Episode 2 MasterChef: The Professionals: Michel's Classics

Only an elite group of chefs holds two Michelin stars.

Michel Roux Junior is one of them.

Two Saint Jacques au passe now.

He has given us a taste of how to create the great classics.

Tonight is the masterclass.

Perfect.

Michel Roux Junior was born into a culinary dynasty

and continues his family's tradition of excellence.

I've worked for Chef Michel for over three years now.

You can just see in his face

and his emotion that he is so passionate about what he does and how he executes dishes.

Just watching him work is fantastic. It's effortless and just flows like clockwork.

He can multitask no problem. Even for a male!

The first dish I'm going to do is a consomme de boeuf a la royale.

A beef consomme served with a royale, which is a custard.

This particular consomme I once saw served at the Elysee Palace for a special banquet.

The consomme royale, it is stunningly superb.

I still don't think any chef could top it like Chef Michel does.

This is extravagance. It's a consomme taken to the ultimate level.

First of all we have to make the garnish. This is obviously a savoury custard, not a sweet custard.

Single cream, egg yolk.

Seasoning - salt, white pepper.

Then we just pour this custard into the Dariole moulds.

We then put a little bit of water in here.

The Dariole moulds get covered in aluminium foil and go in a medium oven, around 120 degrees centigrade.

So we've got our stock. The next job is to intensify the flavours using chopped vegetables and the beef.

Carrot, shallot, celery,

beetroot, tomato

and mushrooms.

Now for the beef.

All the chopped vegetables, chopped beef in the bowl.

And we're going to add some egg white. Just a little bit.

And mix it all up.

A consomme is always a clear soup.

To make the soup clear, you have to clarify it - remove the impurities.

The protein cooking from the raw beef and the egg white catches all the impurities in the stock

and they make a thick cake on the top. See the cake is starting to form?

Just coming up to simmer. It's all setting.

Now I'm going to flavour the consomme with a bit of Madeira to add sweetness and colour to it.

And a little bit of salt. It has to carry on cooking very, very gently.

The second garnish that I want with the consomme is little balls of vegetable.

These are going to look like little pearls in our consomme.

-You look fed up.

-No, no, I'm watching and learning.

-Maybe I can pull something off like that.

-You've done consomme here before.

-Not like that.

Right. The consomme has been simmering for about 15, 20 minutes

and you can see this top here of set egg white.

It's lifted all the impurities out of the consomme. 15 minutes ago that was cloudy. Now crystal clear.

We now need to gently pass the consomme through a fine muslin cloth.

Mmm.

Crystal clear.

The little custards have been resting now and they should be quite manageable and easy to get out.

There they are.

Now I'm just going to decorate the custard with a bit of pure, edible gold leaf.

It's very extravagant, but this is what's going to make it royal.

This gold leaf doesn't really have a taste, but it's beautiful

and some say it's an aphrodisiac.

Ideally, I want this to be... That's it.

We're nearly there. Got a lovely, generous spoonful of caviar on top.

And, finally, the consomme.

Mmmm.

Beautiful, crystal clear consomme with the vegetables

and gold-covered custard.

Consomme de boeuf a la royale.

Beef consomme fit for a king!

This is a particular favourite of mine. I remember cooking this for my daughter's christening,

many years ago. The classic recipe is calamars farcis au riz sauvage.

Calamari or squid stuffed with wild rice.

It's not easy to get right

or to elevate it to fine dining.

The first job is to drain this wild rice and cook it like a pilaf rice,

with chopped onion, but I'm going to add peppers to that and saffron.

And then we're going to add our lobster stock. The stock has already been warmed through.

This comes up to a boil as quickly as we can, lid on,

and into the oven.

There we go. Next job...

We're going to steam the mussels.

Steam them in a little bit of dry white wine.

They're cooked. Put them on the side.

The rice has been in the oven 20-25 minutes

and has absorbed all that liquid.

To the wild rice we add the egg yolk to bind it, to help set this rice in the squid.

It's vital that it's like this and not too wet.

If it's too wet, it won't hold.

Now we take the squid and we're going to fill it with the wild rice, but you have to be patient

and push it in without damaging the squid, without making any holes.

And then...sealed

with this little wooden stick. There we go.

That is ready to poach now in the lobster and mussel stock.

And...

our lovely squid goes in there. It's going to take no more than about 10 minutes.

This is the head of the squid, the lovely tentacles. I've removed the beak because it's inedible.

Fry these little tentacles here. They spit. That's the idea.

And whilst they're cooking, I want to take out the squid.

And leave that to drain and rest and just firm up that lovely egg yolk and rice before I cut it.

The final garnish for this dish - the mussels.

Just toss them in a little bit of garlic butter.

We are now ready. The moment of truth - cutting the squid.

I'm shaking. It's that time.

Mm, that looks good. It's holding.

Still holding! And one more slice.

This one's the most delicate slice.

That looks very good. Very pleased.

OK. Time to plate up.

Tentacles...

Our mussels.

And, finally, a few drops of the sauce.

And that, for me, sings of the Mediterranean.

It's got class.

This takes me back a few years and pulls strings of my heart.

This classic dish is one of my all-time favourites. It's poulet de Bresse en vessie.

Bresse chicken, the king of all chickens, cooked in a pig's bladder.

Cooking in a pig's bladder has been going on for centuries. Modern chefs use water baths and vacuum pouches.

It's nothing new.

For this I'm going to use a poulet de Bresse, which is north of Lyon.

It's a very famous area for its poultry. They are glorious chickens, but not cheap.

They are very expensive.

The chicken cooked in pig's bladder is another classic to the restaurant.

It's one of those iconic dishes that's spectacular when it's served.

The lovely poulet, topped with truffles and rich Madeira sauce.

What more could you ask for?

Pigs' bladders are sold dried like this. It needs to soak for a couple of hours to make it supple

and pliable. It doesn't... It doesn't smell bad. It just smells a bit piggy.

This is going to impair a lovely taste to whatever we cook.

First of all you take the wings, head and feet off.

And then we proceed to take the giblets out.

We then run our knife each side of the wishbone to remove that.

It makes it easier to carve afterwards. There we go.

Next step, we want to put some truffles under the skin.

Very, very gently run your finger underneath the skin,

but being very, very careful not to break that skin. A few drops of olive oil on the truffle.

That will help to slide these slices of beautiful mushroom under the skin.

In French we call this poulet demi deuil - a chicken in mourning - because you can see the black.

We have strange ways of describing food in France, but I think it's very appropriate.

Then we move on to our bladder.

Turn it...

a little bit like this. Open it up.

The chicken

sits...

inside.

We now need to add white chicken stock.

A little bit of truffle juice.

Now...a bit of Madeira.

What I do now is knot this.

To make doubly sure, we get a bit of string around there

because the last thing we want is for any of that steam to escape.

The chicken now needs to go into simmering water for 75 minutes,

just gently steaming in its own lovely little bag.

Wonderful.

Every now and then, just give it a little turn, so that we're getting the chicken to cook on both sides.

But it's very important that it should be just, just ticking over

As the chicken is poaching, I'll make the sauce

which is a sauce made with the wings the feet and the neck that we've kept.

A few shallots...

The shallots have got just a little bit of colour, more truffle juice...

More Madeira.

Madeira and truffle juice, just, hmm, a perfect, perfect match!

The Madeira and truffle juice has reduced down. Now we put some chicken stock...

We then strain that out

and we're going to get all the flavours.

So we have the cooking juice, the basis of our sauce here.

Now I'm going to add the cream and boil it down until it's that required thickness.

The sauce is almost ready. It just needs to come up to the boil and reduce down a bit.

The chicken has been cooking for an hour and 15.

It hasn't leaked.

You can see all the liquid in there.

In the restaurant, it would come out to the diner like this,

presented to the customer as is. I think it looks beautiful.

A skilled maitre d' would whip it open, reveal the chicken.

The wonderful smells and aromas fill the restaurant.

All the guests of the restaurant have got a whiff of this

and they go round and look and they think, "Wow, what is he eating? I want to order that."

That's the effect this dish has on the customer.

Here we go.

We reveal the chicken.

The smell is just unbelievable, unbelievable.

I always serve this in a deep bowl.

You need plenty of sauce, plenty of juice.

The drumstick...

And finally, this lovely cream sauce just a few drops.

It really doesn't get much better than this.

This dish is immense.

For me, this is simplicity. It's what I was brought up on.

It's great, classic cuisine.

I'll now cook a pied de cochon farci aux morilles - pig's trotter stuffed with morels and sweetbreads.

Pig's trotters need long, slow cooking to render down that collagen

and the skin to make it tender.

This is delicious. It's a true delicacy.

Not for the faint-hearted.

Here we have the pig's trotter, so we are literally going to take the bone out, but leave it whole.

I first came across this dish many years ago, cooking for a great chef called Pierre Koffmann.

He could bone out a pig's trotter in under a minute.

To bone out a pig's trotter without piercing the skin,

it's a very good demonstration of the chef's butchery skills.

You see chef Michel,

he's so precise and accurate,

managing to not nick even the slightest bit of skin.

So we have a lovely, clean trotter.

The next job is to prepare a mirepoix. "Mirepoix" means an aromatic vegetable garnish

to cook or braise the pig's trotter on.

And now for the port.

And now stock goes on top.

It comes to the boil, put a lid on and into a medium heat oven

for about an hour and a half, sometimes two.

Now that the pig's trotter is in the oven cooking, I can make the chicken mousse for the stuffing.

Take your chicken supreme, remove the skin.

And it then gets blitzed with a little bit of egg white.

So now we have to press this chicken paste through a fine sieve,

so there are no more impurities and no sinew or pieces of bone.

That's it.

I've put this chicken puree in a bowl over ice to keep it nice and cold,

so we can beat in the double cream.

Beat that in gently, so there are no lumps.

This mousse has to be light and airy,

but strong enough to bind all the ingredients together to go into the pig's trotter.

That's it.

I'll wrap up this chicken mousse and keep it cold and prepare the rest of the stuffing.

The stuffing is made up of sweetbreads, fresh butter...

..shallots

and a few dried morels.

Hmm, that smells beautiful!

I remember as a kid eating sweetbreads and it was one of my favourite dishes that my mum cooked

braised sweetbreads with saffron. She used to make fresh pasta with that and a cream sauce. Delicious!

That's it.

This is piping hot

and you can't mix that into the cold mousse or it will spli the mousse completely.

Once it's ice-cold, fold it in together.

Good.

Our pig's trotter should be cooked.

You take it out the oven and you can immediately smell that lovely pork and port wine.

It smells beautiful.

And it's easy to push the point of a knife through, so it's tender, it's fully cooked.

Now we can stuff our trotter.

As you can see, we open it up and fill that cavity with the stuffing

and roll it up to its original shape...

..making sure it's nice and tight.

And in it goes to the steamer

for about 20 minutes,

just enough time to cook that stuffing through.

With the pig's trotter, you have to take care because obviously it's stuffed,

so you need to make sure that that's not overcooked,

but the pig's trotter is very tender.

If you get served a tough pig's trotter, you're chasing it all around the plate.

Oh, yes!

That is the perfect pig's trotter, absolutely beautiful,

back to its original shape, except it's fully cooked,

lovely and tender on the outside and stuffed with delicious morels and sweetbreads.

All it needs now is a big dollop of creamy mashed potato.

And a tiny drizzle

of this lovely, sweet, sticky sauce.

To me, this is what comfort food is all about.

It's sticky, it's sweet, it's delicious.

A great classic,

a lot of work, but well worth it.

This dish would have to be one of those that sits at the top of my list in favourite dishes.

The bitter chocolate and raspberry tart.

Chocolate is indulgent and special. It has to tick all the boxes of a great dessert,

the ultimate pleasure, and it has to look beautiful. It has to scream out, "Eat me!"

The first job is the sweet pastry - sifted flour,

the soft butter in the centre along with the sugar.

The egg yolk...

A tiny pinch of salt.

Now we start to bring in the flour,

using the fingertips, a delicate touch.

So once you have achieved this kind of a sandy texture,

now you take the palm of your hand and you're pushing away.

This is not kneading, but it's bringing the dough together.

I did my apprenticeship at the age of 16,

learning how to make beautiful pastries in a shop in Paris.

It takes years of experience.

That's it, that's the consistency we want.

It's wrapped in clingfilm, so that it doesn't dry out.

That goes in the fridge quickly.

Now we need to get the ganache on, so the liquid glucose goes into the pan

with the cream, brought up to the boil.

Take the pan off the heat.

We incorporate the bitter chocolate and the butter.

This makes a really beautiful, rich, shiny ganache,

so we can leave that there and come back to it later.

20 minutes later, the sweet paste should be set and ready to roll.

The pastry should be about two millimetres thick.

So now I'm going to put this in the oven to bake at 180 degrees centigrade for about 15, 20 minutes.

It has to be fully cooked.

Now the base is cool and we can put our raspberries in here.

The chocolate ganache...

Hmm!

Just shake it a bit. That's it.

Now quickly into the blast-chiller or the fridge to set. I don't want it solid.

When I cut into it, it has to be soft.

This is a dessert. It has to be beautiful and fun.

Now...

Hmm!

That's great.

You can see the raspberries, that lovely chocolate ganache.

And the pastry is not too thick, but cooked all the way through.

Little bit of coulis - I think it works really well.

Nice colour. Now for the chocolate decorations.

There we go.

It's extravagant, it's fun, but above all, it's delicious.

All these classics are a very important part of my life.

That's why it's such a joy to cook them.

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