Daniel Boulud Challenges Amateur Cook To Keep Up With Him

Here is Jessica, and today we're cooking a Tunisian brik.

On a scale of one to 10, Jessica, how good are you?

Hmm, maybe a four?

Oh, it's gonna be rough, but it's gonna be good.

I'm gonna help you.

Put 15 minutes on the clock, let's go.

So, Jessica, grab the potatoes, grab the peeler,

and we are peeling that potatoes now.

And you make sure that you make long peel

so it's not waste much of the potatoes except the peel.

[Jessica] Got it.

Now, with the potatoes you're gonna put

the grater in a bowl and go on the large,

and we're gonna grate.

How's the grating going?

[Jessica] Great, Chef!

Jessica, grating a potato take about 30 seconds.

Oops!

How you doing?

Uh, almost there.

And then you have a pot next to you with an induction.

Turn it at 260 degrees and add about

a good tablespoon of olive oil to it, okay?

Let the oil heat up and while you do that,

you're gonna peel the shallots, so you--

Shallot, is that the mini onion lookin' thing?

There's a little mini onion looking thing,

that's a shallot, so peel it, split it,

then we gonna do kind of a little

mirepoix of shallots,

or a little dice of shallots, I will say.

A little bigger than a brunoise, for sure.

It's important that it's also very consistent.

Okay, now we are sweating the shallots,

and while the shallot is sweating,

you take a small clove of garlic,

put the garlic on the board,

we smash it.

Put the garlic in the bowl?

Garlic on the board,

smash it, and chop it,

and add it up to the shallots,

we are already roasting in the olive oil on the pan.

You see your shallots--

Yes.

Cooking?

Okay now you add the potatoes over.

Make it nice and even.

Salt and pepper,

and you have two peppers.

You have espellette pepper and aleppo.

So you're gonna put a little bit of espellette pepper,

which is the finer red pepper,

inside your potatoes.

Okay.

And then we gonna add a little bit of water.

So I would say, about two tablespoon of water,

in the potatoes.

And now we gonna turn it at 300

and cover it and let it cook.

Okay?

So did you notice then, you have tuna on the table?

In the can?

Yes.

Okay.

Take a medium sized bowl,

and you gonna pull about half of the can of tuna there,

out of the jar,

and beautiful tuna in oil.

So you chop it up with the spoon now.

The tuna, you have it in the bowl,

you chop it up with the spoon.

There's capers.

We need about 30 capers.

There's 30 capers, you split them in half.

They tiny little things, they're green.

I don't know capers.

You know what capers is?

Yes, these little tiny green balls?

Yes, 30 of them, split in half.

That's about 30.

I'm kind of like running my knife through it,

that kind of split them in half.

Jess, we have to hurry.

How's your potato doing?

I don't want any color on those potatoes.

Oh.

I want to make sure the potato gets soft,

and maybe you have to add a little bit of water

to those potatoes.

Yes, I think I need water, Chef.

If you put too much water,

you gonna get in trouble with the recipe.

Drop the heat down to 250.

Okay, we have the capers.

Now we have cornichons.

French cornichons.

So the cornichon gets split--

Is that a pickle?--

In four, longwise.

The pickle, if you call it.

I call it cornichons.

Cornichon.

And you split them in four longwise,

and then we run the knife down

to make it a little salpicon.

Un petit salpicon de cornichon.

(Jessica laughing)

That's how they say in French.

Voila.

And now, your fresh herbs.

So we have the parsley, we have the tarragon,

and we have the chive.

Make sure you watch your potatoes.

You want the potatoes to be fully cooked,

well cooked, not too wet.

Now, for the parsley.

Grab the pasley in your herbs,

and so the brush of parsley

is basically hand-break little leaves of parsley.

So I have to use my hands?

Just like you do at home, yeah.

How do you say brush, in English?

Bluish?

Blush?

Sprig.

Tiny little broken sprig of parsley.

So after that, the tarragon gets pulled off the stem,

as mini branch.

I'm guessing that's this one.

Okay.

We gonna chop the tarragon as well.

And the chopping is kind of rough.

Good, but don't have to be fine.

Now you put the brush of parsley

and the tarragon in the bowl.

Blush is in the bowl.

Yes, excellent.

And you take the chive.

Are you keeping your station clean, Jessica?

Because mine is pretty clean here.

[Jessica] Uh--

Okay the chive,

do you see the chive?

Did you get the chive?

Yes, I have chives, Chef.

Okay, so we split it once,

we split it twice,

and we run down

and make a very fine ciboulette.

[Jessica] See-za-lay?

Ciboulette of chive.

It should very, look like a tiny tiny tiny little ring.

Little rings?

Oh.

Yes.

Okay.

Beautiful little rings.

Now, the potato is cook,

and I am putting the potatoes inside the tuna.

And what else do you have in your tuna, Jessica?

I've got cornicons, chive--

So we are mixing the tuna,

you're doing good, no?

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

I'm totally with you.

You feel, totally?

(Jessica laughing)

Okay.

So now you mix those two very very well.

We have to add a little pinch of salt,

and a little pinch of pepper again.

Nice and spicy.

I like it nice and spicy.

Alright we gonna cut some of the vegetables.

So you take the onion, you cut a wedge of the onion,

peel the wedge of onion,

and keep, of course you peel always in the same bowl

you are using as sort of a disposable garbage.

A disposa-bowl, that's a good idea.

Now the onion, I'm gonna, I have a little wedge of onion,

and I'm running my blade down

to create some thin slice of onion, okay?

I don't want thick onion,

because first in my salad, I hate thick piece of onion.

Are we good, Jessica?

Okay, onions in.

Are you there?

Onion done?

Onions in.

So the tomato.

They are little cherry tomatoes there.

Okay.

and you have to--

Cut in half?

You have to remove the pedoncule,

which is that tiny little stem.

Oh, the black dot on it?

Yeah, if you call it like this.

And you cut them in half through the pedoncule.

I don't know the word in English, so good luck.

(Jessica laughing)

Voila.

I have tomatoes, I have cucumber.

So the cucumber,

I just want to make stripes.

Split the cucumber longwise.

I'm trying to make ribbon of cucumber.

Okay.

So basically, you split your cucumber in half--

Split the cucumber in half, got it.

And run your knife into those very long stripe of cucumber

to create some nice little ribbon like that.

Okay.

Okay?

And then once you have done the cucumber,

then you remove a little bit of the seeds underneath.

Remove the seeds.

The radish, we gonna just mash them down and slice.

Okay, nice thin sliced, beautiful.

Are you with me, with the radish?

I got the radish, Chef.

Okay, so you hold the radish by the stem,

and then you run the knife down and make slice, huh?

Hold it by the stem.

You hear my knife?

you hear the noise of my knife?

Yes, Chef.

That's when I cut radish.

Okay, are you good Jessica?

Yes, got radish sliced and cucumber sans seeds.

And yeah, your station should be very clean,

and you should see what you have prepared in front of you,

yeah?

Uh, clean, yes.

Okay, now we gonna grab the fuille de brik.

The who?

Fuille de brik.

So the packaging is kind of a celadon green.

Ah.

Got it.

And inside, you have some disc of brik.

It's in between two parchment paper.

So we take one of them,

and we take both parchment out,

and put the disc of brik on top of your table, okay?

Just move some of this stuff out of the way, okay.

Now we are putting two good tablespoon

of mix on the brik.

Got it.

And you have to kind of make sure

that you put it off the center.

Off the center, front of you.

The large pan you have there,

at 370 degrees, and you are putting

about three or four tablespoon of olive oil.

Now you have an egg on the station.

So you split the egg,

you try to not break the yolk, of course,

and you place that egg in the middle of the brik.

Okay?

The egg goes in the tortilla thing?

Yeah, tortilla.

(Chef laughing)

It's a brik, Jessica.

We have a little bit of egg white.

You can brush a little bit of egg white

on the half-size in front of you, on that disc.

Brush--

We have a grater,

so we are grating some comte cheese on top of the egg.

Okay, grate cheese on top of the eggs.

Grating some comte cheese.

We are grating some lemon on top of the cheese.

Lemon zest.

Got it.

And we are sprinkling some aleppo pepper,

which is of course pepper on top.

Oh yes, the pepper.

Got it.

Now we close the brik.

Okay.

And you give it a little cut on the edge.

I cut the round edge into more of a square edge,

with five faces.

Okay?

There is five face on my brik.

So it should be like hexagon?

Five faces.

Uh, like a hexagon, yes.

Absolutely.

Then we go and put the brik on the pan,

so the side can stick by itself.

Voila, the brik is cooking.

(sizzling sounds)

Got it.

Put a little bit of egg white there.

Now we have a plate,

we're gonna make the salads.

You're doing great, Jess,

but I don't hear the brik cooking yet.

It's cooking.

It's cooking, okay.

So we are arranging a little bit of the salads around.

On the Sunday brunch, this is my favorite dish.

While you are doing that,

there is also, you take the large spoon next to your burner

and you arose the brik.

You have to arose the brik, so the brik can puff up.

How do you arose?

Uh well, because you grab a little bit of oil with the pan

and you put it over, like that.

Oh, I see what you're doing.

And then you put all of the little vegetable

on your salad now.

Okay.

Let's go.

Vegetables on the salad.

How are you doing?

Pretty good, Chef.

And we're putting a little bit of onion on the salad.

Nice and little.

Pretty, like if you were cooking for your mother,

and she'll be so proud of you.

This is--

I don't know if my mother would be proud of this.

This is the kind of family dish

you want to do on Sunday, okay?

I'm turning up my brik, what about you?

Turning it over?

So now we have only 30 seconds left.

Oh no, speed round.

So we are making the vinaigrette.

And that is my grandmother's recipe's vinaigrette,

so it's mustard, a tablespoon of mustard,

a tablespoon of vinegar.

Okay now, the brik has to go out.

Shut your burners, finish your vinaigrette.

Put the brik on the plate.

Yes, if it's cooked yes.

Yeah, seems cooked to me.

Yeah, it's good?

Yeah.

Look good?

Did you fold that brik before?

Yeah, I folded it.

Okay cool, that must be perfect then.

(Jessica laughing)

Where's my spoon?

Voila.

So I have the vinaigrette made.

Salt, pepper, a little bit in the vinaigrette.

The mustard, the tarragon mustard,

because we have also tarragon in the brik,

and this is going just over lightly,

to drizzle over the vegetable.

And then, a little bit of fresh herb again.

A little bit of fresh tarragon to it.

Here and there, couple of leaves.

And voila.

My brik is ready.

Jess, are you done?

Yes.

I show you mine if you show me yours.

I'll show you mine.

Whew.

(laughing)

Oh, very nice.

Pretty good.

Impressive.

Uh-oh.

Maybe overcooked, yeah.

(Jessica laughing)

You see?

It looked beautiful, but I think there's--

Did you put the whole eggs in it?

Oh, the whole egg wasn't supposed to go in?

No, that was just the egg yolks.

Oops.

And it might be a little bit overcooked,

but why did your brik got square?

I don't understand.

I thought you said make it like a hexagon.

Oh, well that's more like a rectangle.

it is a little rectangular.

It don't matter, it don't matter.

I think essentially everything is inside your brik.

It seem to be beautiful.

But you see the egg yolks?

Beautiful it is, and what's important is then look.

It feel tender underneath,

because the egg yolk is still runny.

You take that.

I'll take this one.

Okay.

Well, I like the homey side of yours.

(Jessica laughing)

Where is the eggs?

I can't find the eggs.

It's on the side over there.

Yeah?

I can't find the egg yolk.

What did you do to the egg yolk?

It's in there.

You only put the egg white in there maybe.

It's in there somewhere.

There it is.

Oh really?

All the way on the end.

Oh my God.

You see, my eggs is in the middle,

and look how runny.

My eggs--

It's very delicious.

And do you notice the spiciness?

It's lemony, it's spicy, it's herby, it's light.

It's very light, because it's cooked with olive oil,

and it's only made with potato and olive oil.

It's crispy.

It's crispy.

Jessica, when we started,

you told me that you were a four.

Yes.

So I guess you are consistent,

because I'd give a four to your brik.

(laughing)

Thank you.

That's pretty good, no?

I'm gonna go home and I'll get to a five.

Oh, you'll get to a six or a seven,

because you have tasted mine,

and you understood now how to make it, no?

Yes.