of yeast.

This is important because if your yeast is dead, it's not going to work.

But you should see those bubble and that strong smell, you know, the yeasty smell.

What I have here is the flour that we add to it.

So it's very easy to do it in that piece of equipment.

I put some bran here, and it is just the whole, the bran, what we call (speaks in foreign language) in France, S-O-N it's called in France.

And here this is bulgur wheat, which it actually pre-cooked wheat kernel, which have been dried, you know.

And all of that make it quite a chewy and elastic.

A little dash of salt in your bread.

And that's about it, you know.

So we process it directly in there (food processor buzzing) until it form into a ball like.

(food processor buzzing) And that bit beating it by hand, you know, you can knead it by hand, but that's easier, of course.

(food processor buzzing) So what I have here is an oiled tray and an oiled bowl.

That's it.

(food processor buzzing) And... Okay, that's enough.

And it should come by itself practically as a whole elastic ball, you know?

If you want to knead it a bit more, you could, but it's not really necessary to have the texture that you want here, you know?

So we put that in there with any piece left over.

And what I want to do is to press it in there, you see, and roll it into the oil so that it's slightly oil on the other side.

All that to make your life easier so it doesn't stick all over the place after.

Then we cover it.

It has to be covered tight with plastic wrap so that it had a chance to proof.

And, you know, it can be proofed in different way.

You can have a low proof, that is, you could leave that in the refrigerator overnight to have a very low proof.

And that get a very nice, maybe even a bit sour type of taste with the dough.

When I was a kid, what they used to do in the country is to take a piece of that dough, and they finish the dough, put it into the cellar in a crock with water, and they leave that for a week and a half.

And that proof and that was the starter for the bread the week after, you know, because yeast, we didn't even have yeast.

So I have another one here, which is proofed, and as you can see, it has grown.

So all you do is to bring it from the side to break it down, you know, gently like this throughout the center.

And we put that directly on a cookie sheet (dough splats) like this.

And what I want to do here is to make a kind of cylinder out of it, you know?

Now, I could do a large bread with that.

I could do a round bread, I could do anything.

But what we do today, the ficelle are very thin bread.

So you do a long narrow rectangle like this.

And after that, we're going to cut that into four, four little strip or four little ficelle, you know?

Like this.

Very easy to do.

My wife love when I do that bread.

Actually, she does the bread at home.

But when I do it like this, if I don't knead it on the table, I don't dirty the table.

And she like that version of that bread better, you know.

So we put that, I roll it a little bit here.

So we have four long narrow strip as you can see here.

you know?

We can do different decoration with it.

Here and there, you kind of them place them equi-distance size, you know?

And we can, on top of it, usually put a little bit of cornmeal, you know, just for effect.

And it also prevent them from sticking.

Remember that here I oil the bowl, you know, where the the where the dough was proofing.

And that's important then because that little bit of oil, which I want to nothing prevent the dough from sticking.

So this, I'm rolling that into the, the cornmeal a little bit.

And we want to let them proof this way.

Okay, right here.

So what you want to do is to put a piece of plastic wrap on top, like the one that I have here would be fine.

You know, what you want to do is to cover them.

And again, because the dough is just very lightly oiled, the plastic wrap is not going to stick to it, I hope, okay.

But you need to have it covered.

Because if you don't cover it, the surface of this is going to form as a shell, and it's going to get crusty, and it doesn't proof anymore.

You want it to expand.

I could proof that for three, four hours in a very cold place, you know?

So it proofed very slowly, even overnight, you know?

The same thing with the first proofing, it proofed twice.

Remember you do the dough, put it in the bowl, let it proof, break it down, shape it into whatever shape you want, let it proof again.

The second proofing at room temperature would be like 30 minutes for those small bread.

And I have one here which is proof.

It is actually, you know, even slightly over-proof, but as you can see it doesn't stick and it develop quite a lot.

So this is the time where we can mark it, you know, we can do all kind of thing with it if you do what we call... If you mark it on top like this, then you have that type of effect, you know?

Little teeth like on top.

You know, you can do them this way, which is nice too.

You don't have to do anything to it, you know, you can also just cut it with a knife, and simply cutting it with a knife into long slash like this, which is the more conventional way of doing.

And if I had wanted to do what we call (speaks in foreign language), which is head of wheat, I would've had to do it before the proof.

And the idea is to cut it this way and bring one here this way, bring one here.

And usually you do that before it proof, you know?

That's what we call an (speaks in foreign language) or a head of wheat, you know, in France.

And that will glue together.

So now this is about it.

You wanna put that in the hot oven, about 425 degree.

And what we want to do in professional oven, they have injection of steam.

You know, they push some tip, you know lever, and you have steam coming, and that stop the bread proofing.

So to imitate that, what I do here, I put that into my hot oven, and I have a tray in the oven, a very hot tray here that I keep empty and bring a bit of water and throw (water hissing) some water, you can hear it.

And right away, you close the door.

Right away, you close the door so you have that input of steam, you know, at the beginning, which make it proof and give it that hard shell, you know, that we have right here.

So this is the shell of our bread, you know, hard like this.

And this, we're going to do just like when I was a kid, the classic dessert.

It's not really a classic dessert, it's more if you want a type of (speaks in foreign language) or a type of snack, you know, that kid have.

But I always love it.

The combination is terrific, you know, of having even those type of bread or, you know, this one, doesn't really matter.

A type of crunchy, you know, bread, we have pieces of bread.

Then you have roasted hazelnut here, hazelnut or filbert.

You know what we do here?

Those are regular hazelnut in the shell.

I put them in the oven in the shell for like 15 minutes.

And what happened?

They roast inside, you know?

(tool tapping) We crack them.

(tool taps) Whoop.

(tool taps) This way.

And they are roasted inside.

And when they are roasted inside, you know, they're absolutely wonderful.

You know the advantage of doing them this way is that you can keep them for a month.

And when people crack though, they are roasted inside and they are very good, and they don't get rancid, you know?

Now we put all the time a little bit of grapes with that.

So different type of grapes, and a piece of chocolate, you know, dark, strong, bitter chocolate, bittersweet chocolate.

This is what I like when I was a child, you know, and a mixture of grape.

You have to try that combination of roasted nut, bread, and chocolate together.

It's absolutely wonderful.

(lively gentle music) The main course in my menu is going to be potato, potato and omelet.

You know, this is a classic potato omelet and salad for me is the trilogy, you know.

Three dish that I love.

(knife tapping) And the potato here, you can cook them ahead, but then, and you can really peel them ahead and keep them in water, it's fine.

But after that, we want to wash them and keep them in water here so they don't discolor.

If you wash them in water after, it will take some of the starch out of it, and they are easier to saute.

But what we want to do, of course, we're gonna saute it with a bit of monounsaturated oil here, so-called canola oil, hmm?

And if we use butter, we're going to put just a little piece of butter, and at the end only to get maximum taste to our butter.

You should drain this, you know, as much as you can so it doesn't get too splattery when you put it into your skillet, otherwise it's going to splatter a lot.

But we're going to cover it anyway.

So here we're here, (pan sizzles) our potato.

Gonna put a dash of salt on top of this.

And what we're going to do is to start (lid clunks) cooking it covered so that they can develop steam and brown in the same time or rather cook in the same time that they brown.

And next, what we want to do is our salad.

And the salad there, we're going to serve it with saucisson.

Like in Lyon, the sausage we call saucisson in Lyon.

All I have here is a whole bunch of saucisson from my hometown, from Lyon.

Even though they are made in America, they are specialty from there.

This is the regular saucisson de Lyon, you know, very lean as you can see.

This one is covered with pepper, cracked pepper.

This one with the herbes de Provence, all type of herb.

And those are with walnut and red wine in it.

And those are really terrific dry sausage.

You know, we don't use much of it because we cut it into thin slice.

Remove the skin, it's easier to serve.

And what we do here, cutting it in thin slice, I serve about four, five slice per person.

Not much more than like one ounce of salami per person, which is not much, you know?

Of course, occasionally, I eat a slice along the way but it's different.

So I put that here and we're going to do the salad now.

And the vinaigrette for the salad, I will show you how to cut the garlic the way my mother does, instead of crushing it on the table, she cut it into thin slice, not completely.

Then after, across.

And after, this way to make tiny dice of garlic so it's not crushed.

This way has a different taste.

You know, that when you crush it, because you release the essential oil when you crush it and it makes it different, more pungent, you know.

And we use a lot of garlic this way.

Garlic is very good for you, of course.

And we do serve garlic, and I like it in tiny pieces like that occasionally.

But we have in there a lot of cracked pepper.

(pepper mill grating) Freshly cracked pepper and black pepper, the black pepper of the shell on the outside so it has more flavor, much more flavor.

We're gonna put a little bit of a mustard.

This is the Moutarde de Meaux so-called.

And it's a mustard, as you can see, with large grain, you know, the crush pieces of mustard grain.

Red wine vinegar in this.

(spoon scratching) And finally, here we are putting a peanut oil, which is also an oil which is mostly monounsaturated.

About two and a half to three times the amount of oil to the vinegar, you know?

Remember a tablespoon of oil is about 120 calories.

(spoon tapping) So we don't have that much here.

And then our salad, we have a nice red curly salad here, which I washed before and spin.

You have to spin it, you know, to be sure that you don't have too much water left in it.

Occasionally, I have to saute my potato here.

(pan sizzling) Yes, I think now I leave them open so that they're going to brown faster.

And again, a bit more (lettuce crunches) salad.

The salad, you don't want to get it wilted, you know, you want to be gentle when you wash it.

That is, when you wash your salad, you don't want to take it out of the water and press it, otherwise it will get wilted.

Then we want to stir it.

In the dressing, you would want to do that at the last moment, you know, so that it doesn't get too wilted.

And another thing too, you want to serve your salad cool, but not ice cold.

You know, just cool at the last moment.

Your garlic also, don't use garlic that you do ahead, you know, a long time ahead, days ahead.

It doesn't have the same taste.

And very simply, you know, usually in France, the salad in classic meal is served after the meal.

But in Lyon and other area of France, certain area of France, we serve as the first course very often.

And that's what we do here.

You know, the salad, the (indistinct), and maybe a few slice of saucisson around it, you know.

Like you have four or five slice of saucisson, make a very kind of (speaks in foreign language) we call, country type style.

And maybe with this, I can even put a little bit of a basil, you know?

Basil goes so well with anything.

And if, at the time of the year, I have basil in the garden, I put it all over the place, you know, I love basil.

And this is the first course with the crunchy bread is going to go well.

What I'm going to do now is to work on the omelet that we serve with the potato.

(pan sizzling) And we do use much egg than we used to.

And, of course, an egg is about 270 milligram of cholesterol.

So it's a lot.

But as you can see here, we're going to do a large omelet with five eggs, you know?

And the classic French omelet, if you can get to the market as I do and get eggs from a farm, you know, organic farm preferably, then you're going to have a much better quality egg, deeper and more yellower, you know?

So salt, pepper, and four herbs, you know, the classic four herb in a omelet fines herbes with chervil.

This is chervil, which had a taste of, a taste of, a bit of anise, you know, and parsley, and tarragon.

So we have tarragon, tarragon, chervil, chive, and parsley.

So we put a little bit of those four herb in there directly in your egg, you know?

Chervil.

I mean chive, rather.

(knife tapping) Now it's chervil.

Chervil is very delicate and you don't cook it long.

A little bit of tarragon.

Tarragon, I put not too much because it's much stronger.

(knife tapping) And a little bit of parsley here.

This is a flat parsley, you know?

So this is the perfect omelet fines herbes, five-herb omelet.

Fine herb, you know?

Okay, here we go.

Again, I have to saute.

(pan sizzling) And now, I'm gonna show you a technique to make an omelet, which is a bit different maybe than conventionally-made omelet.

If you do an omelet French style, there is different type of omelet we do in France.

We do a (indistinct) omelet, similar to what we do in this country, where the eggs, the curd, you know, goes into a hot pan and starts solidifying.

(fork beating) Then if we do a classic French omelet, then it's different.

We move the pan all the time, all the time so that we have the smallest possible curd.

And we do the same thing with scrambled eggs.

And eventually, by the time you finish your omelet, it should be very smooth and very creamy inside, you know?

Did I put a... I put, yeah, I put salt in there.

That's good.

(fork beating) My potato.

Again.

(pan sizzling) Yeah, getting there browning.

And you want to have, of course, a hot pan.

And you want this happen to be a nonstick pan, which does help a great deal.

But it has a beautiful shape as you see because it doesn't have any angle inside.

So that makes a nice tub.

So you put your eggs in it.

And you start with the ball of the fork and flat to move the egg (pan rumbling) all the time.

(pan rumbling) When the egg is practically all set, (pan rumbling) what I do now (pan rumbling) is to bring all of the mixture to that hand.

You see?

All of that is at the end so that I have a thick layer.

All I have to do now is to bring back that lip here, run my fork here, bang it there, (hand banging) so the other lip go there.

You can put it back one second to solidify the outside.

Grab this, bang it to the edge so that you can unmold it in a perfect French omelet.

Very soft and smooth.

Again, we decorate that with a little bit of the herb that we have here, and there.

And now let's see if our potato (pan sizzling) are totally done.

Well, the potato could be cooked a little more.

They are actually cooked, but they could be brown a little more.

And now this is the time, if you want, with a tiny pieces of butter just for taste at the end.

And we can mix it in (pan sizzling) at the end.

We have put the salt already.

(pan sizzling) And then the potato are here, and we cover them with a little bit of chive.

And this is going to go great with our salad and your omelet.

(lively gentle music) I have a special guest today in the dining room.

It's Dr.

Curtis Ellison, professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.

I teach at Boston University too.

That's why we have that Yankee drawl, you and I, both.

(both laugh) So you've done piece, I saw you with Morley Safer on "60 Minutes" about the French paradox.

Is that true really?

That in France, we have half of the amount of heart disease?

- Indeed, it's true.

The French have very, very low rates of heart disease and we're not sure why.

- Well- - You did something right.

We don't know what it is.

- Oh, good, good.

The type of menu that we have today, you know, I have an omelet, but I used to eat that maybe three, four times a week when I was a kid.

And now we don't eat eggs, maybe twice a year.

But salad, potato, that's good, right?

- I'm glad to see you using the monounsaturated oils, the corn oil, and olive oil, and peanut oil, all very good.

- But I mean how do you, you've done a lot of study on those thing and the different type of fat.

For example, those potato, I wanted to cook them in duck fat.

And I know here we don't have goose fat or whatever, but are all of the animal fat, like chicken fat, duck fat as bad or not too bad or?

- Well, we're trying to find out what it is that you guys are doing correctly in France.

And it seems that different- - And in Connecticut.

- In Connecticut as well.

A different type of fat seems to be an important factor.

You know, most of the American fat comes from red meat.

And when you serve red meat, it's in very small portions.

- Mm-hmm.

- And the meat itself, in general, in France is much less fat, it's much more lean.

- Yes.

- And you're using the olive oil, you're using goose fat, which indeed is lower in saturated fats considerably and high in monounsaturated fats.

So indeed - That's good.

- it turns out that goose fat and chicken fat are indeed healthier than- - And, of course, there is the wine, right?

- The wine may be the biggest factor that's protecting.

And we think that wine on a regular basis is extremely important.

- Mm-hmm.

- You can't just drink wine once a week and expect much of an effect.

You must have it on a regular basis, probably every day would be the way to do it.

- Yeah, I mean we are not pushing the drinking or the conception of alcohol here or alcoholism, but wine in France is usually part of food.

It is food itself, you know, it's part of a glass or two with your meal, and... - I think that's the important, it's a part of the meal.

Because if you drink on an empty stomach, the blood alcohol level goes up much higher.

If you're drinking during a meal, it seems that the alcohol level does not go as high.

And the effect of the alcohol during the meal may be particularly helpful as you're eating the fat and the carbohydrates.

- And the good part of it is that it does extend your meal and make it more convivial, make it more family-like, and everyone sit down.

Because the time spent at the table, to a certain extent, must be important also, isn't it?

A style of life or- - Well, as you know, the time spent at the table is much, much greater in France on the average than it is the United States.

And I think, you know, the fact that we grab something on the run and don't sit down and relax, maybe another factor that's why we have more heart disease than the French.

- Yes, we do have to get back and sit down at the table and enjoy with our friend.

I mean this is what we try to do at home all the time.

And I think most of Europe do that.

But the surprising paradox was with the French, because they eat a great deal of fat and have that low, you know, condition of heart disease.

- Well, you know, the French do take in the same amount of fat as Americans.

It may be slightly different, but the total fat is still fairly high.

It's 35, 38% of the calories.

- But fresh product, yes, fresh.

- But it may be that the freshness of the vegetables, we now know that there are certain vitamins, antioxidant vitamins, vitamins, betacarotene, vitamin C and vitamin E are very, very important in preventing heart disease.

And if you have fresh vegetables, less red meat, and little wine covering- - A glass of wine.

- Then I think these together may be the factors that are playing the big role.

- That should do it.

And I want to thank you, I mean a special guest to get on my show.

I hope I'll see you (glasses clang) in Boston.

- Thank you.

- And bon appetit.

(gentle music) - Thank you.