Jacques Pepin | TV12

Jacques Pépin's "Labor Day Farewell"

Potato Flats

Yield: About 12

Ingredients:

2 potatoes (12 ounces total)

1/2-cup all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2-teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 large eggs

1/2-pound ricotta cheese

2 tablespoons chopped chives

3 tablespoons corn oil

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Peel the potatoes, cut them into 1-inch pieces, and process the pieces in the bowl of a food processor with the flour, baking powder, salt, and pepper until smooth. Add the eggs and ricotta cheese, and process for a few seconds, until well mixed. Transfer to a bowl, and stir in the chives. Heat some of the corn oil and butter in a large skillet. When hot, scoop up about 2 tablespoons of the potato batter for each pancake, and drop into the skillet. Sauté the pancakes, adding a little more of the corn oil and butter between batches as needed, for about 2 minutes over medium heat on one side, then turn them over, and cook for 1 minute on the other side. They should be nicely browned with dark, crunchy edges.

Summer Cornets Susie

Yield: About 8 Cornets

These fruit-filled horns of plenty are made using dough that stays very crisp and is easy to shape while still hot. If you make the cookies a few days ahead of serving, be sure to seal them in a container with a tight-fitting lid, so they don't get soggy. The hot cookies are rolled into cornets for this recipe, but they can be molded over a cup to use as receptacles for ice cream or fruit, or they can be served flat.

Ingredients:

Cornet Dough

3 ounces unsalted butter (3/4 stick)

6 tablespoons granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg white from a large egg

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Cornet Filling

1 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

Summer Fruit Assortment

About 1 cup fruit per cornet: pitted cherries, red currants, blackberries, raspberries, loganberries, strawberries, and blueberries

Garnish

Mint leaves

Confectioners' sugar, for dusting (optional)

For the cornet dough: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, and line a cookie sheet with a reusable nonstick cooking mat. Melt the butter in a saucepan, and while it is still warm, add the sugar, and whisk it into the butter for a few seconds. Add the vanilla and egg white, and whisk until smooth. The mixture will still be a bit liquid.

Spoon heaping tablespoons of the dough onto the prepared cookie sheet, making only four cookies at a time. Using the bowl of a teaspoon, spread the cookies in a circular motion (like spreading tomato sauce on pizza dough) until each cookie is about 5 inches in diameter. Bake for about 10 minutes, until nicely browned. Remove from the oven, and let settle and rest for about 1-1/2 minutes before molding. (If molding is done too soon, the cookies will break apart.)

To mold, roll each large warm cookie around a cone-shaped metal cornet, removing the cookies when cool, or simply roll the cookies free-form into a cornet shape without the metal insert. As soon as a free-form cornet is rolled, place a small ball of crushed aluminum foil inside the cone to prevent it from collapsing while it dries. To make single-portion cuplike receptacles to accommodate ice cream, whipped cream, or fruit, press the hot cookies, top side out, around inverted 1/2-cup molds, pushing gently all around so the cookies conform to the shape of the molds. Allow to cool and harden for 10 minutes before removing.

For the cornet filling: Whip the cream with the 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar until stiff. Transfer the cream to a pasty bag fitted with a star tip, and partially fill the cornets with cream.

To serve: Arrange the cornets on individual serving plates. Pipe a little more cream at the opening of each cornet, so it appears to be flowing out onto the plate, and add a few cream dots around the periphery of each plate. On each plate, make an arrangement of all the summer fruits, positioning them as though they were emerging from the cornet. Stick a few mint leaves into the cream dots for color, dust with confectioners' sugar, if desired, and serve immediately.