Charcuterie Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets

Raymond Blanc is opening the doors of his kitchen for a journey of discovery.

Cooking is about curiosity, and if I can inspire you to be curious, I'll be a very happy man.

-Divulging the secrets of his simplest...

-Perfectly cooked.

..and most dazzling dishes.

-Glorious food.

-Be inspired by his passion.

Food is so much more than cooking and eating. It's about living, life.

Share the secrets of his success.

The wonderful thing of having cooking secrets is the ability to share them with you.

Tonight on Kitchen Secrets, Raymond shares his love of charcuterie.

Charcuterie, exciting craft.

There's a few tricks to learn, but once you know them, so rewarding.

With traditional French dishes celebrating home-made terrines, pates and cured meats.

To start, a chicken liver parfait uses the cheapest ingredients to create a rich and silky pate.

-It's absolutely delicious.

-Then the French classic pot au feu.

Melting meat and broth make a warm and hearty one pot dish.

It honours all the table whether they are from the rich or indeed from the poor.

And to finish, a delicately marbled terrine of ham hock and vegetables.

It's a dish which really, wow, it's an impressive little dish.

Can you please bring the duck, Adam?

The first dish on Raymond's menu brings together the ancient craft of curing with duck meat.

What I'm going to cook today is a lovely little dish

which is so simple, so satisfying as well,

so full of little secrets, but easy to master.

A simple salt cure transforms duck breasts into ready to eat wafers of duck ham,

served with green leaves, and sprinkled with crispy crackling.

Curing is incredible because it takes the water out,

change the texture completely of the duck so it makes it edible, not just raw meat, but cured meat.

Giving a wonderful texture and flavour.

Working with raw meat means hygiene is particularly important.

Adam? Towel, please. Quickly.

OK.

I'm going to tackle the skin, leaving just two millimetre of skin onto the duck ham.

OK, tres bien.

Raymond leaves a thin layer of fat on the duck breast to protect the meat and give it flavour.

He will use the rest of the skin to make crackling.

So what I'm going to do is to season it a little bit, roll it on itself, deep freeze it.

Now it doesn't look appetising at the moment, but you wait.

It's really stunning.

The rolled duck skin goes into the freezer.

Adam.

OK. So we have our two beautiful breasts of duck.

What I'm going to do now is to cure it.

For curing, first, the main ingredient, beside the duck,

is salt, and always use sea salt rather than rock salt because it has better curing agents within.

To the sea salt, Raymond adds chopped thyme, crushed black pepper and a single juniper berry.

The juniper berry gives that amazing little je ne sais quoi.

Voila.

He scores the duck's fat, then layers the breasts with the curing salt mixture.

The salt will change completely the taste and the texture of this meat.

Voila.

And now you are going to leave the salt to do its job.

For 24 hours.

Adam?

The covered duck is left in the fridge for a day to cure.

Adam. Adam, where have you put the cured ham? Where is it? Here?

Cured? That's the one, yeah.

The salt has pumped out the water out of the protein, OK?

So you will see all these juices here, quite a lot actually,

OK, which has been taken out of that duck.

Washing removes most of the salt.

Cold, of course, not hot.

And now what we're going to do is to wrap it up in a muslin cloth and hang it to air dry it.

So quite loose, not too tight.

The muslin, of course, for the duck is going to be hanged in your fridge,

and so allow the air flow through and still protecting it, OK?

OK, so let's hang it.

The duck hams will hang in the fridge for up to 12 days.

To complement the duck, Raymond picks a selection of fresh salad leaves.

Adam.

HE SPEAKS IN FRENCH

Yeah.

That was testing Adam on his French knowledge.

There is little progress.

Topping off the salad will be the crackling made from the frozen duck skin.

190 degrees for about six to seven minutes and all the fat will have been rendered,

and you have just a crispy, delicious duck skin

and that will provide a delightful crusty, beautiful texture.

After 12 days in the fridge, the duck ham is ready.

Raymond finely slices it.

Once you've cut it thin, you have the perfect mouth feel

and that wonderful flavour which just bursts out.

And serves it with the dressed leaves, a sprinkling of chopped chives...

Just to finish the job nicely.

Crushed walnuts...

Oh, beautiful.

And giving the dish a rich, salty finish, the crispy crackling.

The crispy duck here, wow.

Beautiful colour. That is really delicious.

Beautiful flavour. It's amazing how this raw duck,

just with a miracle of salt, a bit of thyme, I mean T-H-Y-M-E,

and a bit of pepper, cracked pepper, that's it, and you have something entirely different.

If you give me this in your home, I'll be the first to say,

"My god, thank you, thank you, thank you so very much."

Raymond is on his way to Monmouthshire in Wales,

to meet James Swift, a passionate charcutier.

Raymond associates this craft with his region of Franche-Comte,

also home to one of his most beloved delicacies, saucisse de Morteau.

She is beautiful and that's my home,

that's...oh, saucisse de Morteau.

It's a challenge. I would love to see James try to achieve as close to that result here.

I doubt it, I truly doubt it, because it is unique.

Hello, James.

When did you start getting interested, OK, in creating your own charcuterie?

Yeah, it was about seven, eight years ago.

We had these great pig, great meat, but people thought, "Oh, it's too fatty,"

so thinking, "Well, actually, this is a great pig

"for our dried hams, for the sort of meats where you need marbling,"

like saucisson, all these things, and we started experimenting.

I have a very special present.

This is a sausage which is very dear to me because it's from my own little region, OK?

That is the saucisse de Morteau, so we cannot use the same name,

maybe we could do a saucisse de Monmouth.

-Is it OK?

-I would be delighted to try.

-OK.

-Let's try.

Morteau sausage is rich and juicy with a meaty texture.

Made by specialist producers for over 100 years, its deep, smoky flavour will be hard to replicate.

What we're looking for with the saucisse de Morteau is that it has very clear definition between

the meat and the fat, but it's also partly about using the right sort of fat, back fat, which is firm...

-This is back fat?

-Always back fat.

-Nice lardon, nice.

-Yeah.

The meat to fat ratio is just one of the challenges.

Getting the right balance of curing salt, spices and seasoning

will transform the flavour of the meat as it preserves.

What spices do you have here?

We've got mace, cloves, ginger and cinnamon,

and I'm sure you're going to want me to use fresh garlic and not garlic powder.

Definitely. Wonderful.

-And one of us has to get in there with their hands and...

-OK, I understand.

Yeah? OK.

There we go.

-OK, so now you press where?

-That's it.

-Oh!

I'm doing a c'est la vie.

This is professional.

I've got a good saucisse de Morteau and I feel happy with my shape, the size, it's more like my home.

-My ancestors will be very proud of me.

-They would.

-My ancestors will be proud of me.

Raymond's sausages are placed in the smoker for a few days.

These will just sit here, just drying, curing, getting colour.

And then we'll taste this Morteau sausage in my restaurant.

-Will you do me the honour?

-With pleasure.

-Parfait.

Oh, that's lovely.

That's really stunning. That's the best goose I've seen for ages.

Next on Raymond's menu is an easy to make but elegant pate.

A rich and creamy chicken liver parfait, coated with a layer of

seasoned butter, served with crunchy gherkins and crisp toast.

What makes a parfait, I'm afraid to say, is the butter,

is the Madeira, the Porto and the Cognac.

It's not for the heart fainted, but it's really a great dish. You must try it at home.

So we're going to strain the livers, OK?

The livers have been soaked in a mixture of milk, salt and water.

Takes away any bitterness so it will be even tastier.

So, now I'm going to prepare the flavouring of the liver.

Raymond begins by heating a selection of alcohols.

So we'll put 100 gram of port, ruby port.

100 gram of dry Madeira and also 50 gram of Cognac.

The alcohol boils for ten seconds before a chopped shallot and a clove of crushed garlic are added.

Then I'm going to put a bit of thyme.

All the herbs, the shallot, the Porto, the Madeira and the Cognac

reduce down to give that amazing flavour to that pate.

Doesn't look sexy at the moment, but I can assure you, you wait.

The livers are added to the cool alcohol mixture and blended until smooth and silky.

Raymond seasons the mixture with salt and pepper and adds five eggs.

The parfait and egg white will bind it, make it firm.

It's a wonderful simple chemistry.

So just 300 gram of butter that we are going to melt.

So it's just melted, not cold, OK?

Obviously not too hot either because you don't want to cook the liver, OK?

Raymond adds the butter slowly to ensure the parfait doesn't begin to cook.

A final pass through a sieve guarantees silky smoothness.

He then pours the mixture into a lined and buttered terrine.

You can use any loaf tin, you can use any shapes you want to.

It will be more or less the same.

We are now going to cook this terrine in a Bain Marie.

The terrine is placed in a water bath in an oven pre-heated to 130 degrees.

OK, tres bien.

After 40 minutes, the parfait is ready to be tested.

Its centre should be 65 degrees.

Why to be so precise?

Because at 70 degree, all the protein are overcooked and the pate will be grey, grainy and thick.

At 65 degree, your pate will be smooth, pink, it will retain its colour, wonderful texture

and you've got it,

so you see it is the probe between three degree makes all the difference.

The parfait is left to cool down at room temperature before going into the fridge.

-Adam, could I have more pepper, please?

-Yep.

Come on now, can you be a bit more strength, Adam, a bit more oomph.

Nice piece of equipment, not talking about Adam.

Next, Raymond makes a rich, seasoned butter to cover the parfait,

layered with flavours of pepper, cinnamon, orange zest and thyme.

Wonderful, it's a bit like Christmas.

He generously spreads the mixture over the chilled parfait.

It's years since I've done any form of plastering, but

you may say there's a lot of butter, but that makes it a wonderful dish.

I love it very, very much and...

Obviously, you can see I'm not eating it every day,

but at least I eat it, something like that or something similar, at least, once a week.

It's all part of my wellbeing management.

Mmm, it's lovely. It's really lovely. It's smooth, it's silky, it's melting.

Definitely.

-I should be bigger than you, Adam.

-You need to eat a lot more.

Remember, that's a hand of pork and that's the...

Can you go away? I'm getting familiar again with the pig!

Raymond's next dish is the French country classic pot au feu.

This one pot dish is packed with meltingly tender cuts of pork, beef, sausage and vegetables,

and has been elevated to an art form by the French.

I'm going to do a dish which, really, for me, represents so much of French values, French culture.

That dish has survived the passage of time.

It honours all the table, whether they are from the rich or indeed from the poor.

For Raymond, no pot au feu would be complete without a Morteau sausage.

But James has brought an alternative for the pot.

His experimental Welsh sausage is ready to taste.

-I'm very nervous.

-Oh! They are big! They are very big! Oh, they are mahusive.

I must say they look appetising, but I didn't expect no less from you, OK? No less.

That's only the first stage.

OK, Shall we cook them? OK, so...

The two sausages are put to a taste test to see which will make it into Raymond's dish.

Now, shall we taste it?

First the Welsh sausage.

Then the French Morteau.

The smoke, you can taste the smoke more on this one and this one,

you can see the little bits of fat and it's just a burst of flavour.

How much would you give it?

I'd give it eight and a half.

God, Adam, you are too generous.

I thought you might want him to come back!

You've got learn to be more mean, Adam, OK?

Don't surrender so quickly.

Well, I'm not surrendering, but...

I think I'm conceding slightly to hundreds of years of tradition.

It was a good try, but I'm going to stick

with the Morteau sausage.

The skill of pot au feu lies in cooking each

cut of meat perfectly to maximise its flavour without overcooking,

from the hearty ham hock to melting bone marrow.

We cannot find a head, OK, of the beef, but actually

you can find still the marrowbones, OK, if you go to your butcher, OK.

That's a good cure, the ham hock.

Raymond's ham hock has been soaked overnight in water to remove excess salt.

And the ham hock is somewhere here.

I'm not very good at jumping on one leg.

He adds the whole chunks of meat to the pot.

Whatever cuts, throw them in, OK?

But it's up to you. You can put all sorts of meat in here.

You put your bouquet garni, which is bay leaves, thyme, a bit of parsley and parsley stalks.

Now the water,

just cover with water.

Followed by three cloves of garlic and some peppercorns.

I don't use fresh pepper because the peppercorns are

going to release that spice, their strength and their fire slowly.

Now there are remaining impurities.

Proteins are going to coagulate, they're going to be carried to the surface and just skim it off.

Raymond leaves the pot to simmer on a low heat for two hours

to ensure the meat tenderises without falling apart.

Never boil meat. It will shrink, it will be dry, it will be very hard, it will not be very nice.

The meat is cooking. Now we'll prepare the vegetables.

To go with this rustic dish, Raymond chops turnips, onions and celery.

Very rough. It's not a refined dish.

It's a very peasant dish.

So just leave the whole carrots as they are.

Voila, bring the leaves in. It's perfect, no problem.

Then we have the cabbage.

Say to all these people, really, there's very little investment of your time.

Chopping vegetables, if you're very well organised at home, somebody should be doing it for you.

Like Adam.

After two hours, the vegetables can be added to the pot of gently simmering meats.

Of course, you could put potatoes, you could put parsnips, you could all sort of vegetables.

Tres bien, voila. The bone marrow.

Bone marrow is added towards the end of cooking to ensure it's melting and unctuous.

And of course, the winning sausage, the Morteau.

Voila, OK?

And then bring that to the boil, quick skim and then let it simmer for 30 minutes.

After the last half an hour, Raymond is ready to serve his dish, brimming with memories of home.

Look at that beautiful food.

And you've got all your vegetables.

Traditionally served in one big pot, each diner must have a hearty

plateful and taste every cut of perfectly cooked meat.

And the marrowbone, which is beautiful. Look at that.

Oh, c'est delicious.

-For a burst of heat, Raymond serves Dijon mustard on the side.

-C'est tout.

I'm curious about that lovely piece of the hock. It's a great prize.

-The mustard.

-Mmm-hmm.

-And all the goodness of the bone in the broth.

-Mmm, mmm.

-I can't wait for this. Perfect.

-The beef is lovely, yeah.

-Oh, absolutely lovely.

It's such a cheap cut of meat, the flank.

-Mmm.

-And in terms of quality, in terms of flavour, it's really so stunning.

James, thank you very much for the present and the quality was there already, so...

-Pleasure.

-We'll meet again.

-Next time it will win.

-The English are getting more competitive than the French!

-Terrible, isn't it?

For this final recipe, Raymond creates a beautifully refined dish

from some often overlooked cuts of meat.

That's gross, is it? God.

A delicate mosaic of succulent ham hock with tender vegetables

encased in a fine, clear jelly, served with pickled vegetables for bursts of sharp flavour.

What I'm going to do is a beautiful rustic terrine, which will be trapped within its

own jelly, terrine of hock with all the flaked hand of pork with all the vegetables to go with it.

It's a dish which really wow.

So we've got our hock here, that's here.

I'm going to split my pig's trotter.

When cooked, pigs' trotters produce a natural gelatine.

This will help set the terrine.

You don't see pigs' trotters in supermarkets.

You have to go to your butcher and he will provide them for you.

So here we are, put it in here.

-Next, a bouquet garni...

-Voila.

..whole peppercorns and plenty of water to cover the meat.

No salt. That's very important. We've got enough salt, OK, in the hock and now we're ready.

The hock and trotter are left to simmer gently for two hours.

Tres bien.

The gentle heat will fuse all the flavours,

all the aromas and spices and herbs within, gently.

Next, Raymond prepares the vegetables, which will give fresh flavour

and the all-important marbled look to the terrine.

They will create, the vegetables, a mosaic of colour so you'll have

the beautiful pink of the ham hock, you'll have the celery and onions.

It will create a beautiful

still life.

With 45 minutes cooking time left, Raymond adds the vegetables to the pot of simmering meat.

Simply because they would be overcooked otherwise.

Here, they're going to be perfectly cooked, tender and delicious.

The hock is completely cooked, slowly.

My vegetables. Be careful not to break them.

There's our hock, which we're going to cool down here.

The gentle cooking has made the meat meltingly soft and tender.

With the beautiful meat here, you can see.

So what I want to do is to keep three beautiful pieces

for the middle, for the core of my terrine, OK?

Raymond reserves the large chunks of ham for the centre of the terrine and shreds the rest.

-Voila, tres bien. Oh, look at that.

-Even the skin will be used.

And that is absolutely delicious.

Doesn't look like it, but you have to trust me.

When it's cooling down, the stock will jellify with the help of a bit of gelatine.

You could take out the trotter and add three leaves of gelatine

instead of one and a half,

but I love the pig's trotter, it gives it more flavour.

Raymond adds the softened gelatine to the stock and then strains.

-Your stock.

-He will use 400 grams of the gelatine mixture to set the terrine.

I just need to add the vinegar to my stock and that will go so well with the hock, OK?

That's quite rich, dense meat, so you need a bit of acidity inside to make it wow.

Raymond blanches a generous handful of parsley in boiling water.

Then, to keep the colour bright, refreshes it.

Voila.

Thank you very much for the ice.

You just need cold water, you don't need ice.

He adds the chopped parsley and onion slices to the flaked hock.

Then I'm going to add a bit of the stock to mix it together.

A little taste.

The hock has delivered perfectly, perfect seasoning.

You are ready now to fill the terrine.

To a terrine lined with clingfilm, Raymond begins with a deep layer of the hock mixture.

So now you place your vegetables.

Leave it like that.

Voila, so press nicely.

Then you have your hock,

so press on it a little bit.

It's just a builder's job really.

It's home sweet home.

Yeah, so press it very tight.

Move it a little bit about to make sure that the stock has sunk

right through the terrine, so that's what will hold it together.

See, you can see the jus, the stock is right to the top.

And all that you need is 12 hours, just nice in a quiet place, very cold.

And your fridge doesn't have to be as big as that.

Alex McKay, a charcuterie expert and former colleague of Raymond's, has arrived to give his verdict

on the refined terrine.

-So, Alex, what about cutting the bread?

-I can handle that.

So you've got here the beautiful pieces from the hock, OK, the better pieces and you've got

all the parsley here, the carrots, the onions, which create wonderful textures, moisture as well.

The stock is holding it nicely together,

OK, which has been jellified so all that you have to do afterward...

I remember doing this and around about one in every hundred,

we'd forget to take the clingfilm off

and it would come back from the restaurant with a very irate person.

The ham hock terrine is served with intensely flavoured pickled vegetables and crunchy sourdough.

What I like about this is that you know it's jellified but you don't really

-sense that there's jelly in there.

-Right.

Cos the jelly's soaked up into the meat, which is fantastic.

Instead of giving you marks out of ten, I'll give you a squeeze.

-No, no, no, not today.

-And the louder that you shout, the better it was.

Oh! Ah!

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