How to cook the perfect aligot

A speciality of Auvergne in south-west France, where it’s claimed it was created by the monks of Aubrac to serve hungry pilgrims on their way to Compostela, aligot – or “magical cheesy mashed potato”, as cheesemonger Morgan McGlynn puts it – is one of those dishes I’d certainly walk 500 miles and more for. Silky-smooth pommes puree enriched with generous amounts of cheese, its extraordinary stretchiness has propelled it into the global spotlight in recent years – indeed, my Tokyo correspondent reports that aligot has become “a bit of a cult food in Japan”. But it’s still a popular dish at village fetes, weddings and markets in its home region, where the theatre of its preparation is an attraction in itself.

Local resident Jeanne Strang notes that “as it is hard work to beat the mixture, this is traditionally the role of the man of the house, sometimes even assisted by another strong man”. Fortunately, if you’re making it in domestic quantities, you don’t need to be a man, let along a strong one, to make perfect aligot.

Potatoes

Though François-Régis Gaudry’s gloriously comprehensive book Let’s Eat France informs me that aligot was bread-based until a series of failed wheat harvests in the 17th century (the curious should note that Anne Willan’s French Regional Cooking contains a recipe using bread), potatoes are now de rigeur. As Elizabeth David notes in French Provincial Cooking, it’s one of the few French potato dishes suited to the floury varieties more common in the UK. Many American recipes use waxy potatoes, whose lower starch content does not make them ideal for this purpose, though if that’s all you have, by all means use them. Moderately floury potatoes such as Rooster, maris pipers or desiree are much better (I only list them in such length because potato buying can be confusing in the UK, with spuds labelled simply as “roasting” or “salad”, rather than anything more specific, so do check the small print).

Starch is important both for absorbing all that melted cheese and for giving the dish its characteristic elasticity. According to The Cook’s Illustrated Science of Good Cooking, “as it turns out, there is something different about the starch in potatoes that makes it possible to form the super stretch of aligot. Unlike the starch from other plants, the molecules in potato starch contain a small number of negative electrical charges. When combined with cheese proteins, parts of which contain positive electrical charges, an electrical bond between the two is created [and] the combination becomes very springy and stretchy.”

To retain as much starch in the potato as possible, I’d advise cooking them whole in their skins, then peeling the skins off afterwards, like Strang, Diana Henry, Geraldene Holt and Elizabeth David (who watched the dish being made in a hotel kitchen in Entraygues after hearing about it from “a very ancient lady in the shop where I was buying local cooking pots”). It takes a bit longer, but the peeling is much faster, and you end up with drier potatoes to boot.

The mashing

What aligot does have in common with other French mashed potato recipes, however, is an almost sinister smoothness. In theory, all mashed, rather than crushed, potatoes ought to be smooth, but here I mean really smooth, silky-smooth: as smooth as a newly waxed leg in sheer tights, which is a goal that’s easier to achieve with a food mill or potato ricer than a standard British masher. Some recipes suggest using a food processor in shocking contravention of the accepted wisdom that cooked potatoes + mechanical blades = glue. Actually, glue isn’t unhelpful if you’re after a show-stoppingly stretchy consistency, but it can’t be denied that creamy is preferable to gluey, so if you’re able to put in the elbow grease yourself, it’s worth it here.

The cheese

Potatoes may be easy to source in this country, but tomme fraiche or tomme de l’Aubrac, the cheese traditionally used for aligot, is not, so this recipe is necessarily a compromise. Tomme is a category of small, round, squidgy cheese found in many regions of France, but the tomme used for aligot is a very young, unsalted example, with a mild, slightly acidic flavour that is very hard to find abroad. This means the older tommes often suggested as substitutes, such as cantal or savoie, tend to be too strong, as are the cheddar, gruyère, beaufort and other Alpine cheeses that also pop up in many recipes. I even have a go with Babybel, on a slightly flippant suggestion from chef Alex Jackson (who only uses the real deal when he has aligot on the menu at his London restaurant Sardine). I can confirm the bland flavour and slightly bouncy texture work pretty well – the same goes for the emmental deployed by Rick Stein in his new book, Secret France. In fact, they all yield delicious results, because they’re cheesy mashed potato (the version I try with gubbeen from cheesemonger Giana Ferguson’s cookbook of the same name deserves a particular mention in this department). But for a flavour that’s as close as possible to the original, you need something mild, with a lactic tang, but not too much salt.

David and Holt’s French Country Kitchen both instead recommend caerphilly, “a mild cheese that melts easily” – and indeed, the flavour profile of both caerphilly and crumbly lancashire are suitably acidic. Even better, however, is cheshire – the modern, supermarket sort, rather than the rightly lauded old-fashioned type made by the likes of Appleby’s, which has less salt and a fresh, almost lemony bite. But to my disappointment, cheshire does not melt easily, so the best compromise I find is creamy lancashire – milder and milkier than the crumbly kind, but perfect for this purpose.

Not what you might expect in a Gallic classic, perhaps, but then, this Gallic classic might not be quite as you might imagine if you’ve watched waiters or stall-holders stretching the potatoes several feet in the air to prove their extraordinary elasticity. Interestingly, it seems this could be a relatively recent development in aligot’s long history; David, writing in 1960, makes no reference to it, and Strang simply describes the dish as “creamy”. That said, given tomme fraiche is naturally rather stringy when melted, I’d recommend also sneaking in a bit of mozzarella, as McGlynn and Gizzi Erskine’s Slow suggest, to give your aligot a little spring in its step. How much you add depends on how extreme you’d like the end result to be, so I’ve provided a range below. McGlynn’s recipe in The Modern Cheesemaker suggests 900g gruyère and 450g mozzarella to 1.5kg potatoes, which gives an extremely satisfying, stretchy consistency, but you may want to dial down the cheese content, because, as Holt notes, “it largely depends on the nature of the rest of the meal” (and perhaps the state of your arteries, though really, anyone with concerns in that department should probably steer clear of this recipe in the first place). Remember, aligot ought to be elastic, but never rubbery.

Many older recipes tell you to add the cheese in thin slices, rather than grating it in. I try both methods, and I’m still puzzled why it would make any difference: all suggestions appreciated.

But, however you cut it, you’ll need to make sure the potato mixture is still warm enough to melt the cheese, so put the pan back over a very low heat, or if you’re nervous of it sticking, use a bain-marie, as Ferguson does, because I can confirm you’ll need a determined dog to clean the pan if it does. You’ll also have to beat the mixture hard; Stein and Erskine recommend using a whisk, but you’ll need a strong one, or a strong arm and a wooden spoon. Local lore says you should stir the pan in only one direction, but I’m ambivalent on this point.

The dairy

Though you might think cheese needed no extra gilding, all the recipes I try add extra dairy – often butter, but always cream, whether single, double or cultured in the form of creme fraiche; only Stein adds milk instead. I don’t think that butter is necessary, mostly because I like to eat aligot in quantity, and butter makes it too rich to do this comfortably. But a generous dollop of creme fraiche, as in Holt and Gaudry’s versions, helps amplify the natural tanginess of the cheese, while milk loosens the texture, so it slides satisfyingly around the plate.

Seasonings

Garlic is popular, but not mandatory – Stein, Holt, Ferguson and David all use it, McGlynn and Erskine do not, while Elisabeth Luard rubs the pot with a cut clove as a halfway house. Do as you will. Salt to taste, and add white pepper, as Erskine suggests, for a hint of heat. I also very much enjoy her addition of nutmeg, though I suspect the Auvergnats would strongly disapprove. Still, what you do in the privacy of your own own home is up to you. Serve with sausages, as is the local custom, and a glass of rustic red.

Perfect aligot

Prep 5 min
Cook 30 min
Serves 4-6

1kg floury potatoes (eg, maris pipers, desiree, Roosters), all of roughly the same size
280g creamy Lancashire
50-150g firm mozzarella
250g creme fraiche
120ml milk
1 garlic clove, peeled
Salt and ground white pepper

Scrub the potatoes clean, if necessary, then submerge them in a pan of lightly salted water. Bring to a boil and simmer until tender.

Meanwhile, grate the cheeses. Once the potatoes are tender, drain them and use a tea towel to rub off their skins (obviously they will be very hot).

Put them through a food mill or potato ricer, then push them through a sieve or mash them very well, until you have a smooth puree. Crush the garlic clove.

Put the puree back into the pan and put on a very low heat. Stir in the creme fraiche and garlic along with enough milk to make a viscous puree, then use a wooden spoon or sturdy whisk to stir in the cheese in a couple of batches.

Beat the potato vigorously until the cheese is melted (and the texture smooth) and the mix comes away from the side of the pan. It will develop a slight sheen that lets you know it’s ready – add more milk if it seems too firm. Season with salt and white pepper and serve immediately.

• Aligot: the world’s best mash, or a fine dish ruined by camera phones? Do you have happy memories of the stuff, and if you’ve recreated it at home, which cheese do you recommend?