Swordfish Dinner In A Half Hour | The French Chef Season 6 | Julia Child

Swordfish steaks baked in wine and diced green beans make an unusual main course in Julia Child’s three-part dinner in half an hour. And when you precede it with Tapenade a la Provencale, and follow it with Bananas Flambee, you have a quick dinner that tastes anything but quick.

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-This is the dessert for our three-course dinner. It’s banana flambé, and it’s quite an unusual dinner, too, because we start out with a tapenade a la provençale, and then we have swordfish steaks, and then the dessert goes up in flames. Look at that. It’s swordfish dinner in half an hour

Today on “The French Chef.” ♪♪ -“The French Chef” is made possible by a grant from Hills Bros. Coffee, Inc., and by a grant from the Polaroid Corporation. -Don’t have any time to waste around here at all because I’ve got to do a whole three-course dinner,

And I’ve just got 30 minutes to do it in, and I think it’s quite an unusual dinner and one that I think you’re going to like. The main course is swordfish steaks baked with wine and herbs and garnished with fresh, diced green beans. That’s what I’m doing now, which are slathered with butter,

And then the question is what to do for a first course, and I don’t know. We’ve had an awful lot of soup, and I’m getting sort of tired of it, and we’ve had a lot of little baked cheesy things, so I thought for a first course, it would be fun

To do a provençale hors d’oeuvre called a tapenade, which is made with olives and capers, and it’s absolutely delicious, and it’s very unusual. It’s usual in Provence, but it isn’t usual around here. And then an easy but dramatic dessert, which is going to be baked bananas flambéed.

I think that when you have to do a quick dinner, which all of us do have to do fairly frequently, you want to have something that is quick but doesn’t look quick, and I think if it has some unusual “aspics” — not aspics — aspects to it,

It will look as though you’d spent hours in the kitchen slavering over it, and I find that I have quite a few little menus all ready for little quick dinners, and then I’ve gotten written down everything I have to buy

And all the pots and pans I have to use and an order of battle so that when I get ready to do the dinner, it goes… I just can whap right through it very quickly. And the fish takes the longest to do, so I’m going to have to

Regretfully drop my beans and get to the fish. I’ve just got one little group more that I can do here. And this — The fish is going to be swordfish, and I’ve got some lovely thick swordfish steaks, and these are about an inch to an inch and a quarter thick,

And all the skin is off them, and they are ready to be cooked. And if you have frozen steaks because you can’t get fresh swordfish all year-round, I think it’s best if you let it defrost very slightly until it is just almost not quite defrosted

And then cook it because I think it has a better flavor. And before you do anything to it, you want to season it with salt and pepper on each side, and I have a — I usually count on 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of fish for 4 people,

And we’re making this dinner for four and then pepper on each side. Very important always if you’re going to… when you do things to season them first. And then these are going to be brown before they go into the oven just because that’s going to give them a better taste.

So a little oil goes into the pan, and then the fish is going to be rapidly dredged in flour, and you only flour the fish at the last minute. I find it’s very useful to have a tray so everything — The flour doesn’t get over everything.

Then make sure that your oil is hot. I’m using a very light olive oil here. Then you don’t want to crowd the pan. I’m going to have to cut one of these pieces a little bit, and someone is going to get slightly cheated. Now I put the other one in, too.

And you want to brown it first because it gives more flavor. You want to have your oil quite hot but not burning, and I’m going to wash my hands now. And while the fish is browning, I can get to the dessert, which is the baked bananas.

And these are going to be baked in the dish, and you want to put quite a bit of butter in the dish. That’s about 2 tablespoons. That can just be squished around there. And then the bananas go in, and I’m keeping my eye on the fish. And be sure that these are bananas

That haven’t been bruised at all. I think whenever I buy them in the supermarket, I always feel them very carefully to make sure there aren’t any soft spots. And though we’re having four people, I think I shall make six bananas because they’re so good. I’m sure somebody will want a little bit more,

And anyway, six will just fit in the dish. Oh, I’m just eyeing that fish. There, and now the bananas get their flavoring. And I’m going to put on about 1/4 cup of either white wine or dry white vermouth, or you could use cider or apple juice,

And then 1/3 to 1/2 cup of honey, which just gets poured right over them. Oh, this is lovely as a mixture. And then a little lemon. I’m going to scrape the lemon over the bananas, and I’m going to be sure that I don’t use a fish knife

To cut this lemon and squeeze a little bit of juice on. Think that’s the trouble when you’re doing several things at once. You don’t want to cut the bananas with a fishy knife. And now I’m going to just take a little look at this fish.

It should be just very lightly browned on each side, which takes 2 or 3 minutes. Then I think I can heat that up just a little bit more, and now the bananas get cinnamon on top, and that’s all the seasoning they need. The cinnamon gives some flavor,

And it also makes them brown nicely. And all of this… If you’re doing this, this is the kind of dinner you can prepare ahead, and you can get the bananas all fixed ahead of time and set them aside but not in the refrigerator, I don’t think, and then you can bake them

When you’re ready to do it, and you can also bake the… do the browning of the fish ahead of time. I think it’s — See that has nicely browned on that side. You want to be sure that you have just enough oil in the pan so that the fish doesn’t stick to it.

And I really have this fish slightly more crowded in the pan than is easy, but at least it does just fit in. Have to turn this one around a little bit more. The flour on the fish first helps the fish to brown

And also gives it a nice taste, and it also holds it together. Now, while that’s browning on the other side, I shall… I’m going to check one bunch of water here. Then I can get ready the flavorings that are going onto the fish. Going to have a bit of scallion,

Or you could do some chopped shallot or very, very, very finely minced onion. You see, this is an extremely simple recipe, but it’s a terribly good one. That makes just about, oh, a tablespoon. I always think you have to have a little onion flavor in anything, everything to bring out the taste.

Then we want some herbs, and I think “ore-gan-o” goes very nicely. Some people pronounce this oregano, but I always call it ore-gan-o. I don’t know why. And I’m just sprinkling this on. You could use, oh, basil or Italian seasoning if you like, but I think oregano and fish is extremely good.

And then be sure that you have the bottom of your fish is browned nicely and then, so that it’s going to brown in the oven, some bread crumbs on top. I find it very useful when I have some bread that’s gone just very slightly stale

To grind it all up in the blender and then freeze it so I always have bread crumbs on hand when I need them. And now if you’ve been very careful and you haven’t let your oil darken, you can then just with a ball baster baste

The top of the fish with the oil in the pan. However, if you haven’t been careful and your oil is browned, you should take it all out and then baste the fish with fresh oil or with butter. Then you want it to cook with a little bit of white wine

Or with some tomato juice. And again, that’s about 1/4 cup, and as usual, I always use white vermouth. And now this again you can do ahead, or you can do it up to this point ahead… …and set it aside and bake it later, or you can bake it right now,

But as I’m doing all this in half an hour, I’m going to bake both of the fish and the bananas together, and I shall put the bananas in the lower middle of the upper of the oven and the fish in the top, and these are going into a 400-degree oven,

And you should baste them about every 5 minutes, and both bananas and fish take about 25 minutes to do, and the bananas can be done ahead. And while those are baking, we can get back to these dear little old beans, and I do… Really whenever possible, I like to use fresh vegetables

Just because I think the taste is so lovely, and they’re really very quick to do. In this, I take all the beans and line them up and get the ends off and then just cut them into little dice. This is just to make things a little bit unusual.

You could perfectly well cook them whole, but I think it’s rather nice to cook them just a change around a little bit so that everything doesn’t look exactly the same. And be sure when you’re buying fresh beans that you look at them very carefully and take them and snap them

And make sure that they’re fresh and crackly. And then always keep them in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. They’ll keep for a day or two if they’re nice and fresh in the beginning. ‘Course, if you’re lucky enough to have a garden with fresh beans,

I guess you have to rush from the bean wash to the pot. And this all depends how many beans is how much time you have. But I think this goes fairly quickly. And it would be nice, I think, to count on, say, 1 1/2

To 2 pounds for four people, but I don’t know I’m going to get that far in this short amount of time, but this is coming along pretty well. See, that doesn’t take too long, but be sure that you don’t let any of these little ends get in if you can help it.

I think that that is going to have to be considered enough beans, and now they’re ready to be boiled, and this is… They’re going to be done in the French manner, which means they’re going into a large pot of rapidly boiling water, and it seems silly to put such

A small amount of beans into such a big pot, but this is the whole theory of French bean cookery, that you have 7 to 8 quarts of water for 2 pounds of beans rapidly boiling, and then to make it boil even faster, put in a wassail iron, or this is what I have.

It’s called a buffalo iron, and that brings the boil up even faster. And then you want to add some salt. And the water somewhat goes all over the stove, but that’s quite all right because the important thing is that you have the water come right back to the boil,

And that is what seals in the bean juices and keeps them wonderfully green. Look at that going all over the stove. I think I’ll have to take my buffalo iron out. The main thing is to have it come up to the boil just as quickly as possible.

I think you could buy one of these in one of these old country stores, and it would be called a mulling iron for making mulled wine. And these beans, you want to — You cook uncovered at a fast boil for about 6 or 7 minutes until when you taste them, they’re just tender,

And this is all the important part of bean cookery, that they have that lovely, fresh taste. And now we shall get to the tapenade or the provençale puree, which is usually made in a great big marble mortar, and it consists of black Mediterranean olives and capers and anchovies and tuna and herbs.

And you want to get this black sort of wrinkle type of an olive, which is called olives packed in oil, and you want about 1/2 cup of them, and if you don’t have a great big mortar, you can use a blender. And these should be pitted olives,

And you might not be able to find them pitted, so you just have to pit them yourself with a cherry pitter and then turn on the blender… …and hope that they’ll go through. They really do better in a mortar, but you can do it in a blender. Very little seems to be happening.

I’ll just have to see what’s going on in there. I think I probably have an olive stuck, and I shouldn’t have put them all in at once. That is life with a blender, but they’re marvelous things, and I’ll just put in a few at first and start it off.

Well, I don’t know what’s happened there. Maybe I didn’t — Oh, I know. I didn’t push it down far enough. That’s it. Always something. There. Now you get those chopped up as much as you can, and then you put in capers, and the reason this is called a tapenade

Is because, in Provence, capers is called tapeno. And about 2 or 3 tablespoons of capers. Then you want some tuna fish. You all right? Mix those. Yep. Then you want five or six anchovies packed in oil. And then put in some of the oil from the anchovies.

This is a nice kind of a mixture because I’m going to put in a few more capers here to make it a real tapeno. This is the nice kind of a recipe because you can do very much what you want with it, and then after you’ve gotten it ground up,

You put it into a bowl. Now if I can get this off… There. And then you go on with your final flavoring. I must say, this is much quicker than a mortar though it has its dramatic aspects, too. But now you want to flavor it up. You want some garlic in it naturally

If it’s a provençale dish, so I’m going to have two big cloves of garlic, which I just put unpeeled now into the garlic press. But this you can put in very much what you want in here, and then you should have some herbs, about 1/4 teaspoon of thyme

And 1/4 teaspoon of ground bay leaves, and then if you’d like, you can put in some mustard. I’m using some Dijon mustard and a little cracked pepper, and then a little bit of lemon juice is always very nice, and I don’t see any seeds,

So I don’t even need to squeeze it through a towel, and then aperitif filet de Cognac or some very nice brandy. And then you stir it all up and taste it. This is a special tasting spoon, but it’s delicious. That’s delicious. You can add more things if you want to it.

It’s just sort of a free-for-all type of thing, and then this is used as a spread or an hors d’oeuvre, and I always like to mound it on a plate and then put some eggs and tomatoes around it. There’s some hard-boil eggs. This is a very provençale way of beginning a meal.

And then just some tomato quartered. They do things very simply, but they always have a lovely taste. And then decorate that with a few parsley sprigs, and there you are. Now I must say, that’s a very quick little hors d’oeuvre and such an unusual one. ‘Course, everybody has to love garlic,

But I think most people do. And now… …this will go over here, and I should baste the fish and the bananas now, and this you want to remember to do about every 5 minutes, and the bananas ought have started to do much yet, but you want to baste them

With this lovely cinnamon-honey-butter wine… …until they begin to brown nicely, and they’re done when the bananas are soft, and the liquid has become syrupy. And then baste the fish, not confusing the fish with the bananas — with the banana…spoon. And the fish will get nice and brown, too,

And then at about this point, the beans should be done, and these are done in about 5 or 6 minutes, and you want to taste them carefully, taste one of them, and they should be done when they’re just tender but have a slight suggestion of crispness. And just drain them right out.

And the wonderful thing about these French beans is, you can do them ahead, and if you want to do them ahead, you run cold water over them, which immediately stops the cooking and sets the color and preserves that lovely, fresh green texture, and you can do these way ahead,

And then when you’re ready to serve them, you’re just going to heat them up with butter, but you first want to dry them off in a pan. I’m doing this very rapidly, but shake them over heat for a moment or two,

And then you put in a bit of butter and salt and pepper. Just a bit of salt, a bit of pepper, and let them warm up, tossing them, usually using this tossing method because you want them to absorb the butter, and I’m going to put them off where it isn’t too hot there,

And then we’re ready to serve the fish, and so I have a hot platter here. Then fish is all done and ready to go. And the dinner is ready to serve. You see that lovely brown liquid there, so the fish goes onto the hot platter.

This is really a delicious way to do swordfish, and do remember to get the swordfish nice and thick because it’s really much juicier when it’s thick, and then you have these beautiful brown juices, and just pour them over the fish, and then take another look at your beans,

And at this point, you could put in some lemon and a little parsley. I’ll just put a little chopped parsley in with them. And then just toss that around. And be sure that you have enough butter on the beans. There are beans there, and then they go on the other side.

And that makes a very pretty dish with the brown fish and the green beans and everything smelling perfectly delicious. Now if we’d had 5 more minutes, we could’ve done some fettuccine noodles Alfredo, but we only have 30 minutes, so people don’t really need noodles anyway with this.

So here we are with our three-course dinner all set up. I’m going to start to heat up the bananas right now on my chafing dish so it’ll be ready to flame, and then I want you to see how the tapenade looks. We’ll give everyone a tomato and an egg and some tapenade,

And I think a little bit of mayonnaise is never amiss, and then you just eat that with French bread. And with your fish with the fish and beans, you’d have more French bread, and I think a white Hermitage wine would go extremely well with it or a rosé.

And then when you finally get to your bananas, you want to be sure that they’re hot on the dish. Be sure that they’re bubbling, and then, before you go to start flaming them, you want to be sure and sprinkle some sugar on this, is one of the great flaming tricks,

And then in goes your brandy, and be sure if you’re going to do any flaming that you use an extremely, I mean, a good cognac. If you’re going to use something that’s not good, it’s simply… I mean, you just shouldn’t flame anything at all. And then, before you flame, you have to wait

Till everything is bubbling nicely first. And the juices in with the bananas have become before… after they’ve baked are a lovely syrup. Now…And as soon as that’s hot enough and isn’t hot enough… Not quite. I’ll just put in a little more cognac. That’s one of your problems with the flaming.

You have to use quite a bit and then make sure it’s hot. You could heat the cognac on a little stove, but that’s not what they ever do in restaurants, so we’ll just wait for a moment until it flames. I think that’s almost hot enough. I’ll just try it again. Just beginning.

Think it is flaming. Yes, it is. It’s hard to see. We should really turn the lights down and then baste the bananas with the flaming sauce. Yeah, that is flaming very nicely now. You can probably see it. And you want to baste them until the flames have almost died down

But not until they’ve entirely died down. I must say, I love a flaming dessert. It just is such a… puts everyone in a gala mood and what it doesn’t do to the ordinary, humble banana. I must say, I think this is a delicious little feast and quite [speaks French] and unusual.

It hardly seems like a 30-minute job. It might even take you 35, so that’s all for today on “The French Chef.” This is Julia Child. Bon appétit! -“The French Chef” have been made possible by a grant from the Polaroid Corporation and by a grant from Hills Bros. Coffee, Inc. ♪♪ ♪♪

Julia Child is coauthor of the book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” ♪♪ ♪♪