Daniel Boulud: The test of a good oven like this
is that you can just go right on it,
and the door hasn't moved a bit.
That, I think, is to me the test of a super stove.
Herrine Ro: So, what is so special about this stove?
Daniel: It's indestructible.
This one is the athanor,
and this stove was customized just for us, of course.
Here we have a bain-marie.
The hot plate.
Those are the burners.
The plancha.
We have two ovens.
We have also drawers to rest the meat inside
at low temperature.
And then one in the back,
which is rotisserie and fryer.
Herrine: How big is this?
Daniel: This is really what we call sur mesure.
It is made to fit exactly a specific space.
So, this came in two piece,
and despite that, we could not pass through the door
because of the turn and all that.
So, for the stove,
we had to, down there,
it's the hallway coming from the street.
And this is the wall we had to break down
to get the stove through.
And right here, in the middle,
they weld the entire stove back together.
It's a very basic stove,
but the advantage of that,
when it's made of one solid plate of steel,
is then the heat keep carrying in places.
So, let's say, the meat
we have a tendency to cook in the hotter zones,
but the fish we cook all in the lower zone of heat.
I think it's very important.
Ah, here is my baby.
[grunts] It require muscle.
It's very heavy, actually.
And this is our duck press.
Herrine: What do you use this for
in, like, the restaurant?
Daniel: The duck press is a very simple,
mechanical object,
but it has the purpose of creating a dish
where we roast the duck,
push all the carcass, bone, innards,
inside this container.
Put it in, close the door
to not have any splatter.
Then we start to push down.
So, of course, when you get to the carcasses,
then it get heavier, and heavier, and heavier,
and we have the juices coming out.
And of course the juices contain a lot of blood,
and then we finish the sauce with that.
I think this is the magic of classic cuisine.
I have four of them, three in this kitchen.
Herrine: And how much do they range in price?
I've seen that they're very expensive, right?
Daniel: Well, this one,
I bargain it, and I bargain it.
He wanted $12,000 to $15,000.
I said no way,
so I got it for half price, $7,000.
C'est bon?
Herrine: Yeah, it's great.
Daniel: I love wine.
I am French.
I can't live without good wine.
And this is the next item I want to show you,
which is, to me,
the most incredible discovery
in the wine world.
So, here we have two bottle of wine.
This was opened about a year ago,
and this is a wine where, you know,
if I don't have enough friends
to open the bottle and drink it,
then I just have a sip for myself.
Voilà.
So, this machine, it has a gas tank inside.
This is argon gas in the cartridge,
and that means that that will not affect the wine.
Yeah. So, you see?
Full of gas.
And put that right over the bottles,
push down the needle,
which is going to go right below the cork.
So now if I press on this,
it will bring gas into the wine,
and, of course, help the wine come out through the needle.
And so this is fantastic for a restaurant
where now you can have wine pairing,
and you can open amazing bottles,
and you don't have to, you know, waste the bottle
because you only had two glass to serve
or one glass to serve.
Herrine: So, I've done the research a little bit.
That thing costs a pretty penny.
How much, around, is that?
Daniel: I mean, you don't buy this machine
unless you can afford good wine,
so, you know, it's...
[laughs]
You know, of course it's an expensive toy,
but it's one who really give
a lot of satisfaction at the end.
Herrine: That's good.
I think we can move on to the next thing.
Daniel: I think we should do tools,
kitchen chef's tools, no?
Herrine: Yes.
Daniel: You know, when you have a toolbox,
each tool has a purpose.
And for the knife it's the same as well.
Each knife has a purpose,
but it has multipurpose sometime as well.
This was my knife as a young apprentice.
I have this knife since I'm 14 years old.
And this is a typical French knife.
And so this one I can do butchering, slicing, cutting.
I can basically do almost everything with it.
So, favorite knife?
Maybe, but,
the interesting part is
I have a collection of Japanese knife, quite extensive.
This is a Japanese knife,
and this one has my name engraved here.
This one, a lot of fish butchering.
Fillet, sashimi, the portioning of fish,
the preparation of fish, the cutting of fish.
It's very, very fast, flexible,
and most of the Japanese chef work with this type of knife.
But then there's a French chef in France called Michel Bras.
He has a restaurant in Japan, in Hokkaido,
and very influenced by Japan,
he has created this beautiful knife,
with Michel Bras from Laguiole, France,
but the knife are made in Japan.
So, this is kind of the quintessential French knife,
made in Japan.
Beautiful steel, again.
It's a flexible steel, very strong, very durable.
This is a serrated knife,
which is very practical to cut vegetables,
peel vegetable with,
to peel anything with a crust.
And then I like this knife
because this knife has many purpose.
It can be a butchering knife, but mostly for fish.
It's basically between the couteau d'office,
which is the basic small knife in the kitchen,
and the chef's knife.
So it's kind of the three, of the totally French,
totally Japanese, totally French-Japanese.
Spice is so important in the kitchen.
And quite a while ago,
a young chef worked for me for many years,
and that was Lior Sercarz.
I call him the spice wizard.
Anyway, Lior Sercarz developed a spice line.
He named it Pierre Poivre.
So, Pierre Poivre is a mix of pepper,
and it's beautifully fragrant,
with peppers from different country
and different continent.
It's a trade secret, so I don't know what he put,
but there is definitely Tellicherry pepper,
pink pepper, white pepper, green pepper, black pepper,
also Madagascar pepper.
Herrine: What do you use this for at the restaurant?
Daniel: So, at the restaurant
we use it for, of course, meat.
Steaks, ducks, roast.
This will bring so much complexity
to a simple, basic dish.
Herrine: And can a normal person buy this?
Daniel: Yeah. Herrine: Like, at a store?
Daniel: La Boîte aux Epices.
Herrine: Great.
Daniel: We all know what a mandoline is,
basically a slicer,
and in the kitchen it's so useful for many purpose.
But, you know, we can only make slice with it.
And with this mandoline, this is a notch above.
So, this is a slicer, but as you turn, it move,
and cut, and cut, and cut,
and you push into the center.
So let me show you how this works.
So, here I have put this...
what do you call that?
Herrine: Spark? Nicole Raucheisen: Spoke?
Herrine: A spoke? Nicole: Is it a spoke?
Daniel: Spoke.
Nicole: Yeah. Daniel: Yeah.
So, I have put the spoke through the apple.
Make sure I secure that as well, nicely.
Goes back into the machine,
and voilà.
And, of course, here, now,
you have the most amazing
apple slice you have ever seen.
Smell the wine.
It's very special.
Jackie: What do you want to do next, Chef?
Herrine: Oh, wow, it is very floral.
Jackie: Do you want to do the cutting,
so that we don't make a mess?
Daniel: Ah, that wine is good too.