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Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home

A Cookbook

Author Julia Child, Jacques Pepin

Hardcover

$65.00 US

| $75.00 CAN

Knopf

On sale Sep 14, 1999 | 448 Pages | 9780375404313

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Nonfiction > Cookbooks > International Cuisine

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Two legendary cooks invite us into their kitchen and show us the basics of good home cooking.

Julia Child and Jacques Pépin are synonymous with good food, and in these pages they demonstrate techniques (on which they don’t always agree), discuss ingredients, improvise, balance flavors to round out a meal, and conjure up new dishes from leftovers. Center stage are carefully spelled-out recipes flanked by Julia’s and Jacques’s comments—the accumulated wisdom of two lifetimes of honing their cooking skills. Nothing is written in stone, they imply. And that is one of the most important lessons for every good cook.

So sharpen your knives and join in the fun as you learn to make:

• Appetizers: from traditional and instant gravlax to your own sausage in brioche and a country pâté
• Soups: from New England chicken chowder and onion soup gratinée to Mediterranean seafood stew and that creamy essence of mussels, billi-bi
• Eggs: omelets and “tortillas”; scrambled, poached, and coddled eggs; eggs as a liaison for sauces and as the puffing power for soufflés
• Salads and Sandwiches: basic green and near-Niçoise salads; a crusty round seafood-stuffed bread, a lobster roll, and a pan bagnat
• Potatoes: baked, mashed, hash-browned, scalloped, souffléd, and French-fried
• Vegetables: the favorites from artichokes to tomatoes, blanched, steamed, sautéed, braised, glazed, and gratinéed
• Fish: familiar varieties whole and filleted (with step-by-step instructions for preparing your own), steamed en papillote, grilled, seared, roasted, and poached, plus a classic sole meunière and the essentials of lobster cookery
• Poultry: the perfect roast chicken (Julia’s way and Jacques’s way); holiday turkey, Julia’s deconstructed and Jacques’s galantine; their two novel approaches to duck
• Meat: the right technique for each cut of meat (along with lessons in cutting up), from steaks and hamburger to boeuf bourguignon and roast leg of lamb
• Desserts: crème caramel, profiteroles, chocolate roulade, free-form apple tart—as you make them you’ll learn all the important building blocks for handling dough, cooking custards, preparing fillings and frostings
• And much, much more . . .

Throughout this richly illustrated book you’ll see Julia’s and Jacques’s hands at work, and you’ll sense the pleasure the two are having cooking together, tasting, exchanging ideas, and raising a glass to savor the fruits of their labor. Again and again they demonstrate that cooking is endlessly fascinating and challenging and, while ultimately personal, it is a joy to be shared.

Potato Salads
Potato salad is perfect picnic fare, but it is a good side dish any time of year, dressed and garnished in various styles to suit the season. Julia's American-style potato salad is garnished with hard-boiled eggs and crisp bacon bits, chopped pickles, onions, and celery, all given a light coating of homemade mayonnaise. Make this at least an hour ahead of time so the flavors have time to ripen, and serve cool or at room temperature. Jacques's salad is particularly nice for winter meals -- the hot potatoes are tossed with white wine and oil, sautéed onions, scallions, and garlic. Serve it warm, with slices of hot, homemade sausage arranged on top, or with other meats.

The best potatoes for salad are the firm-textured, low-starch "waxy" varieties, which hold their shape well, such as boiling potatoes, small new potatoes, or delicate fingerlings. All-purpose potatoes with waxy flesh, such as the versatile Yukon Gold, are particularly delicious. Whatever kind you use, dress the potatoes while they are still warm so that they best absorb the flavors, and gently fold in all the dressing and seasoning ingredients in one or two additions only, so the potato pieces don't get mashed from overhandling.

Julia's American-Style Potato Salad
Yield: About 6 cups, serving 4 to 6

2 pounds large Yukon Gold potatoes, or other waxy, boiling potatoes
2 Tbs cider vinegar
1/3 cup chicken stock or potato-cooking water
2/3 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup finely chopped celery
3 or 4 slices crisply cooked bacon, chopped or crumbled
2 to 3 Tbs finely chopped pickle, sweet or dill
2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and sliced thin
3 Tbs or so finely chopped fresh chives or scallions, including a bit of their tender green
Salt and freshly ground white pepper
1 cup or so mayonnaise, homemade if possible (pages 117 and 120)
Sour cream (optional)

For garnishing
Crisp whole red-leaf or other lettuce leaves
Canned red pimiento, diced; sliced hard-boiled eggs; tomato quarters; parsley sprigs (optional)

Peel the potatoes and slice each one lengthwise in half, or in quarters if very large; then cut crosswise into half-round or quarter-round slices, about 1/2 inch thick.

Put the slices in a saucepan with water just to cover and 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt per quart of water. Heat to a simmer, and cook the potatoes for 5 to 6 minutes, or until just cooked through. It is essential that they be just cooked through. Bite into a slice or two to be very sure. Immediately remove from the heat and drain the potatoes into a colander, but save a cup of the cooking liquid for dressing the potatoes. Transfer the potatoes to a large bowl. Stir the cider vinegar with 1/3 cup of the potato water or chicken stock and drizzle this over the potato pieces, turning them gently to distribute it evenly. Let sit 10 minutes to absorb the liquid.

Add the prepared onion, celery, bacon, pickle, hard-boiled eggs, and chives, and season carefully to taste. Top with 2/3 cup of mayonnaise (or a mix of mayonnaise and a bit of sour cream) and, with a large rubber spatula, gently fold everything together until well blended. Taste the salad and add more salt, pepper, or mayonnaise as needed.

Cover the salad and set aside in the refrigerator for at least an hour or so before serving. If it is refrigerated longer, let it come back to room temperature before serving. Taste and adjust the seasoning again.

To serve, line a bowl or a platter with red-leaf lettuce or other greens, and mound the salad on top. Decorate at the last moment, if you wish, with any or all of the optional garnishes.

Jacques's French Potato Salad
Yield: About 6 cups, serving 4 to 6

2 pounds fingerling potatoes or other small waxy potatoes
1/2 cup or so extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup 1/4-inch slices of scallion, green and white parts
1/2 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic, mashed and coarsely chopped (1 1/2 tsp)
1/3 cup white wine
1 1/2 Tbs Dijon-style mustard
2 to 3 Tbs chopped chives
2 Tbs or more coarsely chopped fresh green or purple basil, fresh tarragon, or parsley
1 tsp kosher salt, plus more if needed
1/2 tsp freshly cracked black pepper (coarse), plus more if needed

For serving and garnishing
Large radicchio leaves, about 6, from the outside of the head
1 or 2 hard-boiled eggs, coarsely chopped
Chopped fresh parsley

Scrub the potatoes and put them, whole, in a saucepan with water to cover by 1/2 inch. Bring the water to a boil, reduce the heat, and cook the potatoes gently until they are just tender and can be pierced with a sharp knife. Drain immediately and let cool slightly. (Scrape the skin from the cooked potatoes, if you want, as soon as they can be handled. For a decorative look with fingerlings, scrape off only a band of skin, about 1/2 inch thick, all around the long sides of the potato.)

Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a small saute pan. When hot, add the scallions and the onion, toss to coat well, and cook for about a minute over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, toss to mix, and cook for just a few moments, then remove the pan from the heat.

Slice the potatoes while still warm, cutting them crosswise into 1/2-inch sections. Put the pieces in a large mixing bowl, pour the wine and 3 or 4 tablespoons of olive oil over them, and toss gently to distribute. Add the warm vegetables from the pan, mustard, chives, chopped herbs, salt, and pepper, and gently fold all together, mixing well but not crushing the potatoes. Taste the salad and add more seasonings as you like.

Serve the potatoes warm (no colder than room temperature). Arrange the large radicchio leaves, if you have them, in a close circle on the serving platter, with their curved insides up, to form a rough bowl. Spoon the potato salad inside the leaves, sprinkle chopped egg around the edges, and parsley over the top.

WINNER | 2000
James Beard Award

“Julia Child paved the way for Chez Panisse and so many others by demystifying French food and by reconnecting pleasure and delight with cooking and eating at the table. She brought forth a culture of American ingredients and gave us all the confidence to cook with them in the pursuit of flavor.” —Alice Waters, Chez Panisse

“Julia is . . . the grande dame of cooking, who has touched all of our lives with her immense respect and appreciation of cuisine.” —Emeril Lagasse, Emeril’s Restaurant

“Julia has slowly but surely altered our way of thinking about food. She has taken the fear out of the term ‘haute cuisine.’ She has increased gastronomic awareness a thousandfold by stressing the importance of good foundation and technique, and she has elevated our consciousness to the refined pleasures of dining. Through the years her shows have kept me in rapt attention, and her humor has kept me in stitches. She is a national treasure, a culinary trendsetter, and a born educator beloved by all.” —Thomas Keller, The French Laundry

“Julia freed the American public from their fears of cooking French. By doing so, she greatly expanded the audience for all serious food writers. Her demystification prepared that public for the rest of us. I believe that the television shows based on that landmark book did even more to encourage reluctant cooks to try their hands . . . much to our benefit.” —Mimi Sheraton

JULIA CHILD was born in Pasadena, California. She graduated from Smith College and worked for the OSS during World War II; afterward she lived in Paris, studied at the Cordon Bleu, and taught cooking with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, with whom she wrote the first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. In 1963, Boston’s WGBH launched The French Chef television series. Several public television shows and numerous cookbooks followed. She died in 2004. View titles by Julia Child

Jacques P?pin, celebrated host of award-winning cooking shows on National Public Television, master chef, food columnist, cooking teacher, and author of nineteen cookbooks, was born in Bourg-en-Bresse, near Lyon. His first exposure to cooking was as a child in his parents? restaurant, Le Pelican. At thirteen years of age, he began his formal apprenticeship at the distinguished Grand Hotel de L?Europe in his hometown. He subsequently worked in Paris, training under Lucien Diat at the famed Plaza Athenee. From 1956 to 1958, Mr. Pepin was the personal chef to three French heads of state, including Charles de Gaulle.

Moving to the United States in 1959, Mr. Pepin worked first at New York?s historic Le Pavilion restaurant, then served for 10 years as director of research and new development for the Howard Johnson Company, a position that enabled him to learn about mass production, marketing, food chemistry, and American food tastes. He studied at Columbia University during this period, ultimately earning an MA degree in 18th-Century French literature in 1972. Deciding then to devote much of his time to writing, he authored two groundbreaking step-by-step books on French culinary technique, La Technique (1976) and La Methode (1979). These works, and others that followed, earned him a place in the James Beard Foundation?s Cookbook Hall of Fame in 1996, an honor bestowed each year on one author whose contributions to the literature of food have had a substantial and enduring impact on the American kitchen.

Mr. P?pin?s newest ventures are a public television series and companion cookbook, both entitled Jacques P?pin Celebrates! Featuring recipes for holidays and celebrations, the series--his seventh produced by KQED, the PBS station in San Francisco--is scheduled for initial broadcast in the Fall of 2001 to coincide with the publication of the companion cookbook by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Mr. P?pin is also currently featured in a twenty-two show series with Julia Child entitled Julia and Jacques: Cooking at Home, which premiered on public television in September 1999. An earlier series he co-hosted with his daughter, Jacques P?pin?s Kitchen: Encore with Claudine, was named Best National TV Cooking Show at the James Beard Awards in May 1999, and its predecessor, Jacques P?pin?s Kithen: Cooking with Claudine, was a James Beard Award winner (Best National Cooking Segment ) in 1997. His other public television series include the acclaimed Jacques P?pin?s Cooking Techniques and three successful seasons of Today?s Gourmet with Jacques P?pin.

Mr. P?pin?s writing career began in earnest in the 1970s, when he authored the two aforementioned groundbreaking step-by-step books on French culinary technique: La Technique (1976) and La Methode (1979). These works, and others that followed, earned him a place in the James Beard Foundation?s Cookbook Hall of Fame (1996). His most recent cookbooks include Sweet Simplicity: Jacques P?pin?s Fruit Desserts (1999) and Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home (1999), companion cookbook to the series of the same name, was selected best cookbook of 1999 by the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) and The James Beard Foundation at their annual awards ceremonies in the Spring of 2000.

A former columnist for the New York Times, Mr. P?pin writes a quarterly column for Food & Wine. He also participates regularly in the magazine?s prestigious Food & Wine Classic in Aspen and at other culinary festivals and fund-raising events worldwide. In addition, he is a popular guest on such commercial TV programs as The Late Show with David Letterman, The Today Show, and Good Morning America.

Mr. P?pin is the recipient of two of the French government?s highest honors: he is the Chevalier de L?Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1997) and a Chevalier de L?Ordre du Merite Agricole (1992). He is also the Dean of Special Programs at The French Culinary Institute of Wine and Food, a member of the IACP, and is on the board of trustees of The James Beard Foundation. He and his wife, Gloria, live in Madison, Connecticut. View titles by Jacques Pepin