Koffmann Pierre - Classic Koffmann

PIERRE KOFFMANN

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID LOFTUS

First published in 2016 by

Jacqui Small LLP

7477 White Lion Street

London N1 9PF

Text copyright 2016 by Pierre Koffmann

Design and layout copyright Jacqui Small 2016

The authors moral rights have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Publisher: Jacqui Small

Managing Editor: Emma Heyworth-Dunn

Senior Designer: Rachel Cross

Co-writer: Imogen Fortes

Introduction: Richard Vines, chief food critic at Bloomberg

Editor: Hilary Mandleberg

Production: Maeve Healy

Photographer: David Loftus

Stylist: Angela Morris

Digital edition: 978-1-91112-706-2

Hardcover edition: 978-1-91025-453-0

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

2018 2017 2016

For Claire, Camille, Louis and Margaux

CHEFS NOTES

- All fruits and vegetables are medium unless otherwise stated.

- Vegetables, garlic and fruits are all peeled unless otherwise stated.

- Salt is table salt unless otherwise stated; black pepper should be freshly ground.

- Use either full-fat or semi-skimmed milk (not skimmed), according to preference.

I am a typical French chef. I work like any chef; I am hard to work for. I want the task done the way it should be. I am tough in the kitchen. We are there to do a job.

There is no secret. It is all about working hard, using few but the right ingredients and enjoying food.

You have to be in love with cooking. It is not just a job; it is a passion. You must enjoy eating. Oh, and you need a bit of luck!

Pierre, by himself

I was born in Tarbes in south-west France. It was a small town in those days and my father Albert, who was a furrier by trade, worked as a Citron mechanic. There wasnt much demand for fur after the war.

My mother Germaine was from a small village but she hated the countryside: she liked to go out and have fun. She moved to Tarbes when she married Albert, and got a job in the town hall, before opening a bistro with her friend. That made a lot of sense because she always enjoyed eating and drinking and cooking. We used to go there often and it was the first restaurant I got to know.

It was a place for workers, so the food was simple. They served the kind of dishes people could afford: boeuf bourguignon, stews, steak frites, charcuterie, quiche that kind of thing. It was always full, lunch and dinner. Working people didnt have much money so she had to work on a budget and thats a discipline that Ive never forgotten.

My earliest memory of food was at my grandparents home. They had a small farm outside town. On Sundays, my grandmother Camille used to roast chickens on a spit in front of a huge open fire. We only ever ate chicken on a Sunday.

One of Camilles daughters ran the picerie in the village and didnt have time to cook, so my grandmother would roast one chicken for her and another for us. My grandfather had a blue moped and he would take the chicken to his daughter and come back with some patisserie. He loved it. He had a sweet tooth.

Grandma used string to hold the chicken on the spit and when she basted the bird, that piece of string was like a sponge, absorbing the salt and the fat. As kids, we were allowed to have the string and we would chew on it like gum until every bit of flavour had gone.

But the taste I remember most vividly is that of jugged hare. If I prepare a jugged hare at the restaurant, I always try to do it as well as grandma but Ive never quite managed to achieve that. Hers was beautiful.

My grandparents place was only a small farm, just 50 hectares, but they grew pretty much everything they needed for the year, and they also had pigs and chickens and rabbits. On Saturdays, my grandmother used to sell poultry in Fleurence, a nearby town. If she had a good day, she would go to the butcher to buy tripe or a shin of veal to make a soup. If she had a very good day, she might even buy steak.

The first time I remember cooking was after school one day when I was 14 or younger. My friends came over and I cooked a confit of duck. It was just a confit with sauted potatoes but they enjoyed it and I realized I enjoyed cooking because it was a way of giving pleasure to people. I always have the memory of that confit of duck.

Food was important for everybody in France but my mother was quite extreme. As soon as we had finished lunch, she would tell us what was for dinner. One of her dishes was pigs trotters. She would braise them in red wine or would sometimes buy them ready cooked from the charcuterie. The charcutier would brush the trotters with mustard and roll them in breadcrumbs, and then she would just fry them or cook them in the oven. I like them like that, though its very, very simple and very cheap.

I didnt always want to be a chef but I wasnt brilliant at school. I had a few reports saying can do better, then one day the headmaster said to my mother, Maybe Pierre can do better somewhere else. I was only 14 and I had to try to find a job that I could do for the rest of my life. In Tarbes that meant working at Arsenal de Tarbes, building tanks, or at Alstom, building trains, and then there was the post office or the SNCF for a job on the railways. I thought about that but I decided to try for cookery school because I liked eating and drinking and at least it was a school.

I thought that I could still be a student, with long holidays, whereas Id be working like a man at somewhere like Arsenal or Alstom. Of course, I was stupid: you work harder in a restaurant than in a factory. But I got on well. I enjoyed it and I stayed for three years.

When I left school in 1966, France was a very regional country and the food was very regional, too; if you were in Alsace, youd never eat the same food as in Brittany, for example. So if you were a chef, you needed to move around. I went to Alsace, to Brittany and to Provence. In Provence and in Brittany, you learn how to cook fish; and in Alsace you learn how to make sauerkraut and pig dishes. Everything has changed now of course: you eat the same food from one place to the other, wherever you go.