Alain Passard's L'Arpège
Paris, France
Alain Passard is chef who astonished the food world in 2001 by removing red meat from his three-Michelin-starred Paris restaurant L'Arpège, and dedicating himself to cooking with vegetables, supplied exclusively from his own organic farm. Today L'Arpège is widely acknowledged as one of the world's great restaurants, while its visionary owner has inspired a new generation of chefs.
"La Ratte c'est mon pain quotidien!"
(La Ratte is my daily bread!)
Beechwood Smoked La Ratte de Paris Potatoes
and Yellow Wine Sauce Recipe
Serves 6 people
Ingredients:
24 La Ratte de Paris potatoes, about 50 grams
800 g of beechwood sawdust
Fleur de sel
200 ml of cooked wine from the Jura, grape variety Savagnin (1.5 L before reduction)
200 g of butter
2 tsp hazelnut oil
A hint of freshly grated ginger
Directions:
- Cook the potatoes in simmering (low boil) water for 45 minutes. Once cooked, place them in a smoking vessel with the beechwood sawdust for 30 minutes.
- While the potatoes are smoking, prepare the yellow wine sauce. Reduce the yellow wine to a third of its original volume to eliminate most of the acidity. Add the ginger, allowing it to infuse for several minutes, then top the sauce with the sweet butter and, then, the hazelnut oil. Emulsify the mixture, set aside and keep warm.
- Once smoked, peel the potatoes and cut them in half width-wise. Lay out four pieces each in six soup bowls, coat them with the warm savagnin sauce and sprinkle them with fleur de sel.
Click to view pdf of recipe
