- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

- And I'm Claudine Pepin.

- You know, Titine, Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday.

- Well, of course it's your favorite holiday.

Thanksgiving's devoted entirely to cooking and eating.

- And for being thankful for what you have.

- Okay, like a father who loves cooking and eating.

So what's on the menu?

I want details.

- [Jacques] We'll start with salmon three ways.

Salmon tartare wrapped in a slice of instant-cured salmon, salmon gravlax, and a plate of instant-cured salmon smothered in a fresh vegetable garnish.

And then the piece de resistance, a plump steamed and roasted turkey with apple cider glaze and mushroom and bread stuffing.

- [Claudine] With Brussels sprouts that you make specially for me and a decadent gratin butternut squash.

Not to mention, Susie's sweet and spicy cherry ginger chutney.

- [Jacques] And for the dessert, a dense rich chocolate bourbon prune cake, my special pecan pie and puff pastry, and pears poached in citrus juice, a great dessert for the fall.

- Wow, I'm feeling more thankful by the minute.

- You know what I'm thankful for Titine?

- What's that papa?

- That you're going to cook with me for Thanksgiving.

- Oh, I knew you were gonna say that.

And you know what I'm really thankful for?

- What's that?

- The fact that mom's gonna be helping us both in the kitchen.

- So please join us for a special tribute to Turkey with all the trimmings.

- Plus a few chef's surprise... - Next on our family's Thanksgiving celebration.

- Well, this is a happy day.

- Yes, it's great.

Great holiday.

- This is Thanksgiving.

- Mhm.

- This is our best holiday and we have a lot of cooking to do.

- We, oui.

- Oui.

We, yes.

- Okay.

- So what are we starting with, Gloria?

I'm gonna bone out that-- - [Gloria] Beautiful.

- Big salmon here, putting flat and all I want.

A piece of the salmon there.

Now we're gonna do a lot with this.

Now when you do a salmon like that you put your knife directly flat on the bone here.

See the way of boning it out, there with a little bit of salmon left here because we don't lose anything at the Pepin house.

So you take a spoon and you scrape it.

You scrape your bone on each side and get whatever salmon you have.

We're gonna do a salmon tartare with that.

In fact, if you're really broke, you go to the fishmonger, say, "Can I have two pint of bone to do stock fully for free?"

You scrape it, you do a tartare for four and then you do your stock.

Now I have to finish cleaning it out.

It's nice to have a long knife like that, I go right under the rib cage here.

Keeping your knife quite flat as I'm doing here, you want to remove the rib cage.

Of course, all of that type of work, you can have the fishmonger do it.

You know?

We have Frank, one of our best friend and he's a fishmonger.

We tell Frank so we get everything ready.

- We don't need any of this?

- No, you can put that with the bone.

- Okay.

- Thank you, and you can do that for stock.

Now that we have removed this, there is a line of bone here which go from the top to the bottom.

I mean you can feel it with your finger.

There is about 30 bone, depending where you start here.

It goes up to here, the last bone.

So all of those bone here are straight down.

They have to be removed like that.

And sometime when you do, when you buy even a smoked salmon, usually they clean it up, sometime they don't.

So you feel it with your finger.

If you feel there is those bone, remove it.

When you start slicing your smoked salmon, those bone are in the way and you tear the salmon.

But now what I'm going to do is to remove the skin.

Gloria does a lot of Japanese cooking.

She loves Japanese cooking.

And the Japanese particularly are very good at frying the skin.

- Yeah, and you can use it to wrap sushi with.

When you're doing, instead of seaweed.

- Yeah, of course if you do that, this one hasn't been scaled, you would want to scale it.

And then there is that black skin that you see here, which is-- - Is that fat?

- It is, exactly.

That's fat which you have under the skin.

And that protect the animal in the cold water of the sea.

And this tend to be stronger, we remove it.

Now this is totally clean.

Now when we do this, we're gonna do a few things with it.

I organize the filet one way so that I can get nice steak from one part of it.

And for example, this is very thin, the belly.

So we cut the belly here, so it's more equal size.

The tail is very thin, we cut the tail here.

This is a bit uneven.

I cut that so that it's even.

So this-- - This is for our tartare.

- For the tartare, so I'll cut it back a little later.

- Okay.

- Maybe you can put it in your bowl.

We are doing two type of gravlax.

One, we're going to cure a whole piece of salmon.

And the other one, very thin slice of salmon.

That's what I call instant-cured salmon because it doesn't take longer than, we do it at home, what, half an hour before the people come?

- Yeah, it's great.

You wanna put it-- - Let's do it on the tray like that.

- Right directly on the... - So Gloria is gonna put some salt and freshly ground black paper directly on top flat so it doesn't move.

- Right.

- So keep it flat.

So you go ahead on that.

And now I start cutting slice of salmon.

Thin like that.

This is raw salmon like you would do for smoked salmon.

You wanna put pepper in it too.

And now I give it to you there.

That's it.

You put that directly on top of the salt without moving it, you know?

And, that's it.

Okay, then you wanna put salt and paper on top.

- [Gloria] Uh-huh.

- And so forth.

And the time that the salt takes to melt, it's basically ready.

Okay, so now with what's left here, we're going to cure it the conventional way of curing.

So I have about about 2 pound of salmon here.

So we'll cure that piece.

Thank you, here.

- What a team.

- Okay.

What a team.

Quarter of a cup of a kosher type salt, table spoon of sugar.

And that's the curing.

Now there is different way of curing.

It seems like a lot, but you need this with that on top and in the bottom.

Now when they smoke salmon, when you smoke salmon, you have to cure it first.

There is two different type of curing.

There is a liquid brine or dry cure.

Liquid brine, you melt salt with water, put sugar in it.

Usually in the area of 10 pound of salt per gallon of water, which is what we call a saturation brine.

That is the salt doesn't melt anymore.

And then you put your fish in it, you know, trout or whatever you put, and then you leave it so long.

The second way, which is very conventional, we put the plastic wrap, is to actually cover the salmon with salt.

And then you leave it a certain amount of time.

If you leave it too long, of course it over cure the salmon.

The way that I do it, I think it's a bit easier.

Because what I do actually, I put a certain amount of salt and sugar, which I measure.

So whether I leave that 10 hours or even two days, doesn't change anything.

But here it is, this one.

- You can see that the salt has melted.

- The salt has melted.

Okay and I'll dry it out.

- Put it like this.

- Yeah, we'll dry it out.

I dry the other salt out, you can even rinse it out.

- If you rinse it-- - And this one has been cured.

- If you rinse it underwater, will you not have-- - If you rinse it too much, your quantity has changed.

So I like to do it just like this.

And then after that you can flavor it the way you want.

So we want put a little bit of cognac on top of this on each side.

And we want to put the rind of lime here.

Which has a lot of flavor.

You could put lemon, you could put, I mean here, this is the time when you start using your idea, your imagination and do whatever you want really.

And then I'm putting a mixture of herb there and I have shaved-- - You're measuring on both sides now.

- Maybe you're right, I forget my recipe.

(Gloria laughs) Yeah.

And what you want to do, which is probably nice now is to put that back in there.

You know, wrap it again in plastic wrap.

Okay, so what you wanna do is to put another tray on top.

- There you go.

- This one is fine.

And then a weight, about five pound or so doesn't really matter.

And that, you know, two, three hours to really get all of those tastes and ingredient together.

You wanna put that there?

- Yeah.

- It's okay, another one finished there.

- [Gloria] Okay.

- You see that?

You're absolutely right, made a mistake.

You're supposed to do it on both side.

The other one will only have one side.

This one has both side.

So Gloria, we're going to do a little bit of a salad with that.

- [Gloria] Mhm.

- You have your cucumber there.

- Cucumbers and onion.

- Yep.

- But I think I want to blanch these first.

- Okay.

Put that in water because the raw onion tend to be a bit strong.

And if you just blanch them, that is, just put them in boiling water like that for 10, 15 seconds, it would get them very mild.

I can cool them up for you if you want, cold water there.

- [Gloria] All right.

- Okay?

- Mhm.

- Okay, I'll drain them.

You ready for me, huh?

- Yeah, you can just put them right in here.

- Okay, good.

You're going to season them.

Just salt paper, some oil in there.

- That's it?

- And a bit of rice vinegar.

As you can see, that salmon is very firm.

And I'm cutting it very, very thin.

So it does help to press it.

It really, look at that.

You think three pieces is more than enough, (indistinct).

- Do you have any idea what we're eating today?

- Yes.

- Three pieces are plenty.

- So we'll put that in the center of it.

See, it makes it much more delicate to, I think to blanch it, you know.

And then, I'll put my... - [Gloria] It's pretty.

I think it's really.

- Yeah, maybe a bit more of this on top.

- Make like a little mound in the middle.

Yeah.

- Okay, and you wanna put a little sprig of herb on top?

I think these are best served with black paper, you know?

Buttered, black pepper, like this.

- [Gloria] Like bread?

- Yeah, this is beautiful.

Okay, so let's work on the tartare there.

So I'm gonna chop this and I feel that it's very important to cut that into pieces.

This is much more... - Even steak tartare, I'd rather have it hand chopped.

- Yes, hand chopped.

And not only that, but the salmon when you put it into your food processor, if you do, it's not that you cannot do it, you have to be extremely careful because it get like gooey, pasty, you know.

But this way when you cut it into like quarter of an inch dice, okay.

That's good.

Okay Gloria, here you are.

Put here.

You wanna season this?

You have chopped onion there.

- Chopped onion.

- They look, they've been rinsed.

- [Gloria] Yes.

- A bit of a rind of lemon.

Put lemon juice in there?

- Yes, please.

- Okay.

- It's your recipe.

- Now you know, there is another thing which is important.

I have lemon juice here, which is citric acid.

If I were to put lemon juice on this now, on raw salmon or that one, half of it will become whitish like in 15, 20 minute.

The protein will be solidified by the citric acid and it become all whiteish.

It looks terrible.

When you do that type of thing or a ceviche, then the fish turn slightly whiteish because of that.

It doesn't matter because you mix it together.

But when you have beautiful slice, if you do that, the slice looks terrible.

So if you use lemon, you use it at the end.

You give it to your guests so they press it on top, but you don't do it ahead.

And then the chervil here, love chervil.

- Some chives?

- You add?

Did we put any salt in there?

- Not yet.

- Okay, salt.

- Is that enough?

- Pepper.

- You want more chives?

- I think that's fine.

Salt, pepper, a little bit of olive oil.

And this is really good.

Just like this.

- [Gloria] Tabasco.

- Oh, you want put a bit of Tabasco?

Go ahead, you have some over there.

Good.

And here we are.

It's turning, changing color now.

- It's gotten a little white.

I don't even have to taste it.

I know it's-- - You know it's good.

- Yeah, I can tell by the smell.

- Okay.

Good?

- Great.

- So we want to do that with maybe some cucumber underneath.

- [Gloria] I'm gonna give you a plate for that.

- Maybe I'll use one of those for decoration.

So you can do a cucumber salad just by doing long strip of cucumber.

This way you go up to the seed in the center.

You know this, you could leave it this way.

You could season it with a little bit of oil or you know, a little bit of vinegar, a dash of sugar even, that would go well with it.

I have them beautiful, but I did them even too long.

- [Gloria] No.

- [Jacques] They have to fit in the bottom of the plate.

- [Gloria] Oh, we'll cut off a little edge.

- [Jacques] Yeah.

Okay.

- So we're doing a weave?

- We are doing whatever you want.

I mean we are doing a really kind of a, you know?

- You put the next one and I'll follow.

- Esoteric.

(Gloria laughs) Esoteric design here.

Now, I could serve my tartare directly on top here.

That would be very nice.

Okay, we can serve it this way.

But you could do at that point also, if you have some smoked salmon, you could put a piece of smoked salmon or a piece of your salmon here, we just wrap it around.

You know, like this.

- We're not using these now?

- Well maybe we use one, yeah.

I have an idea, I'll cut the end of it into little strip like this.

Why don't you, you wanna fill that up with the caviar?

- Fill the little center.

- [Jacques] Need both hand, huh?

- No.

Yeah, you wanna push?

How's that?

- That looks good, maybe a bit more.

Boy, those are beautiful.

- They are.

- Whew, that salmon caviar is splendid.

That good?

- Mm, great.

- And maybe a tiny bit of olive oil on top just for the color of it.

A couple of capers maybe.

Isn't that beautiful?

Good restaurant, 12.95, we're making money here.

Okay, now let's see our third one here, our instant gravlax.

Two slice will be of course more than enough.

So here, let your imagination run wild, you know?

A little bit of scallion.

First we put the scallion.

- [Gloria] Mhm.

- I have a radish here, which is kind of a-- - [Gloria] Red, red, red.

It's nice.

- You know, look at that.

And then, maybe a bit of chive.

I'll cut it large like this so they are different.

Okay.

Cucumber.

Maybe, a little.

I think we have enough junk on top of this.

- [Gloria] That's nice like that, yeah.

- Maybe a bit of, because I love the-- - Chervil.

- Chervil so much.

And you wanna put, you know, a virgin olive oil here, a walnut oil or... This one is beautiful.

- Mm, Look at the color.

- Color.

- Yeah.

- A little piece of lemon.

We serve that next to it.

And we're in business.

Now the instant cured salmon is one, the tartare of salmon with a cucumber, and then the salmon gravlax (indistinct).

That's a lot of salmon.

- It's a lot of salmon.

- This is the the fall season, the reward, Thanksgiving.

You got in the market in the fall, different color, different feel.

- Yeah.

- Brown, beige.

- [Claudine] Well we're definitely gonna have Turkey for Thanksgiving, right?

I mean... - Yes.

But we'll have pumpkin in one form or another.

(gentle upbeat music) We need to do jack-o'-lantern with this all along the driveway.

So we'll have five or six.

And then we'll do soup with one like this.

Yeah, this one will be perfect, the right size.

And here we do a gratin with cheese and eggs, and salt and paper.

The gratin of pumpkin and all that with cider.

- Yes.

- Apple cider.

- Apple cider.

- Pear cider.

- Your sparkling cider.

- My sparkling cider.

- Are you making it this year?

- Yeah.

(gentle upbeat music) - Okay Papa, you think we need all of these?

It's always mom that comes back with too much stuff.

- I know, for once it's me though.

I need all of those spicy, I need it.

- Okay.

(gentle upbeat music concludes) - So here we are going to do a chocolate bourbon prune cake with caramelized pecan.

We have a cup, cup and a half of filbert or hazelnut, which have been roasted into the oven.

The first thing we do, we put that bit of corn starch and sugar in the food processor.

Before that, I have the prune here cut into pieces and marinating with, it has absorbed all of the bourbon.

Maybe I put a bit more here.

You know, why not?

Okay, go ahead.

(food processor whirs) I think we can put the eggs.

Go ahead.

(food processor whirs) We put the butter in it.

That's it.

- It's over.

- It's over.

I have melted chocolate and that goes directly with the chocolate.

So this is a cake without flour.

And as you can see, a very rich cake.

It should not be served very cold, you know?

Kinda room temperature.

Thank you.

And then with my chocolate.

Good.

Oh, and this of course.

- [Gloria] Do you wanna add any more prunes or?

- [Jacques] I think we have plenty there.

- [Gloria] Plenty?

- You wanna stir it?

And I have about a 10 ounce, 10 inch cake pan with a piece of paper which I borrowed, which is going to fit right in the the bottom of it.

And we're going to put that right in there.

- No flour, but boy I can smell the bourbon.

Ooh.

(Gloria laughs) - Good, huh?

- Yes.

Here.

Here you go.

- All right.

Okay.

(cake pan taps onto table) That's it.

And this goes into the oven and has to cook for about 45 minutes fairly slowly.

(cheerful chime) So I have one here, which is cold.

Let me see, maybe I mold it.

- On this and then we're gonna... - Either way it comes out.

- [Gloria] Looks great.

- Oh.

- Not good at that.

- Well there's not going to be much decoration, I'm just putting it back.

- Ta dah.

- Here.

- Great.

- It's always better to put a little piece of something there just in case.

All right, so with this here, what we could do, a very simple decoration.

I'm gonna fold this.

And Gloria, we have some caramelized pecan there.

And, I'm gonna cut piece of this here.

Hold it.

Either I do this and we put some powdered sugar in the center.

Or either I do this and we put some powdered sugar on the outside, what do you think?

- [Gloria] On the outside, so then it'll hit the plate a little bit, will be pretty.

- Yeah, okay.

I think that's better.

We're gonna put a bit of mint in this here.

- Mhm.

- There.

All right.

Now those are pecan which we have just dipped in caramel.

You do a caramel, just drop them and lift them up with a fork, you know?

- Do you want individual leaves?

You want me to pull some leaves off?

Or do you want sprigs?

- We're gonna put that a little bit in the middle.

But I think I'm going to do a bit of a julienne.

So if you want to arrange the pecan on top.

- [Gloria] Okay.

- I'm doing a chiffonade there, because I like mint with chocolate.

- [Gloria] It's pretty.

- Boy it smells so good, that mint.

Okay maybe a little piece of the mint here.

And basically, you know, I say you would want to serve small portion of this because it's really quite rich.

You have to pull those out.

- But a little whipped cream can't hurt you?

- Yep, a little whipped cream.

I hope you flavored it with bourbon.

(Gloria laughs) - Of course.

- A little whipped cream flavored with bourbon.

So our chocolate bourbon prune cake with caramelized pecan.

Come on girl.

Come on, let's go.

We find some mushroom there.

In Connecticut, I hunt for mushroom in summer and the fall.

But Claudine and I were in northern California in November, the beginning of mushroom season there.

Oh boy.

- Ooh.

- [Mike] Well there's one, there's gotta be more.

- [Jacques] It's great when you find a mushroom, but it's very important to know what kind of mushroom you found.

Okay, Mike, what those are?

- Those are (indistinct).

- Mike Boom, the mycologist who lives in the area.

- [Mike] See how the base is club shaped too.

- [Jacques] Uh huh, and those are good?

- [Mike] Those are not good to eat.

- [Jacques] But in Connecticut we eat them.

- Wow.

- So you know-- - Whenever you're in a new area, the rules are completely different.

That's one of the things.

- They're different.

That's why you have to go with someone from the area there.

- Yeah.

Looks like it might be a moldy bolete.

Oh wait, no, that's a chanterelle.

That's an old chanterelle.

- That's a chanterelle, an old one, eh?

- Yeah, yeah.

It's got a nice tough texture to it, but the mold has gotten to it.

- [Claudine] I always find the moldy ones.

(Mike laughs) - This particular tree is what we wanna look for when we're looking for mushrooms because it fruits underneath it.

Chanterelles, candy caps.

And actually there's fruiting some oyster mushrooms up there.

- [Jacques] Wow, look at that.

Did you see that Titine?

- [Claudine] Yeah.

- [Mushroom Gatherer] We need a stepladder to get them here.

- That's one of the only mushrooms you look for like this, instead of like this.

- [Claudine] Papa.

- Huh?

- Look.

- Chanterelle.

- [Jacques] Oh boy, you have a bunch here.

- [Claudine] Yep.

- Man, this is beautiful.

See I like to clean it up like that.

If you leave all your dirt in it, it goes into the cap of the other one.

- Oh.

- It makes a mess in the... Okay, well look that one here.

Boy.

- Wow.

- Look at that thing.

You see how nice the flesh is.

- This is gonna be good.

Everybody talks about you should wash your mushrooms, you shouldn't wash your mushrooms, you should brush your mushrooms, maybe you should talk to your mushrooms.

What do you think, should you wash your mushrooms?

- Well, certainly not now.

They'll get full of water-- - Well yeah.

- And all that.

When we are ready to use them, of course we're gonna wash them, they're full of dirt.

- Okay.

- But just before we cook them.

Not a minute earlier.

Hi-ho, hi-ho.

I've been hunting mushrooms since I was a little boy.

But each time, you have to be so careful.

- Hey Jacques.

- Yeah?

- Right here, there's enough death to kill us all.

- [Jacques] Oh gosh.

amanita phalloides right?

- [Mike] Yeah, amanita phalloides.

- [Jacques] Yes, oh boy.

Yeah.

- [Mike] This is the deadly one here.

- You don't, you get what?

- A nice little poisonous tidbit.

- Oh boy.

- This is the young version of the same.

So they're all amanitas.

- There's enough there to kill an adult.

- No kidding.

- You die from liver damage.

- I would tell people, don't take any chance.

- Well, especially-- - You know, any type of that.

- [Claudine] Call Mike.

- Don't eat it.

(gentle upbeat music) - Wow Bob, that's your tree?

- Yes, I've been picking on this tree for over 10 years, Jacques.

- No kidding.

- It's very, very prolific.

- Oyster mushroom.

- This is the oyster mushroom - And not the one cultivated.

I mean the-- - No, no, no.

- The real one.

Oh boy, look at that.

Those are beautiful.

Look what we got.

- [Mike] Look at what I got.

- Oh my God.

- [Mike] They're all over the place.

- [Jacques] Oh my God, look at the oyster.

- More, oh.

- Oh my God, look at those.

- [Mike] So much better than the cultivated ones.

- Oh yeah.

- The wild ones.

- You can smell it compared to the one you find in the store.

- One of the best things to do as long as you don't get a nose full of insects.

- [Claudine] And look at what else we found.

- [Jacques] Cauliflower mushroom, sparassis crispa, right?

- [Mike] Best mushroom we found today.

- Those are really good.

And, boy the smell is so intense.

- Okay, it's time for lunch.

- [Jacques] Time for lunch.

- I vote for that.

- Let's go.

- [Mike] Yeah, lunch.

(gentle upbeat music) - [Jacques] We always have a picnic after foraging in the woods, but we don't eat the mushroom yet.

We take them home to be cooked.

I always advise people finding in the wood to cook mushroom.

- You get more nutrition when you cook them too because it breaks down the cell walls so you can-- - Oh yeah?

- Actually digest them better.

May I propose a toast?

- Yeah, let's do it.

- Absolutely.

- Here's to fungi.

We're drinking what it made, we're eating what it made, and it's providing more food tonight.

- All right.

- That's right.

- Yeah.

- Right.

Here is to fungi.

Fungus.

(group laughs) Well there is no thanksgiving without roasted Turkey, right?

- Absolutely.

- So I wanna show you a way that I'm roasting that turkey, which is a bit different.

I think I must have about eight different way of roasting Turkey.

We did this one last year and we really loved it.

So I'm gonna show you how to do this one.

- [Claudine] Lemme take the insides out.

- We have this.

- [Claudine] I mean... - Well, that's about all in there.

Let's see, usually we have a box here, Claudine.

- Oh, here we go.

- That's it.

And what we are going to do is to steam the Turkey first.

And of course the neck, gizzard, and all that, we're going to do a sauce to serve with the Turkey.

What I will do is to cut the end of the drumstick here.

Okay, this.

- All of this you're gonna use in the stock or no?

Because this is kind of brittle.

- No, not in the stock, no.

- [Claudine] Or in the sauce rather.

- And I will show you why I'm doing that later.

To help it cut, I'm cutting at the joint here a little bit because-- - That helps it cook?

- Yes, because the leg always stay a little red in the center here.

You can even cut a little bit of the joint here to help in the same way.

You don't put any seasoning on top of it because this is the joint where it takes a long time for the heat to go in.

- Mhm.

- So like that, you don't have a cook it.

- Oh.

- I have, I make what you call a makeshift or-- - You have a big pot.

- A big pot, now we need to make a steamer here.

I have about a quarter and a half, two quart of water.

Put a thing like that to set the Turkey on top.

Okay, put that right on top of it.

We're gonna steam it.

- Wait, we're gonna cover it.

- And then we have to put a lid.

- Here.

I don't know if the origami is gonna work, but we'll give it a go.

- Okay.

I mean if you have a big, big steamer, that would work but, you know, so we can put that around that fine.

- Okay.

- So that, this should steam 20, 22 pound Turkey here for about 45 minutes.

And after that we're going to roast it.

Well, we're doing french cider.

I mean the cider of Normandy there, sparkling cider.

And Frank of course is working.

Wow, you're filling up a magnum here.

- Oh yes.

- Yes.

- Yes, yes.

- So what do we have here Frank?

- We've got apple juice.

It's been fermenting for a couple of weeks now in a nice cool wine cellar.

- [Jacques] Yeah.

- [Frank] It's ready to be corked.

- That's it, there is nothing else in it.

Plant apple juice, very sweet.

And this is the process of (indistinct), second fermentation in the bottle.

So now that the lees is in the bottom, we are drawing the clear part on top.

And I'm corking those things with that little machine.

My father bought that for me years, years ago.

You boil the cork.

My father used to boil that with wine for his wine stuff.

You squeeze it in there so that you can put it in there.

And on top of this, we put of course the wire here.

And this is just a plain wire like this.

In France we can buy it.

But you here you can have it done.

And we put it that, this is of course to help the cork, you know, so that the cork at the second fermentation doesn't explode all over the place.

So the wire cage is going to hold it back here because there is still sugar in the juice.

And during the winter we'll have a second fermentation and in spring it's going to sparkle.

And sometimes a few bottles, the cork burst out in the cellar which scare the dog and the cat.

But that's what we do.

Okay, which one?

This one?

- Yeah, that one.

- (indistinct).

Okay.

Okay, you see it's steamed now.

And let it cool off a bit to be able to let it and for the fat to come to the top.

You want to get me the roasting pan there?

Put this in top here.

I don't wanna burn myself.

Okay, in there.

Okay.

And this here, I'm gonna show you that the stock that I had in there, you know.

Which is still hot, it's fine.

Okay.

There is a lot of fat in it.

And one of the advantage of doing the turkey this way because most of the fat at that point is going to come out of the turkey and rise to the top, you know?

So we can remove it and continue on with the stuffing, with the cooking.

So there what we have in there, I have carrot.

Now I'm gonna put carrot.

- [Claudine] And onions.

- [Jacques] Onion.

- Same way?

- It really, no we turn it around.

- [Claudine] Oh.

- It's really on top there for the juice.

Notice that at that point there is still no salt and paper.

So what we're going to do, we do a glaze.

And the glaze here, we have half a cup of cider, you know apple cider, which is very sweet.

Then Tabasco in it.

And then I have, you know, a table-- - And pepper.

- A good teaspoon, teaspoon and a half of salt and the pepper.

Okay, so you know you mix all of that in there.

You don't really want to put that now at the beginning.

- More like that?

- Like that because of the sugar, it's going to brown too fast.

So cook it an hour and then you start brushing it for the next hour.

You can brush it on top.

You should use all of this.

(cheerful chime) And what we have, you can look at that stock now, the amount of fat that we have in that stock and then we can remove it.

We wanna remove as much fat as you can.

That's why I let it rest a little bit to have a stock as clean as possible.

So basically I will remove a great deal of fat.

It's good because a great deal of the fat of the turkey is out.

So I don't have to worry about the juice of the turkey with the carrot and the onion.

Then that much fat is going to come out.

Most of the fat came out of this, - Right.

- You have about a cup and a half.

So what we do now, you put this in there, we're going to let it reduce anyway.

And in this we're going to put the neck.

- [Claudine] All of it?

The liver?

- The gizzard.

- The gizzard, the heart.

- Mom's gonna be upset.

- This is not the liver.

- Okay.

- We salt it for the cook, the heart.

You know?

- Do I get to be the cook?

- Yes.

- Excellent.

- And this we'll have to bring that to a boil.

Boil it for like an hour.

And after an hour, drain the thing, pick out the meat and reduce it again to about a cup and a half.

Let's move on to do-- - Stuffing.

- The stuffing, okay.

So here, I have some onion.

You want two, three cup of onion with half a stick of butter and about a third of a cup of oil.

So I want to put about two cup of leek also in it.

Wash it good under running water and I'm doing the celery during that time, Titine.

What else are we putting in our stuffing?

Okay, the celery.

This goes in there.

- [Claudine] Oh.

- I need two cup, you know.

And this is (indistinct).

Watch your finger, wow.

You're going faster than you used to.

I mean, (indistinct) we have in there.

I have mushroom here.

About 10, 12 ounce of mushroom and some almond.

- Mmm.

- And all of that is going into our stuffing.

- Are there-- - As well as chicken stock and the bread.

- Are the almonds roasted?

- The almonds are roasted, yes.

Okay.

- [Claudine] I think this looks like about two cups.

- It is, it's exactly two cups, Claudine.

It's exactly.

It's exactly two cups.

- Minutes away now.

- That's it.

I can even start putting the mushroom.

Usually we put the mushroom a bit later, but it doesn't really matter.

I'm going to put a lot of-- - Parsley.

- Parsley in it.

Like two cup of parsley.

So let me do the parsley now.

Could you have a measuring cup to have exactly two cup?

(Claudine laughs) It's exactly two cup here, you see?

- I think it's perfect, yes.

- Yes.

Here is the way, see you measure either by putting it very light or pushing it down.

(Claudine laughs) Okay, so that's going to go on later.

You want this to soften.

You know you want the vegetable to get soft a little bit.

In the meantime, we are going to do the butternut squash.

The butternut squash is very difficult to peel.

The neck is here and the body is there.

Cut it here at the limit.

You know, of the, where you have the-- - The seeds.

- What you call the seed, yeah.

See that part here?

The neck is totally full.

- [Claudine] No seeds.

- Yeah, there's no seed in the neck.

This is long so you peel it the long way.

It's long.

This is round, I peel it going around.

You have to hold it like this.

- So basically you do have to peel it twice almost with a vegetable peeler.

- You have to peel it twice because you see it's still green.

You have to go again another time.

- Okay.

- To get to the nice reddish color, you know.

With the knife, have to go around and it's, it's a bit dangerous.

The truth because this is really hard.

We're gonna slice that, I love butternut squash.

You know what I do?

I take butternut squash to France.

- Like just a suitcase full?

- No, I take the seed to your-- - Oh to (indistinct), because he'll plant it in the garden.

- Your (indistinct), to your godfather.

Plant it in his garden, I mean all the neighbor come to see what those things are.

Okay, so we have this.

This, I will cut it in half.

This is the part where we have the seed.

We're going to empty the seed.

We want to empty that with a spoon.

- All right.

- Now turn this on, push it with the next one.

- Yes.

(food processor whirs) - This goes good.

- Yeah, this is great.

- Goes faster than a knife.

So this, we're gonna put that into boiling water here.

Just want to blanch it to soften it a little bit.

I have nothing in that water.

Just water.

- Just water?

- Oh yeah, but I have no salt or I don't have any... You're in a good mood today.

- I am, I had a nap.

- Okay.

Okay, this is good here.

I'm putting my stock in there now.

- [Claudine] Do you want me to get the bread?

- And I'm going to put the nuts.

Okay, put the nuts.

Actually, we should put that on top with the bread.

With this.

Yeah, you can get the bread.

- So this you wouldn't put in, you just mix it in with the bread.

- We all can put it off.

- I mean, I don't know.

- Okay, good.

Here.

So I have all of the mixture.

My stuffing mixture there.

I forgot whether-- - [Claudine] Do you need any wine?

- Need salt in there?

- No.

- No, okay.

Well, that's what I thought.

So, you know, people stuff the turkey, I don't stuff the turkey.

We cook the stuffing separate because sometime it takes so long to get to the stuffing in the middle.

Especially, well this is a stuffing where the ingredient are basically cooked.

But if you use raw meat or anything like this, by the time it get hot and cooked in the center, your turkey is way overcooked, you know?

So I think it's easier this way.

So I'm going to kind of judge it, putting like half of it here and half of it there.

Okay, then we can start fooling around here.

- [Claudine] Yeah, this is kind of soft.

- Well you know the liquid will disappear.

- Yeah.

- I put half a stick of butter, which is two ounces, and a third of a cup of oil.

You probably have... Gonna put a little bit maybe of aluminum foil on top of that.

- Okay.

- To hold it.

During that time, well this is coming to a boil now and I know it's softening.

You just think it's getting soft now.

Not cooked but, softened enough so I can take it out.

I love butternut squash, one of my favorite squash.

Okay, Claudine, I do this.

I tell you, layer of salt and pepper there.

Right?

- Okay.

- A little bit of that cream.

Put more.

You want this to be nicely seasoned.

- I have three layers of salt and pepper.

So I mean it should be enough.

- You mix your salt and pepper together.

- Well yeah.

- Good, all right.

- I didn't mix them in here, I mixed them over there.

- [Jacques] You mix them in your hand?

- [Claudine] Yeah.

- Okay, a bit of parmasiano, you know, on top.

That's it.

- Huh.

- Now we have got that ready-- - [Claudine] To go into the oven.

- Yeah.

(cheerful chime) Okay, and now we're ready to serve our beautiful turkey.

All right.

And put it here.

- The joy of Thanksgiving.

- Yes, that's it.

Beautiful.

- Wow.

- Now here I have the sauce here and I really don't have that much fat.

Now you see this here?

This is the stock the neck gave out.

It cook like an hour, an hour and a half.

We pull out all the meat, chop it coarsely, and have all of that to add to this.

And I think with that-- - I'm ready.

- We grab a little bit, yes.

Put some wine in there.

That's it.

- That's good?

- Don't be bashful, huh?

That's it.

And then we want to cook it a little bit for the wine to eliminate the acidity that you have in the, you know, in the acidic acid.

- It tastes hot.

- Tastes hot?

Enough salt?

- No.

- A dash of salt.

Okay, you know what I'm going to do?

- No.

- I'm gonna put that back in there to let it reduce in there.

And at that point, on the smallest thing, the fat will come up to the top.

If there is more fat to to remove, I'm going be able to remove it here.

Good.

You see right away there is any fat, it comes to the top.

I'm gonna scoop that up.

- [Claudine] There really isn't very much at all.

- Well still quite a lot.

You know, I'm surprised because we remove so much from the water.

And you don't have to remove all the fat, but we like the sauce or the juice here to be pretty lean.

So again, as you can see, maybe half a cup or two third of a cup.

Maybe not that you could strain it.

Some people strain it and sometime in recipe I strain it too.

But what we could do is to thicken it a little bit.

So I use a little bit of potato starch or corn starch.

Well, I like potato starch or arrow root better.

The corn starch tend to be a bit gooey and a bit elastic.

And again, here you dilute your starch with a bit of liquid, in that case white wine.

And we can add it.

I lower that so I don't burn myself.

And you add it directly to your stock and stir.

And a little more and stir.

- [Claudine] Just so that you get the consistency that you want.

- Well yeah, as soon as it touch, you know where, and you see it's pretty oily now.

I mean it's not thick like, but it's nice.

Okay, so this will cook a couple of minutes.

During that time, let's do our vegetable.

- Okay.

- Okay.

- My favorite.

- When Claudine was small, one of her favorite vegetable was Brussels sprouts.

So those here, we blanch them, you cook them rather until they are tender, not blanch cooked.

You know, you just remove this, cook them in salted boiling water, and then when they are cooked we slice them.

And they're really good.

That's the salt and pepper.

Thank you very much.

- You're very welcome.

- And now I think that while this is getting hot, maybe we can prepare the stuffing, Claudine.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- Hey.

All right.

Lemme put it in there.

You see, I like it with that type of consistency.

Where you still kind of break apart a little bit, you know?

- Yeah.

- Okay, big bowl of stuffing.

Now if you want, you can get the gratin in the oven.

- [Claudine] All righty.

It's very hot.

- It's still boiling nicely.

Feel the gratin should be tender now.

And feel that it's really tender.

I love those gratin.

- Mm.

- Okay, the Brussels sprouts are going to go in there.

- Oh and we have Susie Chutney, - We have Susie's Chutney.

She's a cherry, ginger, spicy type of Chutney.

- Okay.

- Then now I'm bringing the sauce.

Yeah, she's beautiful, that's right.

- I don't like gravy when it's strained.

I mean, I might, the only thing I might do is maybe take a hand blender to it a little bit.

- You don't want, because we have the little pieces of the neck and the gizzard and all that stuff, which is good.

I'm gonna get my Turkey.

You know, I always cut it here so I can start slicing this way.

Actually, you know, what I should have done first by taking a piece of the dark meat.

- [Claudine] Mm.

- And usually you do that in your kitchen, you know?

Remember why I cut the end of the drumstick?

- I remember that you did, but not why.

Ooh.

- Look.

Because when you cut the end of the drumstick, all the sinew here shrink.

- [Claudine] And you can pull them out.

- They shrink and you can pull them out.

There is a lot of sinew, you know, in the... - In, yeah.

- In the drumstick here.

So you see here, you get all of those sinew.

And you do that on the other leg.

So now it's nice to eat the drumstick.

- Yeah.

- There's no more sinew in it.

I'm putting a piece of the dark meat here.

You see it's nice and juicy.

- [Claudine] Mhm.

- And then, really put your piece of-- - [Claudine] Of white meat on top.

- White meat on top.

Let me put the sauce on top.

(indistinct).

And all the vegetable, we can pass them separate, you know?

It's beautiful.

Now it's really feels-- - It's perfect.

- Like Thanksgiving.

So this is our roasted turkey, the Brussels sprouts, the gratin of the squash.

- Squash.

- Okay, well Happy Thanksgiving.

- Happy Thanksgiving.

- This is the day to give thanks.

This is the day where we share.

And this is the day where we put everyone to work.

So Abby is working, Ryan is working.

Leanne is working.

- Leanne is working.

- So tell us, what are you doing there?

- We're making name cards.

- Name cards, that's a good idea.

- [Claudine] Oh, that's a great idea.

And you're making them, how are we doing this?

- Well, we're writing on the cards with the gold and silver pens.

- Oh, so this is on a leaf?

And then, Abby, what are you doing?

- I'm sticking the sticky stuff on the pumpkin.

- All right.

- Ooh.

- And then you'll put the leaf on there?

- Yeah.

- Good.

Anyway, let's see whether you misspell my name here.

Okay?

- Well mom gave them a list.

- Abby, what's my name?

- Yeah, Gloria gave the list.

- Jacques.

- Jacques, ah.

She knows it well.

And Claudine, what is this?

- Oh, I'm making centerpieces.

You just take a pumpkin, hollow it out.

- Look at that beautiful vase.

- [Claudine] And it actually will hold water for four or five days.

- That's great.

- Then it'll start to smell but, you know.

And you can do little ones.

And it's just really pretty.

- You wanna tell us a bit about the wine we're drinking tonight?

- Oh wow, we have a beautiful, beautiful champagne.

I'm very, very excited.

I haven't had that in a long time.

And then we also have a (indistinct).

And that's Two Towns and they're making a wine together.

- (indistinct), yeah, right.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And then we have a beautiful Cabernet Sauvignon that is from California.

- With the Turkey and all that.

- Yes, that's gonna be really nice.

- So here it's for you.

- Thank you.

- Claudine.

- Here is for me.

I think we got some coke for you somewhere.

- Or juice or water.

- Maybe taste the wine I don't know, later on but... Here we are, it's been fun cooking with you and we really appreciate-- - Thank you.

- You for coming to help us like this.

- Thank you very much for your help.

- So it's time to start relaxing.

Are we having a good time?

- [Kids] Yeah.

- Yeah?

Okay, great.

I'll drink to that.

This is what Thanksgiving is all about.

A good time and sharing.

(indistinct talking) So what are we doing?

What are we having?

It's a beautiful table, right?

- Yes, it is.

And I wanna wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and what a group we have here.

- We welcome all our guests.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- I mean, hi Abby.

- Hi.

- How are you?

Everyone is here.

Everyone is happy.

We work a lot, right?

- Mhm.

- But it was fun work.

- Okay, so we starting with... - [Gloria] Well we did our salmon in three different ways.

- Yes.

- Which is quite a feat.

- Yeah, this is and it's beautiful.

And then, what do we have?

- Well, we have beautiful vegetables.

We've got of course Brussels sprouts, which no holiday is complete without.

And the gratin of squash.

- Gratin of squash.

- Which is really, really nice.

I like the colors.

- Turned out great.

- Yeah, it's perfect.

- Now our roast, our steamed roast turkey, which turned out beautifully with giblet gravy.

Nice, thick, you know?

The bread stuffing, a lot of leek, onion, all kind of stuff in it that should go great with it.

- And we have chutney and we have gravy.

- And the third, poached pears in citrus juice and a delicious chocolate bourbon prune cake with caramelized pecans.

And of course we have to have a pie.

So at the last minute, I made a pecan pie.

I think this is a scrumptious menu and we're going to have a good time.

- Thanks so much for inviting us.

- Thanks.

- Thank you so much.

- Thank you all for coming, we're delighted to have you here.

We're going to have a great time.

Hope you have a great time with your family.

Happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.