Spaghetti Flambe | The French Chef Season 7 | Julia Child

Julia Child shares another gem to add to your treasury of three-course dinners. Everyday ingredients put together with a flare.

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Cooking legend and cultural icon Julia Child, along with her pioneering public television series from the 1960s, The French Chef, introduced French cuisine to American kitchens. In her signature passionate way, Julia forever changed the way we cook, eat and think about food.

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-This is a very special dinner featuring Spaghetti Marco Polo and apples Alaska and flaming bourbon whiskey. See which one gets the torch today on "The French Chef." ♪♪ -"The French Chef" is made possible by a grant from the Polaroid Corporation. -Welcome to "The French Chef." I’m Julia Child. What can you do when you have apples and spaghetti and company for dinner? Well, you can make a spaghetti dinner flambé, and what we’ve got here is a very nice main course of spaghetti with a very special sauce that you don’t have to cook, and you have apples Alaska, which are flamed in bourbon whiskey. And I’m going to start with the apples because they take the longest to cook. And I think my flames have died out. I better let… I’ll let them be for a while so that they don’t burn me up. Now, this is an apple dish in which the apples are baked in wine, and then they’re covered with a meringue. And for this, of course you have to have apples that will hold their shape, and they have to be cored, so I’m just going to core them by aiming the corer directly from one end to the other. I find if you don’t pay rather careful attention, you can have the corer come out to the side of the apple and make rather a mess of it. But I’ve had some horrifying experiences with apples, I must say, and I just don’t want to take any chances with an apple that’s going to collapse on me. I just have had it happen too much, and although I could use other apples, I’m using the Golden Delicious because I find that it really does hold its shape, and you don’t have any horrible disappointments with it. I have… Every once in a while, I’ve done something, like with McIntoshes, and the whole thing has collapsed on me. And I’m going to use this very trustworthy Golden Delicious apple now. I know that it’s… Depending on what part of the country you’re in, you can get apples that hold their shape, like York Imperial and so forth. And… But I think though the Golden is sometimes rather expensive, it is always trustworthy. So with that in mind, I’m going to start peeling it. Now after it’s cored, a good thing to do is to cut a little piece off the bottom… …so that the apple will stay in position, and then just peel round and round and round. I don’t think the vegetable peeler works very well for apples. This one, because it’s going to have a meringue on the top, you don’t have to be as neat as a pin, but it’s always good practice to peel things neatly anyway. There, that’s just purely peeled, and then to keep the apple from darkening when you’re doing several, doing more than one, it’s a good idea to rub them with lemon, and so just have a good, fresh lemon and cut it and… then squeeze lemon on the outside. It also gives flavor, and it also keeps it from darkening. Then squeeze a little lemon right down through the core, and then in they go to a heavily buttered dish, and also to give a little extra flavor, I’m going to cut some peel very, very thin and put that in to cook along with the apples. I’m not going to do… These have such a nice flavor, I’m not going to put any very fancy flavorings in except mostly lemon. I’m not going to put… I’m not going to put… …a lot of cinnamon and other stuff in, and there’s a little bit more lemon, and then I’m going to fill them, and I have some of this Nesselrode, which is a fruit mixture left over from a cake that I made a long time ago, a cake with a halo, a St. Honoré. I’ve had this stuff in the icebox for, heavens, months, and it keeps perfectly. It’s very useful to have on hand when you have a dessert like this. It’s made out of glacéed fruits and a little sugar syrup and some rum, not very much, very mild and then some marron. It’s really a very nice mixture. And a bit of sugar over and a bit of vermouth or dry white wine, whichever you prefer, about 1/2 an inch of vermouth… That’s probably maybe 1/2 cup… and sugar, and this would depend on what kind of apple you’re using and how sweet they are. I’m putting in, for these four apples, about not quite 1/3 cup because I can always add a little more sugar later if necessary, and then about a teaspoon of the best butter over each. Nothing like that lovely taste of butter, and that’s not a great deal, so that would certainly not harm anyone, even if they were on a diet, and then these go into the oven to bake. And this should bake in a 350-degree oven for about 30 to 40 minutes, and you want to take them out and baste them. Take a ball baster and suck over these buttery juices over them about every 15 minutes because that makes them taste very good indeed, and then they’re ready when you take a knife, and the knife pierces them easily. But you want to be very careful that you don’t overcook them. As you see, these hold their shapes very nice, but they’re not overcooked, and they are tender, and that’s one of the nice things about the Golden Delicious apple that it does. It is reliable. So I’ll put these apples in. And these, you can bake ahead of time, and then you can reheat them. They reheat very nicely if you’re just very careful that you don’t let them overcook because it’s nice, I think, in this dish, to serve them warm because they seem to have a more attractive flavor. Now… Of course, naturally you could serve them just as they are, or you could flame them just as they are, but I don’t… Then it would just look like a plain old baked apple, and what we want is something rather fancy. I think that’s one of the nice things about French cooking is that you can take something very simple like a baked apple, and then you put an elegant dress upon it, and you really have something that’s very stylish. And this is going to be with a meringue, and I want to put them on some little cakes first… …because it’s nice for them to sit upon something. And this is just pound cake, store-bought pound cake that I toasted in the oven until it was lightly brown on both sides, or what you also could do would be little croutons of white bread sautéed in clarified butter. This is clarified butter. As you can see, what it is, is the butter that’s been melted, and then there’s a milky residue down at the bottom. If I dig it up, you can see what that is, and then the clear butter on top, the clear liquid on top is clarified butter. I’m just going to put a little tiny bit of butter on that. It’s probably not even 1/2 teaspoon, but that’s going to give that lovely taste that’s so nice. And then they should have a little bit of… a little more flavoring now, which is going to be a little bit of strained apricot jam. Apricot jam, I don’t know how the French would’ve ever gotten along without apricot jam because they seem to have that on all their desserts, but it gives a very… a nice flavor with the apples because it blends in with them and gives… You don’t really quite know what it is that has given that very nice flavor, and it turns out that it was apricot jam all along. And now the apples are going to sit upon these, and this is a good idea always to have a little footing because it tastes good, and it also makes them easy to serve. And this is… They’re going to have… The apples are going to have meringue on them like this. And… Let me see. I’m going to put the apples upon the… upon these little cakes. We have all of this nice juice, which is going to be turned into an automatic sauce. I’m going to put that over to the side. Now to make the meringue, and a meringue, as you know, is simply beaten egg whites and sugar, and as we’ve already done a number of egg whites, I already have them beaten, and I’m just going to beat in some sugar. It’s useful to know that you can beat them ahead of time. Now, when you’ve got your egg whites nicely beaten like that, then you want your sugar, and we have… I have two egg whites here, and I’m going to beat in gradually 1/3 cup of sugar. And you beat it in rather gradually. Now take a look and see how this is. See, that holds it shape well enough for this kind of work, and these are… I always use large eggs. I think that it’s useful when you’re cooking to know, always use the same kind of egg, and then you always know what your proportions are. There, that was that final lick, and notice for every two egg whites, which is 1/4 cup, you use 1/3 cup of sugar. And I think…And when you’re putting the meringue on the eggs… meringue on the eggs… the meringue on the apples, it’s easier to do it, the apple, separately and then arrange them on your little dish. And I forgot. Also I want to put some vanilla into the meringue because it gives it a little more taste, about 1/4 teaspoon, and just stir that in. That gives it a little more interest. Now the meringue over the apple. This really just needs to be stiff enough so it’s going to hold itself around the apple, and then it’s going to be baked. I’m going to leave a little bit of a space around the opening there around the top. Now let me see that I got it… Got a… Missed a little bit down below. There. Now the apple onto the platter. There. There. And those are now all ready to go into the oven and bake, and that’s a very quick thing to do. And these, you can prepare a bit ahead. I did prepare some of them ahead, and they… It’s begun to disintegrate very, very slightly, not very much. So it’s better not to do it too far ahead. These go into a 500-degree oven, and they’re going to bake for exactly 2 minutes, possibly a little less. You just want them to brown lightly, and then immediately take them off. And while they’re browning, I’m going to make a little sauce for them, and this is the apricot jam, I think. And you simply pour the juices from the apples into the apricot jam and let it boil up. Stir it all up nicely and then taste it. Let me get a little… so that I can be utterly sanitary always and taste and see how it is. It’s very good as well it might be with all that wine and butter and lemon and everything else in it. And I’ll just put that to the side. Now the apples are practically done. We have our spaghetti, which, after all, this is a spaghetti dinner. Here’s some boiling water, and here’s 1 pound of spaghetti, and we’re going to serve four people, so I’ll use about half of it, and in she goes. I’m never… Really with pasta, I’m never sure exactly how to put in. I always am afraid I’m not… [ Timer dings ] There’s my bell. I’m going to go quickly and see how these apples are. I don’t… I think it’s dangerous to leave them too long. Going to leave that just about another 1/2 minute more and put salt into the spaghetti, and I’m going to say immediately that this is not an Italian spaghetti recipe. This is for those of us who are non-Italians but like spaghetti anyway. And I’m going to go to put a little bit of oil in there because I think that oil sometimes prevents the spaghetti from boiling over. And I’m going to go back to those apples, which I think ought to be properly done. Yep, that’s fine. Now, this is interesting. There they are, but this is the one that I did last, and these were the ones that I did ahead of time, and I think it’s a… They both look good, but I think if you’re going to do some ahead and some last, that’s not a good idea. It’s better to do them all the same way. And now we have a spaghetti sauce to do. That dessert is done. You can keep them in the warming oven for… heavens, for a good hour. And I have ingredients for my spaghetti sauce here. I think you’re going to like this sauce because it’s an unusual one, and it doesn’t have the ever-present ubiquitous tomato in. It’s going to start out with 2/3 cup of chopped walnuts. And it’s going to be called a sauce Marco Polo, and then about 1/2 cup of chopped black olives, and those you can buy, chopped black olives, in the supermarket in little cans. And then we’re going to have some pimiento. Now, what’s nice about this sauce is it is an uncooked sauce, so it’s easy to do, and it’s unusual. And I want about 1/2 cup of chopped red pimiento, and pimiento, as you know, is simply just red… ripe red peppers which have been peeled and canned. And be sure that you don’t get the ones that are packed in vinegar. These are just packed in a very little, light brine, and they get chopped up. They go into the bowl. Then there is some parsley, and a nice, big handful of parsley. I don’t know how you would measure. I would say, "Well, put in 1/3 cup of chopped parsley," but I don’t know really how you measure parsley, how hard you’re supposed to pack it down. And then that just gets stirred up, and there should be a bit of salt and pepper… …to taste. And be sure to use pepper in a pepper grinder because it’s nice and fresh and has the best flavor, and then a bit of salt, and it’s going to have some basil in. That’s about… How much salt would that be? Just the right amount, about maybe 1/4 teaspoon, and here about 1 teaspoon of very freshly smelling basil. If you have your own herb garden and have fresh basil, that’s even better. Now that is… That’s the basis for your sauce. I’ve got a little bit more, but I’ll go over those ingredients again, which is 2/3 cup of chopped walnuts, and 1/2 cup chopped black olives, and 1/2 cup of chopped red pimientos, and 1/3 cup of chopped parsley, however you measure that, 3/4 to a teaspoon of basil and salt and pepper to taste, and you can get that all done ahead of time. And it is now, I would say, time to test the spaghetti. And it should be al dente. It’s definitely bad form if it isn’t. You really have to taste it. I don’t think that’s really quite as al dente as it… I’m going to say that that is just al dente, and it is now ready to be drained. So we’ll just have to have a little trip over to the sink. And just shake it well out, and be sure when you’re doing spaghetti that you get what is called semolina, which means number one semolina, very hard durum wheat, and that’s not… That’s d-u-r-u-m, dur from hard. I guess that’s Italian or Latin. And now the flavoring, it has a little bit of oil in, about 2 or 3 tablespoons full, and then some garlic, and I always use the garlic press. I know there’s some people who are rather like the princess in the pea, and they say, "Oh, I always tell when garlic has gone in with a press because I can taste the metal." Well, I’m certainly… I’m not that princess. I can’t taste a thing, and I think it’s a great invention. And that just gets turned around a little bit, and then in goes the spaghetti. And that gets tossed around. I think always using this method of the pan of tossing it, which is very good, and then it should have some salt and pepper. I don’t know what I’ve done. Here’s my pepper way over here. You know, they say that spaghetti is really Chinese, and that’s why I call this Marco Polo, for his presumably bringing spaghetti back, so I think it’s only fitting then to stir the spaghetti with chopsticks. And then it should be… That’s just to keep it warm. When you really… When you cook spaghetti, you should serve it at just really the last minute and then taste it to make sure that you got enough salt and pepper in. Very nice. That garlic is just delicious in it, and you really… you really could eat it just like that, but I’m going to be a little fancier. And this is now… As soon as you’ve gotten to this point, you should really serve it immediately. There it’s on a nice platter, and on goes the spaghetti… …and with my… separating it a bit with the chopsticks. And I think it’s important to put… Always have a little bit of oil on the spaghetti before you put any sauce on because if you don’t, sometimes the sauce sticks on it, and it isn’t… I don’t know. I just think it’s better to flavor the spaghetti first and then put on your sauce. And it looks, I think, very pretty that way. You can serve it that way, or you could beat it, toss it. I think I’ll toss it so that you can see how it looks. But if you haven’t ever had this spaghetti with walnuts and olives and pimientos, I think you’re going to find it absolutely delicious, and it’s a very simple, and it’s a very pleasant change from the usual meat and tomato and other things that one usually has. And it’s really… It’s rather light and nice, and also, it’s not too oily, which I think sometimes you run into. Now we are just about ready to go in and serve all of this. There. There is the spaghetti, and with spaghetti, pass a little bowl of Parmesan cheese along, and then everyone can help themselves to it. And all you need with it is a nice, tossed green salad and a good old Chianti wine served in an Italian fiasco for this Chinese-type of spaghetti, and that makes a really very nice main course, and you could have a first course, say, something like a brochette of flounder, which would be very nice, or some… Because this is a meatless dinner, you could have some fish to begin with. And then we have our flaming apples. There we go. Let me put a little bit of flaming bourbon whiskey over the apples and then serve them. And I want you to see how they look when they’re served, and we have this very nice little, remember, the sauce that was made out of the white wine and the cooking juices to pour that around, and then just put a little bit more of the flaming bourbon on the apple as you serve it. Then I’m going to cut one open so you can see how it looks. See, there you are with all that nice filling, and actually the flame has died down now, and I’m going to serve another one so we can see the full drama. Get another bowl here. There. That’s all for today on "The French Chef." This is Julia Child. Bon appétit! ♪♪ ♪♪ -This program was made possible by a grant from Polaroid Corporation. ♪♪ ♪♪ Julia Child is the author of "From Julia Child’s Kitchen," which includes the recipes from this program. ♪♪