Hubert Keller's Souvenirs

Stories & Recipes from My Life

Hubert Keller, Penelope Wisner

• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781449423414
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Culinary Arts

From a James Beard award winner, "part memoir, part cookbook... fresh takes on traditional French cuisine, with small anecdotes that introduce each dish." (Booklist) Souvenirs is a memoir cookbook written by the multitalented Hubert Keller: celebrity chef, restaurateur, and Frenchman. Through personal stories and 120 recipes, the book explores his classical training and traces his development as a creative superstar chef. Keller apprentices in a Michelin three star–rated restaurant at the age of sixteen. He moves from his native Alsace, to southern France, and is inspired by the cuisine of the sun while working with the great French chefs of his time, Roger Vergé, Paul Bocuse, and Gaston Lenôtre. He learns to adapt to challenging new environments in South America, and the United States, and charts his own path into the newest frontiers of the restaurant business. The book is organized by seminal themes in Keller's life, starting with his family in France, and ending back there again in the"Holiday"chapter. The myriad recipes, which have been adapted for the home cook, are intertwined with 125 photographs by award-winning photographer Eric Wolfinger; images of family and friends, food and cuisine, and the places and landscapes of France, Las Vegas, and San Francisco, which all make up chef Keller's life.

C H A P T E R

1

Family Treasures

My brother, Francis, and me cooking together in his kitchen during a visit home to Alsace.

“On Sunday, everyone came in for special pastries and cakes for their family’s lunch.”

My dad, Henri, and our family dog, Zezette. Me with a friend from childhood, Yves Baltenweck, on the first day of harvest in 2011. Pâtisserie Keller on the ground floor; my family lived on the floor above.

SUNDAY LUNCH IN RIBEAUVILLÉ

WHEN I WAS GROWING UP, my family lived on the first floor above my father’s shop, Pâtisserie Keller, and his mother lived on the second floor. She was Grandma and cooked Alsace dishes influenced heavily by her experience of living through World War I and the food scarcity it caused. As my father’s business flourished, he indulged in foods such as wonderful cuts of beef that were unavailable when he was growing up. And he no longer wanted to eat Grandma’s budget-conscious traditional cooking. But my brother and I loved her cooking. Because my parents worked such long hours in the shop, Grandma was in charge of most meals for my brother and me.

A big Sunday lunch was a real tradition in Alsace. Every household would sit down to a big meal with all the family members—parents, children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, and cousins. But for us, Sunday was a little crazy at home. It was the only day we didn’t eat together as a family. While Grandma kept us busy upstairs, Mom and Dad were busy downstairs. It was the busiest day of the week in the shop. Everyone came in for special pastries and cakes for their family’s lunch.

In order to cook the midday meal and still have time for church, the women organized their menus around make-ahead and slow-cooked dishes. Early in the morning, Grandma would make marrow dumplings, dust them with flour, and then cover them with a towel. Then she would make a series of salads and hors d’oeuvres such as a carrot salad, celery root salad, and stuffed eggs. These would be ready to eat when everyone returned from church.

A view of Ribeauvillé with the historic Église St. Grégoire in the foreground.

For the main course, she frequently prepared a pot-au-feu, a large cut of beef cooked with carrots, turnips, leeks, and cabbage. It cooked slowly on the wood-fired stove during the long hours of worship. It’s a one-pot dish served in two courses, first the broth and marrow-enriched dumplings and then the meat and vegetables moistened with a little more broth. The next day, the leftovers might be stuffed into tomatoes; turned into a salad of beef, onions, and cornichons moistened with broth and vinaigrette; or stuffed into a pasta roulade.

The menu worked well for whenever everyone could sit down together. Mom and Dad showed up when they took a break from the shop. Grandma would set my brother and me up, and then my father would come upstairs to eat while my mother looked after the shop. Then he would go down and Mom would come up. Even when served in this sort of hectic way, the flavors and textures didn’t lose anything. Later my brother and I would both go down to the shop to choose something for dessert.

A family Sunday lunch of roast venison loin, sautéed chanterelles and apples, nouilles Alsaciennes (noodles with toasted breadcrumbs).

Above: Meringues Glacées. Below: Mom and Dad in front of the first Pâtisserie Keller.

One of my favorites was my father’s mendiant, a three-inch-tall bread pudding baked in a pastry shell. Mendiant means “beggar” in French and refers to the dish’s main ingredient—leftover bread. My father saved leftover bits of brioche, soaked them in milk and cream, and then beat in eggs, flavorings, and fresh cherries. He poured the rich custard into a sweet pastry crust, and when it was baked, he enrobed the whole in fondant. Dad still makes mendiant, and I’ve included the home version that he taught me when I visited in 2010.

A SUNDAY LUNCH IN RIBEAUVILLÉ MENU

♣ ♣ ♣

Assorted Salads and Hors D’Oeuvres

Poached Leeks with Grandma’s Light Mayonnaise

Celery Root, Apple, and Walnut Salad

Stuffed Eggs with Smoked Salmon

Savory Carrot Salad

Pot-au-Feu

Soup with Marrow Dumplings

Sliced Beef and Vegetables

Mendiant

Henri’s Bread Pudding

Celery Root, Apple, and Walnut Salad

WE USE CELERY ROOT OFTEN IN ALSACE, and this salad is one of Grandma’s dishes that she prepared for us in the fall, when celery roots are harvested. This fresh, crisp, light-tasting salad is very much like an American slaw. Celery root by itself is underused, but it has a wonderful flavor and texture for salads, and you can braise it by itself. It’s one of those earthy vegetables, like beets, that I think people are coming back to. When shopping for celery root, choose smaller ones—the big ones can be hollow and fibrous.

Serves 8

Large handful (about 2 ounces) walnuts or pecans

3 tablespoons heavy cream

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 lemon, halved, plus 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice and more as needed

1 small celery root (about 1 pound)

1 tart green apple (about 8 ounces), peeled, halved, and cored

3 tablespoons finely minced fresh chives

Handful celery leaves or lovage, for garnish

Heat a small skillet over medium-low heat and add the nuts. Stir and toss until lightly toasted and fragrant, about 5 minutes. Pour onto a dish to cool, chop them coarsely, and set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the cream, mayonnaise, and mustard and season with salt and pepper. Set the mixture aside.

Because celery root oxidizes so quickly, some recipes will tell you to julienne and then blanch it to preserve its color. But I don’t recommend that here as you will not get the right texture for your salad. Instead, fill a medium bowl halfway with water. Squeeze the juice from 1 lemon half into the water and drop in the peel. Working as quickly as you can, peel the celery root and rub the cut edges with the second lemon half to prevent discoloration. When finished, drop this lemon half into the bowl of water, too.

Cut the celery root into several pieces and drop them into the lemon water as you go. Shred the chunks with a coarse grater or with a food processor’s grating disk. You should have about 4 packed cups.

Transfer the grated celery root to a large mixing bowl, toss with the 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, and season with salt and pepper. Coarsely shred the apple and toss it with the celery root. Add the reserved dressing, the walnuts, and half of the chives. Toss well until evenly combined. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Cover the mixture with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and for up to a day or two.

When ready to serve, toss the salad with the remaining chives and taste for seasoning again. Add salt, pepper, and lemon juice if needed. Arrange the salad in a serving bowl and garnish with the celery leaves.

Notes

♣ Though Grandma would not have done this, you can substitute lime for the lemon juice if you like.

♣ To lighten the dressing a little, you can substitute Greek-style plain nonfat yogurt. Also, you can substitute other herbs for the chives, such as parsley, a little cilantro, basil, and nepitella (calamintha nepeta, a Tuscan favorite, in flavor a cross between mint and oregano).

Grandma’s Light Mayonnaise

MY GRANDMA used to make this mayonnaise all the time. I don’t know where the idea came from, but Chantal’s mom used the same technique. It must have been a way of stretching ingredients. It’s very useful for anyone who loves the silky richness of mayonnaise but cannot afford all the cal...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Family Treasures
• Chapter 2: Mentorship
• Chapter 3: Adaptation
• Chapter 4: Modern French Cooking
• Chapter 5: Pioneer
• Chapter 6: Love & Partnership
• Chapter 7: Holiday Traditions
• Acknowledgments
• Metric Conversions and Equivalents
• Index
• Copyright