L'aligot (Guest Recipe - French)

Alright, so this is a site about Spanish food - point taken.  But in the interests of food lovers everywhere, we can't keep ignoring mouthwatering recipes we come across for fantastic dishes originating from other national cuisines.  So, as part of our series of 'guest' recipes, here's a cracker. We'll always try to find a link with Spanish food, but can't promise anything...

Aligot is essentially glorified mashed potatoes, but it's simplicity belies a truly fantastic idea. Meg, on 'Too Many Chefs', raves:

Aligot (pronounced "ah-lee-go") is a dish from the Auvergne region of France. Specifically, it's from the Aveyron...and if you want to get more specific it's from the area around the town of Laguiole ("lah-yole"), which produces a cheese of the same name. Why do you care? Because this is the origin of the best thing to happen to mashed potatoes since some clever clod decided to slap a pad of butter on it.

I first tried this dish at a friend's house in a tiny village near Bordeaux and on a cold and drizzly January afternoon it was fantastic with just a leafy salad and some crusty French bread. I've heard that in the Auvergne this would be served with some sort of meat - beef steaks or sausages. So, here goes:

Ingredients (makes a decent saucepan full):

Potatoes, about 12 medium size or 10 large
Creme Fraiche, a big tablespoon
Garlic, 1 clove
Butter, a generous chunk
Tome d'Auvergne Cheese, about 500g
Salt and pepper to taste

Very simple really. Just boil the potatoes until very soft and puree by hand or machine. Then, on a low heat, incorporate the mashed garlic, butter, creme fraiche and cheese (best chopped as small as possible). Finally, add the salt and pepper.

The postcard that we got the recipe from recommends 'lifting' the puree as you stir it - when you get long strands of cheesy potato, the Aligot is ready. It also warns against keeping the mix over the heat for too long - apparently the strands 'break' ("Attention: tenu trop longtemps sur le feu, le fil casse"). Don't say I didn't warn you.

Now, if you must have a link to Spanish cuisine, here it is.  I found a 'serving suggestion' which recommends combining this particular cheese (Tome d'Auvergne) with celery and, wait for it, chorizo.  So there you go, what could be more Spanish than that.  And now you have something to do with the cheese left over from the Aligot!

Tome d'Auvergne and Chorizo