Nature and Cuisine

Laguiole is famous worldwide for its cutlery. It is a small stone village in a valley of the Massif Central; a region time has shaped into a succession of green Roman shields. On these round mounts troops of beefs go to pasture in fields delimited by lines of trees. Water is never far and rushes to meet the bottom. It is this landscape that Michel Bras and his family, all natives from Aubrac have appropriated with the help of architect Eric Raffy from their contemporary Relais & Châteaux. The building leans on the hill and projects its reception and bar over the village. Its four plateaus, the restaurant and kitchen on top and three others for the bedrooms, are like giant stairs carved into granite. Each picture window opens up on nature and is an invitation to explore the region inside and out.
The cuisine of Michel and Sébastien Bras, father and son is equally respectful of its environment. Michel Bras’ most famous recipe is a salad, the gargouillou, where seasonal vegetables in different stage of doneness, from raw to crisp to blanched are barely accented with perfumed oil, a mushroom sauce and a ham and vegetable stock. That’s where our enchantment started. Each subsequent vegetable we were then presented with, managed to be both true to its taste and exalted. A subtle mixture of curry, coriander, garlic and yoghurt awakened the green asparagus. Turnips married morels and peas in a highly successful ménage à trois. Sautéed cabbage of a kind accompanied another raw crunchy sort in egg vinaigrette. The endive lost its bitterness to a creamy concoction of truffle juice. One of the desserts used potato chips and a saffron potato cream and managed to be ethereal.
Sébastien confided me the recipe I asked for. It features basic ingredients: potato and anchovies and looks deceivably simple to make. However it takes some practice to lay flat a potato. With a mixed salad, it is a lovely meal.

Baked potato with anchovies Adapted from Michel and Sébastien Bras (Somewhat challenging, preparation and cooking time: 40 minutes, cheap)

Ingredients:
1 large Idaho potato per person
1 garlic clove peeled
1 can of anchovies in olive oil
Clarified butter (recipe follows)

Material:
1 peeler
1 board
1 paring knife
1 brush
Kitchen string
1 individual cocotte or silver foil

Preheat the oven at 360F (180C)
Peel and rinse the potato. Using the paring knife, form a continuous band with the flesh of the potato.
Place the potato ribbon on the board. Lightly rub the garlic clove along. Brush with oil.
Take the anchovies out of the can and purée them with the back of a fork. Lay the anchovies paste on the potato ribbon. No need to add salt, as the anchovies are already salty. Add some pepper to taste. Roll the ribbon on itself and wrap with a piece of kitchen string to maintain its shape.
Put the clarified butter in a pan over medium heat and sauté the potato until it colors slightly.
Either wrap it in silver foil, or put it an ovenproof cocotte and bake for 20 minutes. Serve immediately with a salad and lots of herbs.

Clarified Butter
(Easy, Preparation and cooking time: 10 minutes, cheap)

Ingredients:
1 stick (1 cup) butter (or any other quantity needed)

Material:
1 pan
1 strainer
Paper towel
Salad bowl or any other recipient

Melt the butter in the pan over low to medium gas. Put the paper towel over the strainer and the strainer over the salad bowl.
Pour the melted butter in the strainer. The strained butter is clarified butter, butter without any residual cream, which allows it to cook at higher temperatures.
It keeps longer in the fridge than regular butter.