KEY POINTS:
Every year when I am in France I try to have different guest chefs demonstrate at my culinary week in Uzes.
There is a tiny, beautiful young woman in my area, hidden away in a cute village called Vers, in a restaurant blessed with the address, Place de la Madone. If you've got the Virgin in on the act, you're already rocking. Lisa is a well-known top class chef, who used to run the kitchen at the Chateau St-Maximin nearby. Now she has opened her own place in an ancient nunnery with four gorgeous rooms upstairs to stay in should you wish. The decor is austere, but very beautiful and restful.
It is a rather intimate and unusual thing for top chefs in France to let you into their kitchens so 11 of us approached the discrete exterior of the restaurant with hopeful hearts and bated breath.
We were greeted with homemade croissants and coffee then slipped into the kitchen to have our minds altered about food forever. None of us will ever look at a chicken in the same way.
Lisa is about purity and respect, even tenderness, towards primary ingredients, chemistry, how your body reacts to food and Ayurvedic eating principles. Her cuisine is unusual, light and surprising. She doesn't use recipes (I wish I could get away with that) but here are some of her wisdoms:
She eats little artichokes raw - sliced finely on the cross and kept in lemon juice, water and salt.
For stocks, she uses only the bones and offcuts - no vegetables or herbs. At the end of a chicken stock she might slide in a cloud of soy sauce and curry powder.
Her two culinary heroes are Michel Bras and Pierre Gagnaire.
When working with chicken she handles it gently and as little as possible. When she wants to cook chicken breasts, she does it still on the carcass so the skin side is roasted and the bone side is tender and undamaged by harsh cooking. Then she slices it off the bone.
When cooking or blanching vegetables she doesn't use salt but sprinkles it on once they have been drained.
She cooks mushrooms (giroles in this case) without water, adds finely chopped fresh ginger, then a splash of Noilly Prat. She covers them and cooks for two minutes then places them in a bowl with grated lemon rind, a little lemon juice and sea salt.
Lunch is a series of small dishes, each one more delicate than the last. My favourite was a little ramekin of scallops, enotoki mushrooms and asparagus floating in a sauce (I'm guessing) of lemon, coconut milk and tarragon. This was accompanied by coconut bread. Part of the dessert was a very clever chocolate popsicle made by freezing chocolate fondant in tiny ice-cube trays then dipping in chocolate and freezing again.
You could say we were transported on angel wings to loftier places than our cumbersome earthly bodies.
Lisa M Restaurant and Maison d'Hote,
email: lisam3@orange.fr