S2E3: The French Made

The show pays homage to PBS legend Julia Child and shows you how to make an elegant French dinner. They demystify the process and show you easy-to-follow recipes to learn new cooking techniques to uplevel your next date night or dinner party.

Watch the full episode

Recipes from this episode

The Mauresque

Escargot

Coq Au Vin

Fluffer Nutter Creme Brulee

The Mauresque

Yields: 1 Cocktail
Prep Time: 5 Minutes

When we think of French food, we usually pair it with wine, which we love to do, but we also enjoy a cocktail when we’re drinking wine (when we’re doing anything, really). A really fun cocktail to make (and drink) is the very cool and sophisticated Mauresque. This is a bright cocktail, famous for being sipped on terraces in the beautiful Marseilles and in little bistros in Paris. We use an egg white to create a velvety texture, and some pastis because they’re French and delicious, and we like all sorts of pasties, too. This little cocktail gives you a chance to break out your fancy pants without breaking the budget or your brain on the cocktail.

Ingredients:

1 ½ oz gin
¼ oz pastis
¾ oz lemon juice
½ oz orgeat
Fresh dill
⅓ oz egg white
Ice

Directions:

Drop a sprig of dill into your shaker and muddle it (leave some aside for garnish) • Add the lemon juice, egg white to the shaker
Add the pastis and orgeat to the shaker
Add the gin to the shaker
Shake vigorously
Add ice to the shaker and shake again
Let sit for a moment
Shake and pour into a cocktail glass
Garnish with dill
Sip up the good life

Escargot

Yields: 4-6 servings
Prep Time: 25 minutes

Growing up, escargot was one of Matt’s first forays into fine dining, and unique seafood. It's still one of our favorite things to order whenever we get the chance. It’s actually really easy and fun to make, and you can have high class, restaurant quality food whenever you want. Butter, great cheese and walnuts get all hot and bothered and really bring this tasty little app to the next level, and that can bring your next dinner party to the next level, too. We throw a little spinach in there too, for color and to act like we’re eating healthy with some veggies too, but this little dish is pure decadence, like that perfect little black dress that fits just right and is comfortable, too. We think the French Mr. T would say “Treat yourself, fool!”

Ingredients:

1 lb of baby spinach, stems cut off
1 can of snails
1 Tbsp anchovy paste
3 Tbsp broken walnuts
¼ tsp grated orange rind
1 garlic clove, finely minced up
½ C heavy cream
3 Tbsp butter
¼ tsp salt
¼ C grated gruyere cheese
Cooking spray
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Freshly ground nutmeg to taste
Fresh parsley for garnish

Directions:

Chop up the baby spinach, and sauté in 1 Tbsp of butter until wilted, squeeze out all the liquid and set aside
Turn on your broiler
Meanwhile, melt up the rest of that butter in the pan you heated the spinach in • Add the snails, garlic, anchovy paste, walnuts and grated orange and sauté it all for 2 minutes
Add that heavy cream, salt, a little nutmeg and black pepper and sauté for another 2 more minutes
Add in the spinach, set everything aside
Spray your casserole dish or ramekin with cooking spray
Spoon in a snail and mix into each little divot in the dish
Hit it with a little salt, black pepper and nutmeg
Sprinkle with cheese & broil for three minutes
Top with some chopped parsley
Grab those teeny, little forks and take a bite!

Coq Au Vin

Yields: 4 servings
Total time: 2.5 hours (marinade overnight)

Rooster in wine! That’s what this dish is, pure and simple. Originally something made by the working class in France, it’s become one of those baller dishes at the best restaurants on Earth. This is how you can make it at home. Perfect to make with someone, sip some wine, and spill some tea, too. We pair it with some duck fat fried potatoes (pommes baby!), and serve it with wine. Bacon lardons, pearl onions, baby carrots, and cloves give this a rich, complex flavor. We used a bouquet garni to get this dish just right. It provides a flavor that simply cannot be matched, and pair it with a great glass of wine or a killer cocktail and something magical happens. This recipe is a combination of two of our culinary heroes, the late, great Julia Child and the incomparable Anthony Bourdain… May they both rest in peace and enjoy some good wine together.

Ingredients:

1 bottle and 1 cup of a good, full-bodied red wine (we used côtes du rhône, but burgundy, chianti or others will do just fine)
1 white onion, diced
10-12 baby carrots
1 rib of celery, chopped up
4 whole cloves
1 Tbsp whole black peppercorns
3.5 lbs of bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (8 total is ideal)
¼ C of cognac
Salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 Tbsp olive oil
5 Tbsp room-temp butter
1 Tbsp flour
⅓ lb slab bacon, cut into lardons
½ Tbsp of tomato paste
½ lb small button mushrooms, stems cut off
12 pearl onions
1 bouquet garni (take a sprig of flat parsley, 2 sprigs of fresh thyme, and 1 bay leaf, wrap ‘em in cheesecloth, and tie off with butcher twine)
Pinch of sugar
¼ C of cornstarch and ¼ C of water as a back-up to make a slurry to thicken your sauce if it isn’t thickening

Ingredients for Duck Fat Potatoes (serves 4-6)

3 lbs small yellow potatoes, cut in half
1 Tbsp kosher salt
2 Tbsp semolina
Ground black pepper to taste
7 oz duck fat
½ Tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
½ Tbsp fresh thyme, chopped
1 Tbsp chopped green onions, divided (half for garnish)

Directions:

The day before the meal, combine the bottle of wine, the cognac and the tomato paste and whisk really well in a big glass bowl
Add in the bouquet garni, the diced white onion, baby carrots, celery, cloves and peppercorns. Whisk again until it is mixed evenly.

Add in the chicken, submerge it, and cover with plastic wrap, throw it in the fridge overnight
When you’re ready to cook the next day, pull the chicken out, and set it aside • Strain the marinade, separating the solids from the liquids, and set those aside too • Pat the chicken dry
Season the chicken with salt and pepper on both sides
In your big dutch oven, heat up the olive oil and 2 Tbsp of butter until it’s really hot (almost smokin’)
Sear each chicken thigh on both sides until you’ve browned the skin
Throw in one more Tbsp of butter, and add in the reserved onion, carrot, celery and cook over medium-high heat until they are soft, probably 10 minutes
Sprinkle the flour over the cooked veggies and mix well until they’re well coated • Add in the reserved liquid and the bouquet garni
Turn your heat to low, put the top on, and cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes • Get out a frying pan
In that pan, cook your bacon lardons in a saucepan until golden brown, and remove and rest on paper towels
Make sure you’ve kept that bacon fat in the pan and throw your mushrooms until they’re cooked, and pull them out after
Meanwhile, in another small saucepan, throw the pearl onions in there • Throw in some butter (2 Tbsp at least, the pinch of sugar, a couple pinches of salt and enough water to cover the onions)
Throw some foil on top and cook until the water boils off, keep an eye on it and keep moving the onions around so one side doesn’t get burned (we use a wooden spoon to keep the foil on
Once the water is boiled off, add a little butter and keep cooking the pearl onions, once their cooked through, remove those too
Add 1 C of that red wine and scrape up all those bits (aka fond), and add salt and pepper and keep stirring until it is thick enough to coat a spoon
Remove your chicken thighs into a good lookin’ platter, and the carrots, too • Toss out the bouquet garni
Take that cooked wine and add it to the cooked down wine, and stir ‘em for a but until well combined and starts thickening…
Sometimes, we’ll add in a cornstarch slurry here
Now add in the bacon and all the veggies, and 2 more Tbsp of butter and keep stirring until it’s consistent
Pour that over the chicken
Serve with taters and sip and nosh to the finer things, baby (we put the sauce on the taters, too)

Directions for Duck Fat Potatoes

Put the potatoes in a pot, and cover with about an inch of water, and mix in the baking soda
Parboil the potatoes until they are fork tender
Keep ‘em in the pot and drain water, cut ‘em in half
Add the salt and pepper into the pot and shake really hard, beatin’ up the taters a bit • Preheat the oven to 450
In a rimmed baking sheet, heat up the duck fat for 5 minutes until shimmery and smokey a little
Add the taters, toss ‘em in the fat
Roast for 15 minutes, stirring them again, and then throw in the herbs (reserving a Tbsp of green onions for garnish) and roast another 10 minutes until they’re crispy how you want ‘em
Garnish with green onions

Fluffer Nutter Crème Brûlée

Yields: 5-6 servings
Prep Time: 90 minutes (Plus resting time)

One of our favorite luxury items on God’s green Earth? Crème brûlée, baby, and we love every part of it. It’s really a simple recipe, using quality eggs, heavy cream, and vanilla, and we fluff it with some fluff and add in some powdered peanut butter to put that Funk twist on things. It’s incredibly easy to make, as long as you put the time in to get it right. And this is worth your time. Restaurant quality desserts at a dinner party at your crib? You’re getting rave reviews all night. The creaminess and smooth texture with the sweetness and crunch of the incredible sugar is just next level, and let’s not forget our favorite part… Lighting up a blowtorch! Easily the best kitchen tool ever, and we love using it tableside to light up conversation and the faces of your guests (just stay away from their hair).

Ingredients:

4 C heavy cream
2 Tbsp marshmallow creme
2 Tbsp peanut butter powder
8 egg yolks (not the entire egg)
¾ C granulated sugar for custard, separated into ¼ C groups
¼ C for granulated sugar topping
1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
¼ tsp kosher salt

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 320 degrees
Meanwhile, bring a big pot of water to boil on a back burner
Mix the heavy cream, peanut butter powder and marshmallow creme in a blender until smooth, let the bubbles subside
Put the heavy cream, peanut butter powder and marshmallow creme mix into the pot • Heat it over medium heat and stir well, then bring it to a simmer on the edges of the pan, but don’t let it boil
Add ¼ C of the sugar and the kosher salt to the cream mixture and stir to combine one bubbles are forming at the side, remove it from heat
In a medium bowl, mix ¼ C of the sugar with the egg yolks
Slowly, with a thin stream add in about 25% of the heated cream to the yolks, whisking furiously while you do
Now take that warm yolk mixture into the saucepan with the cream, and whisk again vigorously
Whisk in the vanilla extract
Strain this through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl
Take a ladle to evenly distribute the creamy goodness into 8 6-oz ramekins • Put the ramekins in a deep roasting pan, and then pour the boiled water until it fills about halfway up the sides of the dishes
Bake for 1 hour until it is mostly set (a little jiggle is ok, always)
Let the ramekins sit out for an hour to get to room temperature
Throw in the fridge for at least 3 hours (we’re told, but we always go over night)
When it’s time to serve, sprinkle some of the remaining sugar on top, and take a blow torch and carefully (careful, now) turn the top to a crisp sugar layer, and serve immediately